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TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
CROWN JEWELS CAMPAIGN - Juris, Legal Information
November 7, 1994
- Twenty-eight library, academic, and public interest groups
write Attorney General Janet Reno in support of Department
of Justice (DOJ) imitative to broaden public access to legal
information
- The organizations writing Reno include a wide cross section
of national organizations concerned about the public's right
to know, public interest groups who are concerned about
publics access to the new national information
infrastructure, and citizen activists.
the letter follows...
November 7, 1994
The Honorable Janet Reno
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Madam Attorney General:
We are writing to support the Department of Justice (DOJ)
initiatives to broaden public access to legal information. We
strongly support the development of a non-proprietary, public
domain system of citation for case law. It is clearly in the
public interest to have greater competition in the market for
computer assisted legal research, and it is intolerable that a
private firm can hold a copyright on something as fundamental to
access to the law as the citation system that courts require
legal practitioners to use.
We also strongly oppose arrangements whereby the "official"
versions of the text of judges opinions can be copyrighted by a
private publisher, because of minor corrections to the text.
Public access to legal information should be a fundamental right
in a democratic society. Policy makers should ensure that modern
information technologies are used to broaden public access to
legal information.
Sincerely:
James Love, Director
Taxpayer Assets Project
Robert Oakley, Washington Representative
American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)
Carol C. Henderson, Executive Director
Washington Office, American Library Association (ALA)
Prudence S. Adler, Assistant Executive Director
Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
Laura Powers, Field Director
Libraries for the Future
Howard Silver, Executive Director
Consortium of Social Science Associations
Page Miller, Director
National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History
Jim Warren
Columnist for several computer magazines and public access
activist
Brad Stillman, Legislative Counsel
Consumer Federation of America
Marc Rotenberg, Director
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Andy Schwartzman, Director
Media Access Project
Coralee Whitcomb
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
Jeff Chester, Executive Director
Center for Media Education (CME)
Con Hitchcock
Litigation Group, Public Citizen
Angela Campbell
Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown University Law
Center
Gary Bass, Executive Director
OMB Watch
Gary Ruskin, Director
Congressional Accountability Project
Andrew Blau, Director C.P.P.
The Benton Foundation
Leonard Minsky, Executive Director
National Center for Universities in the Public Interest
Scott Armstrong, Director
The Information Trust, co-author (with Bob Woodward) of the
Brethren
Susan Monaco, Research Director
Center for the Study of Commercialism
Richard Civille, Executive Director
Center for Civic Networking
Janine Jackson, Research Director
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Evan Hendrick, Chair
U.S. Privacy Council
Mike Bader, Executive Director
Alliance for the Wild Rockies
Tim Hermach, Executive Director
Native Forest Council
Jeffery St. Clair, Editor
Wild Forest Review
Jim Lyon, Vice President for Policy
Mineral Policy Center
cc: Paul Friedman, John Schmidt, Representative Jack Brooks,
Representative John Conyers, Senator Joe Biden, Senator John
Glenn.
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