116th Congress. ReceptionThe New York Times has criticized PACER as "cumbersome, arcane and not free." In 2008, an effort led by Carl Malamud (who said that PACER is "15 to 20 years out of date" and that it should not demand fees for documents that are in the public domain) spent $600,000 in contributions to put a 50-year archive of records from the federal courts of appeals online for free. In a critical article, the magazine Reason'' described the system as "archaic as a barrister's wig." Also in 2008, district courts, with the help of the Government Printing Office (GPO), opened a free trial of Pacer at 17 libraries around the country. After activist Aaron Swartz, following an appeal by Malamud, downloaded about 2.7 million documents through a Sacramento library computer (less than 1% of the entire database, although the number has been stated incorrectly as 20% or 25%), to make them freely available to the public on Public.Resource.Org, the experiment was ended in late September 2008, with a notice from the GPO that the pilot program was suspended, "pending an evaluation." In October, a GPO representative said that "the security of the Pacer service was compromised." A FOIA request revealed later that the FBI had opened a full investigation against Swartz, which was dropped in April. See also Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) California Court Case Management System (CCMS) New York State Courts Electronic Filing System (NYSCEF) MassCourts RECAP CaseMap RECAP US Federal Court Documents (collection) References External links Legal software Federal judiciary of the United States Government databases in the United States Online law databases 1988 establishments in the United States American legal websites Government services web portals in the United States E-government in the United States