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FBI Investigates Liberator of Court Records
eldavojohn writes "Federal court documents aren't free to the public, they cost $0.08/page through a system called PACER. During a period when the US Government Printing Office was trying out free access at a number of courthouses around the US, a 22-year-old programmer named Aaron Swartz installed a small PERL script at the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals library in Chicago — a script that uploaded a public document every three seconds to Amazon's EC2 cloud computing service. Swartz then donated over 19 million documents to public.resource.org. That's when the FBI took interest in the programmer responsible for this effort and ran his name through government databases. How did he discover this? His FOIA was approved, of course, and he received the FBI's partially redacted report on himself. The public.resource.org database was later merged with that of the RECAP Firefox extension, which we discussed a couple of months back." Update: 10/06 18:22 GMT by KD: Timothy Lee pointed out that the summary as originally posted garbled the Swartz / RECAP connection. Improved now.
Man makes public documents available, for free, to the public. Obviously, this sort of thing cannot be allowed to continue.
if you look too closely at the gov't, they'll look too closely at you.
Seriously, as far as I know, all this material is a matter of public record anyway. It should already be freely available. I've used bulk.resource.org primarily to read opinions of appeals court cases, and it's fantastic to have all that information freely available online. The FBI should be investigating the turrurists instead.
Moral of the story is that if you don't pay 8 cent duplication fees and you know how to use PERL the FBI could come a knockin'?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Install unauthorized software on a government, or business, computer anywhere and see what sort of response you get. This fellow installed an unauthorized perl script on a computer in a federal court (okay, the library thereof). I'm not surprised that the government decided to take a look at things. I'd be disappointed if they had not done so. DUH.
linquendum tondere
100% agree. He installed a script on a 3rd-party system that funneled info off-site? Is he seriously thinking that's ok? Can anyone here imagine what would happen if they did that where they worked?
And spare me the "it's a public library and the docs are public" - the fact you can only access them from the library means there are controls in place(pricing, etc) for a REASON. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CIRCUMVENT THEM. Why not drive around toll-booths on turnpikes then? Hell, there is some grass over there, next to the row of toll booths, I should write a plugin to drive around these damn $1 shacks!!
Website Hosting
This makes it easier for everyone to access information. It's faster (search and download) and cheaper (don't have to pay them to print and mail).
This is a good thing for everyone.
"Are government bodies not entitled to charge a nominal fee for services rendered?"
No.
Especially in this instance, as the service wasn't rendered. If you pay for Document X, the money doesn't go to the people who did whatever work went into that document, it goes to the reproduction office. All he's really done is take out the middle man. There's also that whole taxation thing...
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
8 cents per PAGE doesn't sound like a nominal fee to me.
Government services charge a nominal fee that the majority of people pay for services rendered already.
They call this fee, "tax"
Most people don't want to pay again for what they've already paid for.
Why does the current generation of kids seem to think just about everything should be free no matter how little it costs? Are government bodies not entitled to charge a nominal fee for services rendered?
In the first place, this stuff is public information, so the goal of the government should be to make it as widely available as possible at the smallest cost.
Second, the guy took advantage of a free trial period to download as many documents as he could. When the government found out, they shut down the free service.
Third, it's fine to charge a "nominal fee for services rendered," and it makes sense to do so when there is a real cost involved. However, the fee needs to reflect the real costs of retrieving the information. In this case, 18 million pages of documents are not "worth" $1.5 million dollars. They were giving away access to the material at libraries, the search and retrieval mechanism was obviously automatic, so it wasn't wasting people's time or costing more to get the documents.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Are government bodies not entitled to charge a nominal fee for services rendered?
No. First they didn't "render" and service - these records are available electronically anyway. Second these public records were already paid for by public taxes - the "nominal fee" has already been paid by Joe public (this is clear from having 17 free locations).
The problem is that the poor defendant might not be able to go to one of these 17 locations (because of terms of release, physical ability, cost etc) and might not be able to afford hundreds or thousands of dollars to do the necessary research to defend himself. This gives the government and the wealthy an advantage over the poor and thus impedes democracy.
Get a web developer
Proof that lean living nets profits.
