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Alas, FOIA applies only to federal government agencies that are in the executive branch. It doesn't apply to federal courts or the U.S. Congress.

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Well that's depressing.

Yep. Though Congress could liberate all of PACER, retrospective and prospective, if it chose -- one data dump to Carl Malamud would do it. The appropriations bills are wending their way through the legislative process right now (mostly out of committee), and that might be a vehicle to add a one-line amendment. Would require a lot of work in the next month or two.

Who do I call or who's door do I bang on?

I'd point you in the direction of Carl Malamud, Jim Harper at the Cato Institute, and EFF, probably in that order. Jim's made it a project to liberate government data; Carl's gone further and made it his life's work.

Inside Congress itself? Hmm. I'm spending my time working on http://recent.io/ and now paying close attention nowadays. But if you're local to the SF south bay try Rep. Lofgren? I've done some Q&As with her and found she's one of the smarter and well-informed members of Congress on tech policy issues.

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