Court Records Should Be Free
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
EFF supports the Open Courts Act to eliminate PACER fees for public court records.
The EFF joined a coalition supporting the Open Courts Act of 2026, which would replace PACER and CM/ECF with a modern, unified platform to improve public access and strengthen cybersecurity. PACER collects over $150 million annually in fees. The bill aims to eliminate these fees, making federal court records free to access. EFF has long criticized PACER's paywalls as barriers to public understanding of the judiciary. The bill builds on a 2020 proposal that previously won bipartisan Senate support but didn't become law.
What commenters are saying
Commenters split into two camps: those arguing free access is essential for democratic accountability and oversight, and those warning that frictionless access enables privacy violations, data scraping, and misuse like mugshot extortion sites. Some note RECAP already liberates PACER documents, but others say it covers only high-interest cases. A pro-tip advises non-US readers can get PACER accounts and contribute. One commenter criticizes that redaction failures expose third-party PII, arguing the fix should be better redaction rather than paywalls.