America's Operating System: Law.gov principles

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall () gmail com>
> Date: July 28, 2010 5:25:46 PM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: America's Operating System: Law.gov principles

> Hi Dave, for IP if you deem fit.
>
> Carl Malamud has tirelessly spearheaded an effort over the past year
> or so to make US law, the operating system of our government, freely
> available.  Carl has just released a consensus set of principles
> signed by an amazing set of law, policy and transparency thinkers that
> outlines what principles our government should adhere to in making
> primary legal sources increasingly available to citizens:
>
> http://public.resource.org/law.gov/index.html
>
> The primary legal materials of the United States are the raw materials
> of our democracy. They should be made more broadly available to enable
> an informed citizenry.
>
> Primary legal materials include documents of primary authority issued
> by governmental bodies, such as court opinions, statutes, and
> regulations. They also include the supporting documents and other
> media issued and maintained by those bodies, such as dockets,
> hearings, forms, oral arguments, and legislative histories. These
> materials can be found in every branch, at every level, national,
> tribal, state and local, and should be available to anyone with the
> will and the heart to obtain them.
>
> The following principles should govern the dissemination of primary
> legal materials in the United States:
> law.gov logo
>
>   1. Direct fees for dissemination of primary legal materials should
> be avoided.
>   2. Limitations on access through terms of use or the assertion of
> copyright on primary legal materials is contrary to long-standing
> public policy and core democratic principles and is misleading to
> citizens.
>   3. Primary legal materials should be made available using bulk
> access mechanisms so they may be downloaded by anyone.
>   4. The primary legal materials, and the methods used to access
> them, should be authenticated so people can trust in the integrity of
> these materials.
>   5. Historical archives should be made available online and in a
> static location to the extent possible.
>   6. Vendor- and media-neutral citation mechanisms should be employed.
>   7. Technical standards for document structure, identifiers, and
> metadata should be developed and applied as extensively as possible.
>   8. Data should be distributed in a computer-processable,
> non-proprietary form in a manner that meets best current practices for
> the distribution of open government data. That data should represent
> the definitive documents, not just aggregate, preliminary, or modified
> forms.
>   9. An active program of research and development should be
> sponsored by governmental bodies that issue primary legal materials to
> develop new standards and solutions to challenges presented by the
> electronic distribution of definitive primary legal materials.
> Examples include the automated detection and redaction of private
> personal information in documents.
>  10. An active program of education, training, and documentation
> should be undertaken to help governmental bodies that issue primary
> legal materials learn and use best current practices.
>
> Adherence to these principles by governmental bodies is not just good
> for democracy and justice, it will spur innovation and will encourage:
>
>   1. Broader use of legal materials in all parts of our education
> system, including our law schools.
>   2. Researchers in law schools, universities, and other research
> institutions to have broader access to bulk data, spurring important
> research on the functioning of our government.
>   3. Innovation in the legal information market by reducing barriers to entry.
>   4. Savings in the government's own cost of providing these
> materials through adherence to best current practices.
>   5. Small businesses to understand rules and regulations they must
> deal with, reducing their costs and increasing their effectiveness.
>   6. Increased foreign trade by making it easier for our foreign
> partners to understand our laws.
>   7. Better access to justice by making legal information more
> broadly available to citizens.
>
> How we distribute the raw materials of our democracy is a foundational
> issue in our system of government. Access to the raw materials of our
> democracy is a prerequisite for the rule of law and access to justice
> and makes real the principles of equal protection and due process.
>
> With the Consent of the Co-Convenors of Law.Gov:
>
> Jack M. Balkin Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First
> Amendment Yale Law School
> Robert C. Berring, Jr. Walter Perry Johnson Professor of Law Berkeley
> Law, University of California
> James Boyle William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law Duke Law School
> Nicholas Bramble Postdoctoral Associate in Law Yale Law School
> Tom R. Bruce Director, Legal Information Institute Cornell Law School
> Richard A. Danner Archibald C. & Frances Fulk Rufty Research Professor
> of Law Duke Law School
> Laura E. DeNardis Executive Director, Information Society Project Yale
> Law School
> Edward W. Felten Professor of Computer Science & Public Affairs
> Princeton University
> Jerry Goldman Professor & Director, Oyez Project Northwestern University
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall Visiting Postdoctoral Research Associate UC
> Berkeley and Princeton University
> Jennifer Jenkins Director, Center for the Study of the Public Domain
> Duke Law School
> Mitchell Kapor Trustee Mitchell Kapor Foundation
> S. Blair Kauffman Law Librarian and Professor of Law Yale Law School
> Mark A. Lemley William H. Neukom Professor of Law Stanford Law School
> Lawrence Lessig Professor of Law Harvard Law School
> Paul Lomio Director, Robert Crown Law Library Stanford Law School
> Carl Malamud President Public.Resource.Org
> Harry S. Martin III Librarian & Professor of Law Emeritus Harvard Law School
> Peter W. Martin Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law Cornell Law School
> John Mayer Executive Director Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction
> Judy Meadows State Law Librarian State Law Library of Montana
> Paul Ohm Associate Professor of Law and Telecommunications University
> of Colorado Law School
> Tim O'Reilly Chief Executive Officer O'Reilly Media
> John G. Palfrey Henry N. Ess III Librarian & Professor of Law Harvard Law School
> Pamela Samuelson Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law
> Berkeley Law, University of California
> Stuart Sierra Assistant Director, Program on Law and Technology
> Columbia Law School
> Stephen Schultze Associate Director, Center for Information Technology
> Policy Princeton University
> Tim Stanley Chief Executive Officer Justia
> Erika V. Wayne Deputy Director, Robert Crown Law Library Stanford Law School
> Christopher Wong Postgraduate Fellow New York Law School
> Tim Wu Professor of Law Columbia Law School
> Harlan Yu Doctoral Student in Computer Science Princeton University
> Jonathan Zittrain Professor of Law & Computer Science Harvard Law School
>
> -- 
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall
> ACCURATE Postdoctoral Research Associate
> UC Berkeley School of Information
> Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy
> http://josephhall.org/



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