Their website blames a DNS issue (and something called 'DynamoDB'); it's easy enough to imagine that even if user data is stored in other countries, some critical part of their DNS infrastructure may be primarily hosted only in US-East-1 / Virginia.

To be fair, the government is claiming something similar in _several_ cases.

(Nearly all of the 150+ current cases contain at least some ... dubious ... legal reasoning and/or have inconsistent factual records.

Unlike with private parties, there's little downside to losing for the government.)

... and here's an archived copy of ECF 70, "Notice of Filing of Exhibit List and Related Documents" from yesterday, 11 March:

web.archive.org/web/20250312...

The last e-mail alert on the Vought case came out an hour ago:

"Minute Entry for proceedings held 3/11/2025 before Judge Amy Berman Jackson. Evidentiary Hearing resumed and concluded. Matter taken under advisement. Defense Witness: Adam Martinez; Plaintiff Witnesses: Alex Doe and Mathew Pfaff."

Gwynne Wilcox v. Donald Trump (25-5057) - appeal at DC Circuit: ecf.cadc.uscourts.gov/n/beam/servl...

WILCOX v. TRUMP (1:25-cv-00334) - District Court, District of Columbia: ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/DktR...

(2/2)

In the meantime, here are direct PACER links for those cases (since the WayBack Machine versions are from Monday)...

NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION v. VOUGHT (1:25-cv-00381) - District Court - DC: ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/DktR...

(1/2)

It still requires a smartphone to sign up, right? (iirc, if the phone app isn’t used for 30 days, the desktop app stops working)

Was it the _repeated_ references to obtaining Ukraine’s “raw earth”, the b-movie mobster imitation, or the generalized lack of behavioral control due to missing his nap time that got your attention?

(Also, I'm not trying to argue that the fee structure is okay... fees could likely be reduced by at least an order of magnitude and still not be affected by the sociological factors that affect 'totally free' things.

Better still, the fees could remain the same for funding, but waiver caps raised.)

(As an analogy, consider how CourtListener.com is sometimes overwhelmed by unusual demand at times in early 2025 - they're doing the best they can and I'm not complaining about that.

E.g. it seems like it would it be a risk for official systems to be exposed to that same sort of situation.)

How has the balance of concerns varied in the past decade?

Today (in 2025), one could imagine AI web scrapers (et. al.) easily causing a 'totally free' PACER to be overloaded, to the point that courts and parties to active litigation could have QOS issues, right?

One of the recent government filings (it may have been the 'sanctuary city' case against Illinois) had line numbers in the margins... that consistently didn't line up with the text... on _any page_.

Better than no line numbers at all, but it seemed like quite the oversight.