Someone
hacked
the
federal
courts’
beloved
filing
platform.
Once
a
humble
slush
fund
for
courts
to
finance
office
renovations,
PACER
is
now
just
a
creaking
but
functional
database
struggling
under
the
demands
of
power
users
and
the
sort
of
morons
who
think
feeding
every
filing
into
an
AI
model
will
replace
lawyering.[1]
That’s
not
a
recipe
for
keeping
a
system
at
the
cutting
edge
of
cybersecurity
and
it
seems
we’re
now
paying
the
price
for
that.
According
to
Politico,
hackers
broke
into
the
system
through
“a
series
of
breaches
across
multiple
U.S.
states.”
While
this
is
the
first
the
public
is
hearing
of
it,
apparently
the
breaches
took
place
over
a
month
ago,
with
the
Administrative
Office
of
the
U.S.
Courts
first
coming
to
grips
with
the
severity
of
the
attack
around
July
4.
Politico’s
reporting
suggests
the
Justice
Department
and
the
judiciary
are
still
trying
to
ascertain
how
deep
the
cyberattack
goes.
But
it’s
believed
to
have
revealed
the
identities
of
confidential
informants.
Look
out,
Tod!
Beyond
the
informants,
hackers
getting
inside
the
system
can
also
access
documents
under
seal
and
potentially
see
warrants
before
they’re
executed.
And
yet
the
Epstein
files
are
somehow
still
not
out
there.
Michael
Scudder,
who
chairs
the
Committee
on
Information
Technology
for
the
federal
courts’
national
policymaking
body, told
the
House
Judiciary
Committee in
June
that
CM/ECF
and
Pacer
are
“outdated,
unsustainable
due
to
cyber
risks,
and
require
replacement.”He
also
said
that
because
the
federal
Judiciary
holds
such
sensitive
information,
it
faces
“unrelenting
security
threats
of
extraordinary
gravity.”
Those
opposing
free
PACER
may
cite
this
disaster
as
proof
that
courts
should
continue
to
nickel
and
dime
everyone
to
access
public
records,
but
that’s
a
bullshit
argument.
The
courts
collected
fees
for
years
and
failed
to
keep
the
website
at
the
cutting
edge
even
though
we
all
knew
cyber
risks
kept
escalating.
And
there’s
also
no
reason
why
updating
the
central
repository
of
court
records
has
to
be
accomplished
through
usage
fees.
Not
everything
has
to
“pay
for
itself”
and
some
projects
are
important
enough
to
just
allocate
the
resources
because
they
are,
in
fact,
important.
But
maybe
we
should
be
thanking
the
court
system.
The
costs
may
be
dire,
but
at
least
we’ve
got
a
legal
tech
story
that’s
not
explicitly
about
AI.
So
that’s
something.
Federal
court
filing
system
hit
in
sweeping
hack
[Politico]
Earlier:
PACER
Sucks
More
Than
Usual…
And
We
Know
Exactly
Who
To
Blame
DOGE
Cuts
Off
Government
PACER
Access
Because
They
Are
The
Dumbest
People
On
The
Planet
When
Federal
Judges
Said
Free
PACER
Would
Cost
$2B,
They
Were
Completely
Full
Of
Crap
[1]
Speaking
of
that
particular
moron,
he
also
arbitrarily
cut
off
government
access
to
PACER
on
a
whim
earlier
this
year.
We
are
a
very
serious
country!
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
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Joe
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Managing
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