The Public Access to Court Electronic Records system generates roughly $145 million annually, while its operating outlays amount to only a small portion of that figure.
For years, members of Congress and proponents of open government have pressed the federal court system to remove charges for its electronic records. In June, the federal judiciary examined the issue—and chose to raise the fees instead.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced a temporary uptick in the search and download charges for its Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) database. Temporary fees are often treated as provisional measures, but the judiciary says the extra revenue will fund a long-awaited modernization of the cumbersome and irritating system, a project it estimates will cost between $700 million and $800 million over six years. That modernization, prompted by two serious data breaches, is welcome news to the many lawyers, reporters, and researchers who rely on PACER to track federal cases. Yet it overlooks a central issue: the court system overcharged PACER users for years while letting the database deteriorate.
Under the E-Government Act of 2002, the federal judiciary is supposed to collect only enough revenue from PACER users to cover the costs of maintaining the database. But for years, PACER brought in about $145 million annually while incurring roughly $3 million a year in operating expenses.
PACER currently imposes a 10-cent per page fee for court records and searches. There is a $3 cap on large documents, and users pay nothing if their bill is under $15 per quarter. Most casual users incur no charges, but costs can escalate quickly for news organizations, researchers, and legal practitioners.
Even the Justice Department pays to search PACER, totaling about $5 million a year. Indeed: The government reroutes funds between agencies so government employees can view court records that the government already owns.
“Distribution of documents on the internet at costs that resemble 1970s copyshop fees is ridiculous in today’s day and age,” Carl Malamud, a prominent public domain advocate, told me in 2019. The situation also strikes many lawmakers as absurd. In 2020, the House passed the Open Courts Act, which would abolish PACER’s paywall. The bill failed to advance in the Senate, but Sens. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) and John Kennedy (R–La.) reintroduced it this year.
“Americans should not have to sell plasma or wrestle with clunky government websites just to read public court records,” Kennedy said in a press release. “PACER is old, very expensive and extremely burdensome to use. The Open Courts Act would drag this outdated system into the 21st century, protect court records from hackers and give taxpayers a better deal. Government services ought to serve the American people—not make them want to put their head through a wall.”
