Author: glenn@bedford.progress.COM (Glenn Meader) at ~Internet
    Date: 3/12/ 0  11:24 AM
Priority: Normal
     BCC: citation at AO-OCPPO
      TO: citation@ao.uscourts.gov at ~Internet
 Subject: Comments on Public Domain Citations

     The public is asked to comment on two questions:

     (1) Whether the federal courts should adopt the form of official 
citation for court decisions recommended by the ABA resolution

     Courts in this country have two jobs: to say "what the law is" 
and to disseminate those sayings to the citizenry. Those sayings on 
what the law is should be made available to the bench, bar, and 
public at little or no cost. The dissemination of this public 
information must not be limited via either copyright law or exclusive 
contracts. Nevertheless, this is currently the state of case law 
dissemination in the United States, even though such a policy is at 
odds with both 150 years of court precedent and at least one state 
constitution.

     Electronic publishing (Internet) makes it possible to 
disseminate information at extremely low cost. A public domain 
citation format is required to make this possible and useful. 
Therefore, the federal courts should adopt the form of citation 
recommended by the ABA.

     (2) The costs and benefits such a decision would have on the 
courts, the bar, and the public.

     a. The public does not currently have free Internet access to 
court opinions. The cost of providing such information electronically 
is orders of magnitude lower than printing on paper and distributing 
physically. Using the Internet, it takes minutes to search for 
information of interest, without having to make a trip to a library.

     b. Ordinary citizens require access to court opinions. Having 
free access via Internet enables citizens to read and search court 
opinions they would not normally have access to due to the current 
excessive monopoly-enabled pricing and time constraints imposed by 
having to physically travel to a library to view a book.

     c. Since the cost of dissemination of information due to 
technology is radically lower, the courts should do a better job 
making court information available to taxpayers, who are expected to 
obey the law.

     d. Federal, state, and local governments are huge consumers of 
high priced legal information. Taxpayers will benefit from more 
competition for legal information, enabled by a public domain 
citation format.

     e. The courts should make all federal court opinions available 
on the Internet, with citations that will permit the public to 
uniquely identity and cite an opinion.

                                   Glenn Meader
                                   32 Second Street
                                   Cambridge, MA 02141