| Title | PACER Deleted Tons Of Public Court Records | |
| Date | Thursday August 28 2014, @08:17PM | |
| Author | janrinok | |
| Topic | ||
| from the open-format-man-to-the-rescue? dept. | ||
According to the Washington Post the federal court system's PACER electronic database of court records had deleted a ton of old cases. Charles Hall, a spokesperson for the Administrative Office, told The Post via e-mail that the change was made on Aug. 11 in preparation for an overhaul of the the PACER architecture, including the implementation of the next generation of the Judiciary's Case Management and Electronic Case Files System.
"However, as a result of the changes the locally developed legacy case management systems of some courts were no longer compatible with PACER, he says. Since PACER works as a sort of distributed network of different archives rather than one centralized database, that's a major problem.
However, Hall says, the dockets and documents no longer available through the system could still be obtained directly from the relevant court and "all open cases, as well as any new filings, will continue to be available on PACER."
Techdirt has coverage on efforts being made by parties interested in restoring and preserving digital access to these records.
[Ed's Note: Although TFA is saying 'deleted' it is more accurate to say that some documents will not be stored on PACER. There is more in the article regarding an alternative effort to archive the documents in question, as referred to in the TFS.]
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printed from SoylentNews, PACER Deleted Tons Of Public Court Records on 2024-04-24 16:01:52