[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 126 (Monday, September 12, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTENT TO SEEK PUBLIC ACCESS TO 
                             COURT RULINGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Ramstad] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RAMSTAD. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss an issue of grave 
concern to one of the largest employers in my district.
  I refer to this press release issued by the Department of Justice on 
September 2, 1994, with the headline, ``Justice Dept. Seeks Public 
Access to Court Rulings.''
  In effect, the Justice Department is getting ready to spend millions 
of taxpayer dollars to put America's private sector legal information 
industry out of business--and put thousands of American taxpayers who 
work in that industry out of jobs.
  According to this press release, the Department is concocting plans, 
right now, for a new, $100 million-plus, taxpayer-funded Government 
program to meet needs already being satisfied by the private sector.
  First, the Department intends to create and impose an additional new, 
so-called public citations system for court cases--despite the fact 
that a docket-case number-based public citation system already exists 
and serves the legal profession perfectly well.
  Second, the Department intends to duplicate, at public expense, legal 
databases already easily available from the private sector--databases 
containing millions of court cases.
  This announcement particularly shocks and disturbs me because West 
Publishing Co.--the company specifically singled out by this 
announcement and targeted for this new government competition--employs, 
serves and does business with tens of thousands of people I represent.
  Madam Speaker, West Publishing is an American success story. It is a 
homegrown, independent, employee-owned, 102-year-old Minnesota company 
that has become--in an extremely competitive market--America's 
preeminent publisher of legal materials.
  West makes some 4,000 legal databases available to the general public 
and to agencies of Government, including the Department of Justice. It 
does this efficiently and at reasonable cost.
  Moreover, some 32,600 public libraries, including around 3,600 law 
libraries, make legal information available free of charge to anyone 
who wishes to do the research.
  The point is that while the American people are telling us to get to 
work on deficit reduction, crime control and prevention, better 
education, better health care, a cleaner environment, more jobs and a 
host of other things, neither I, Madam Speaker, nor I suspect anyone 
else in this body, has been approached with complaints about the 
unavailability of online legal information--or the inadequacy of our 
citation system.
  Beyond the threat to tens of thousands of well-paying private sector 
American jobs--and beyond the unimaginably high cost to a Federal 
Government already trillions of dollars in debt--this ridiculous 
venture into Government information policy by the Department of Justice 
raises several critical concerns:

  It clearly violates the intent and letter of OMB circular A-130, 
which prohibits Federal agencies from undertaking initiatives already 
performed by the private sector.
  It raises the spectrum of an enormously expensive, taxpayer-funded 
bureaucracy to create and control a new citation system; place a new 
citation on millions of existing court cases; collect, store and 
maintain those cases; purchase and operate software, computer and 
telecommunications systems; and educate the public and legal community 
in the use of those systems.
  It undermines the emerging, private sector-based national information 
infrastructure with a broadside attack against intellectual property 
protection.
  It makes a mockery out of the National Performance Review by drawing 
a Federal agency into a gigantic, wasteful, expensive, incredibly 
complicated set of tasks that Government cannot possibly perform in an 
efficient manner.
  It impinges on the constitutional principle of separation of powers.
  And it raises the very real spector of Government censorship over 
legal information by eventually making the Department of Justice and 
the political appointees who operate there the sole source of legal 
information in America.
  Madam Speaker, the Department of Justice is legitimately charged with 
the task of protecting the American people and advancing the cause of 
justice. But the Department does not belong in the information 
business.
  Finally, I would remind the Department of Justice that programs of 
the kind being planned here are subject to the approval and funding 
authorization of the Congress of the United States. And the Congress is 
not about to appropriate $100 million in order to put tens of thousands 
of the people we represent out of work.

                              {time}  2100

  Madam Speaker, I appreciate this time to air this very, very serious 
problem. I know other Members, Republicans and Democrats alike from the 
Minnesota congressional delegation, will be speaking on the same 
subject in the days to come to bring this to the attention of our 
colleagues here in Congress. Madam Speaker, I am including at this 
point in the Record the Department of Justice press release, as 
follows:


                                        Department of Justice,

                                Washington, DC, September 2, 1994.

    Justice Department Seeks Improved Public Access to Court Rulings

       The Justice Department today said it would explore ways to 
     improve public access to federal court opinions, especially 
     by computer, to make legal research more affordable for 
     scholars, public interest groups and users of electronic 
     information.
       Currently, most electronic research is done by leasing 
     access to privately owned systems, such as WESTLAW and LEXIS, 
     that electronically search through data bases of federal 
     cases and other materials.
       Attorney General Janet Reno said that the Department had 
     received considerable correspondence from members of the 
     legal community concerned about the high cost of electronic 
     access to judicial opinions and the present propriety system 
     most often used to cite federal cases.
       Reno said the Department is evaluating various existing 
     non-proprietary methods of citing cases to develop a unified, 
     comprehensive approach acceptable to federal and state 
     courts, attorneys and legal researchers. The Department is 
     also exploring the possibility of a public-domain data base 
     of federal and state judicial opinions. Comment and 
     suggestions from the public are invited, and should be 
     directed to Kent Walker, Counsel to the Deputy Attorney 
     General, U.S. Justice Department, Washington, DC 20530.
       At the same time, the Department said it would shortly 
     solicit bids for a computerized legal research system for its 
     own lawyers. The prospective contract would last one year, 
     with four annual options to renew the contract. Because of 
     the relatively short contract periods, the Department expects 
     that the prospective contract would not delay a decision on a 
     new public citation system.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Pelosi). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Ewing] is recognized for 15 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.

  [Mr. EWING addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in 
the Extensions of Remarks.]

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