Re: My PACER post for VoxPopuLII

[Aaron Swartz <xx@aaronsw.com>]

I should note that last week I got some FOIA documents from DOJ where
they suggest that Schultze was my co-conspirator. (They redact his
name but they describe him as a guy who gave a talk to the Berkman
Center about how PACER should be free and note that I live nearby the
Center -- so DOJ figured out what the FBI didn't. Intergovernmental
uncoordination wins again!)

DOJ Attorney: "I would venture to guess that the PACER compromise was
conceived and carried out by Swartz and [REDACTED] in furtherance of
the open access to documents projects that both are involved in. I
wouldn't be shocked if they freely admitted they did it and asserted
some sort of defense based on their belief that government document
should be available free of charge and/or that they merely automated
the free PACER access being provided by the US Courts."

and then, months later:

DOJ Attorney: "We've had several fairly lengthy discussions internally
here at CCIPS over the last few days re the PACER investigation. Our
assessment, based on what we know at this point, is that this doesn't
seem like a great case to pursue with a full investigative effort and
an eye towards prosecution. There are a number of reasons fpr that
assessment and some alternatives for addressing the conduct..."

FWIW, I've never named anyone else who was involved in what I did, but
let me know if you want to take credit.

On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Steve Schultze <xxxxxxx@princeton.edu> wrote:
> Hey, I've written a post about PACER for VoxPopuLII.  I basically tell the 
> history of the fight to remove the paywall.  I describe some of our early 
> antics, so I wanted to run it by you before it goes live.  Let me know if 
> anything should be censored, or if I'm missing anything important.
>
> For some reason the hyperlinks didn't come through on the PDF, but there are 
> a bunch of them.
>
>