Our tax dollars primarily fund a welfare system known as civil service. We don't know what they do, but it requires a lot of them and a whole lot of time to do it.
false dichotomies, misrepresented reality, etc.
nobody in their right mind is thinking of shortchanging something like defense spending for the sake of welfare recipients. this never enters into any governmental spending calculus as it is blindingly obvious something like police are more important to absolutely everyone involved in decision making. if spending is not at the level you think it should be, it has to do with someone thinking less is needed for that particular spending allotment, in a vacuum of any other consideration, not because someone needs a battered women's shelter instead. you present a false choice in your comment that never exists in the real world
furthermore social services are a bargain: every dollar spent on welfare and healthcare and other social services is one less guy breaking into your house or mugging you on the street, because they can't feed their kids, or because they can't keep their job with a broken arm (that they can't afford to fix). it's cheaper to fix their arm. you will pay for social services one way or another. the idea of not spending on healthcare for the poor means the problem just goes away is ignorance: every untreated case of diabetes winding up in the emergency room, every case of tuberculosis untreated resulting in your children catching it, every untreated case of hypertension resulting in a heart attack for the family breadwinner who now leaves a familty to fend on their own: you pay for that in the form of a sick society, and that affects your bottom line and the balance in your checking account, whether you are blind to how you are not an island in this world or not
when you live in a rich society, you in turn are rich. when you live a poor society you in turn are poor. the money that exists in your pocket is not something devoid of any relationship to everything around you, the money in your pocket is abstract expression of the wealth around you. you pay for basic simple social services, or the money in your pocket is worth less and is less in quantity. that you can't see that is a defect in your perception. unfortunately, so many people take this defect in perception as the basis for an entire philosophy of life that assumes they exist apart from their society
it isn't about individual responsibility and self-initiative, and those who don't have that having less socioeconomic status then you, it isn't about rewarding the undeserving. it is about giving the genuinely undeserving the bottom of the basement standard of living, so they don't wind up a cancer in your society that rots your entire society, which in turn impoverishes you. think of social services as an investment that pays dividends that are indirect. apparently beyond your ability to understand. and not making that investment resulting in the loss of far more of your money than you spend on basic social services
the idea is freedom right? freedom from poverty deciding issues of basic human dignity right? oh yeah... durrr...
but you shouldn't respond to me, you should get into politics. listen to any senator arguing out of ignorant resistance to change, and we see exactly the same sort of false choices and red herrings. you have a bright future in ignorant ideological grandstanding and fearmongering: go for it dude
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So they had 88 pages on you for no reason? What the heck could warrant that?
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Lol. You have no choice in who your military kicks the shit out of. You just get to see the aftermath on Fox. One day their gonna kick your Lilly ass you dumbass.
according to any serious study that's ever been done
"So, in other words, I should have to pay people off (through threat of force) to keep them from breaking into my house and stealing my property?"
yes, this statement is 100% accurate. why don't you come to grips with reality?
you have poor people who live near you. you can give them the bare essentials to live, or you can give them nothing, and they will take it from you, because they need to feed themselves. this is reality all over the globe. compare the societies that have welfare to those that don't. you tell me which is the poorer societies. if you lived in those societies who do nothing for the poor, you would be poorer, not richer. because the cash in your pocket is a reflection of the wealth around you. do you understand this simple fact?
you pay, one way or another for those who are impoverished around you. welfare is just the cheaper way to do it. you don't want to pay welfare because you think the choice is between paying welfare and paying nothing. no, the choice is between paying welfare or paying for a new television set after your place is broken into
what is it about your thinking that makes you unable to understand this simple choice that has always existed? in all of history, in every society in every culture: those societies that take care of their weaker members are further enriched, in greater amounts than what they pay
you think poor people just disappear into the ether? you think their problems aren't yours? proactively do something to help those in need in your society, or your society experiences problems that begin to affect your bottom line. simple truth, simple choice. your entire way of thinking seems dependent on a sense of isolation from society, when in fact you are part of it. and the more you contribute to it, the more dividends you receive from it. ignore how the health of society affects your bottom line, and you get less money in your pocket
the only real poverty going on here, in the end, is in your mind and your inability to perceive these simple facts
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For the past decade your government has been opposed to liberty, the problem is that your entire country had your head SO far up you asses with thoughts like "We're the best country in the world." or "We have so many guns and the knowledge to use them that the government wouldn't dare take away our liberties." That you have completely missed that huge portions of your population live in 3rd world conditions and that your own government has taken your liberties from under your very nose.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.