Free Laws as in Free Beer
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, March 6 2009
Because I know you well enough to know that there's nothing you'd like better late on a Friday than to parse congressional committee report language, let's take a second pass at Honda language in the omnibus appropriations bill that I touched on earlier today. Rather, it's not language in the omnibus, but in the committee statement the House Appropriations Committee attached to the bill. It's not entirely clear to me whether a "statement" of this sort carries the weight of a committee report. Neither are bill text, but a committee report, at least from what I know, does at least enjoy the gravitas of helping courts and the rest of us divine legislative intent. Anyhoo, here's the relevant bit of statement text:
Public Access to Legislative Data. There is support for enhancing public access to legislative documents, bill status, summary information, and other legislative data through more direct methods such as bulk data downloads and other means of no-charge digital access to legislative databases. The Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, and Government Printing Office and the appropriate entities of the House of Representatives are directed to prepare a report on the feasibility of providing advanced search capabilities. This report is to be provided to the Committees on Appropriations of the House and Senate within 120 days of the release of Legislative Information System 2.0.
So what we're dealing with here seems to be a sort of sense-of-Congress on the desirability of the federal bureaucracy doing bulk data dumps of legislative data. That's certainly nice, but it's also a goal that many people have articulated. But! What's more revolutionary is this bit: "other means of no-charge digital access to legislative databases." No-charge as in free! That's a statement of objection against the status quo. How so? Well, government entities routinely charge for things that we average Janes and Joes might think should come free for the asking. Read this interview I did with lawyer-programmer James Grimmelmann, for example, where he talks about how a full set of Oregon statues will set you back about $400. A copy of the Code of Federal Regulations runs $9,430. That's perhaps spare change to the Glover Park Group or Patton Boggs, but more of a sacrifice for public advocate types.
Before, though, you start saving your pennies for a nice shiny digital copy of the Federal Register, take note of that last line in the statement text. The report that would set in money this free law-lapalooza is due three months after the delivery of something called "Legislative Information System 2.0." LIS is the Library of Congress system that the House and Senate use to track legislation. And, as far as I can tell, LIS 2.0 is still very much a project in the works. (Photo cred: Whatknot)