During today’s US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee markup of the Protecting and Enhancing Public Access to Codes Act, or the Pro Codes Act (H.R. 1631), Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) entered into the record an opposition letter signed by libraries, civil society, disability rights groups, and others.
The letter’s 22 signers assert that providing access to the law is fair use, as held by the DC Circuit Court’s 2023 decision in American Society for Testing and Materials v. Public.Resource.Org. Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), successfully represented Public.Resource.Org in this case. The following can be attributed to McSherry:
This legislation is a solution in search of a problem: at least one public interest organization is already providing much better access to the law, also for free, with no financial impact on the standard organizations. This bill is also unconstitutional: as the Supreme Court reaffirmed as recently as 2020, if “every citizen is presumed to know the law, … it needs no argument to show … that all should have free access” to its contents.
ARL is disappointed that the Pro Codes Act will advance to the House, particularly since the public has not had the opportunity to to benefit from a hearing on the bill. However, we are grateful to Representative Lofgren, who introduced more than 20 amendments to protect public access to the law.
About the Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of research libraries in Canada and the US whose vision is to create a trusted, equitable, and inclusive research and learning ecosystem and prepare library leaders to advance this work in strategic partnership with member libraries and other organizations worldwide. ARL’s mission is to empower and advocate for research libraries and archives to shape, influence, and implement institutional, national, and international policy. ARL develops the next generation of leaders and enables strategic cooperation among partner institutions to benefit scholarship and society. ARL is on the web at ARL.org.
