Hacker News Reader

Comment by DannyBee | Hacker News Reader

This post is in particular, where i say "judge apologist" He thinks this is really difficult and no techies understand. In particular, he says

"3. For those who live in the IT world outside the judiciary, it is fashionable to trash PACER and CM/ECF. The problem is that those digit-heads are clueless when they get beyond slot A fits into slot B. Of course, in a perfect world these systems would be elegant and the cost to the public would be zero. But we don’t live in the pristine world of the computer geeks. They know absolutely nothing about managing a large organization, and that is particularly true for an organization that supports judges who have jobs for life under the Constitution. "

This is utter and complete bullshit from top to bottom. It is a stereotypical judge view of the world of technology. An old and outdated view that hasn't been true for 20 years.

View on HN

Ha okay I understand. But you cut off the important bit:

As a consequence of this real life illiteracy, these outsiders have no clue what a triumph these systems are from a variety of perspectives such as internal management of cases to external judicial transparency. The will and skill necessary to convince the internal stakeholders (judges and lawyers) to adopt the concept of these systems (to let go of paper) and then construct a dual public/internal system with few glitches is a major milestone in the annals of good government.* This was a truly a monumental achievement. For my money, PACER and CM/ECF should be here to stay despite the present debacle.

RGK understands that this is technically pretty straightforward but going in guns blazing will not endear you to an Article 3 judge. At the end of the day you are replaceable, they aren't.

"The will and skill necessary to convince the internal stakeholders (judges and lawyers) to adopt the concept of these systems (to let go of paper) and then construct a dual public/internal system with few glitches is a major milestone in the annals of good government.* "

See, but i disagree with this. All it really demonstrates is a lack of high level management and drive. The AO and the judicial council could have just done this. There is enough political power and will at the top to accomplish the goal. It just wasn't used. Because of this, to me, PACER is not a triumph of good government, it is the "mission accomplished" of the government world.

It stays that way. Nobody feels it has to change, because they think they already did everything there is to do.

I interpreted him as agreeing with you--he is saying that the "digit-heads" and "computer geeks" don't understand that the problem is political, not technological.

Maybe you are right. Before I wrote that, I got the opposite impression from reading the comments. It seemed he thought it is both a political and a technological challenge. I think it is only the former.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com