Decade of Court Cases Quietly Wiped from Online Database | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

"A decade of records from four U.S. appeals courts and one bankruptcy court were lost earlier this month when the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) quietly deleted a massive amount of data that was 'incompatible' with an impending upgrade ... The relevant courts in question are in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. The Administrative Office defended the decision by noting that the cases that were removed were closed and that many had not been accessed in several years. Karen Redmond, a spokesperson for the Administrative Office, told Common Dreams, 'Some of these cases have been closed for over 13 years. Anything that's open remains available at the courts.'  But Brian Carver, co-founder of Free Law Project and an assistant professor at University of California at Berkeley School of Information, said many of the files were 'very relevant and very recent' and others were landmark civil rights cases ..."