3.1 Public Policy Positions

In early December 2008, the Obama-Biden transition team invited organizations to meet with the team and submit formal comments. AALL took this opportunity to submit a Statement of AALL's Public Policy Positions for the new administration and Congress.

Drafted by Mary Alice Baish, director of the AALL Government Relations Office, and our Government Relations Committee, Copyright Committee, and Electronic Legal Information Access and Citation Committee, the report articulates AALL's commitment to the public's right to access information, achieving an equitable balance between the rights of users of information and the rights of
copyright owners and licensors, and preserving the privacy rights and civil
liberties of library users and all Americans.

Our legislative goals are ambitious yet crucial to law librarians, legal researchers and the public. They include:

• Adequate annual funding to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for no-fee public access to PACER;
• A public domain citation system for legal information;
• The enactment of "Orphan Works" legislation to allow libraries to digitize materials whose copyright owners cannot be found despite extensive and costly searches; and,
• The repeal of Section 215 (the so-called "library" provision) of the USA PATRIOT Act which is due to sunset on December 31, 2009.

The statement report, which reflects AALL's Government Relations Policy, will guide the work of our Government Relations Office and policy committees during the next several years.

Section 3.2 Bills We're Tracking [PDF]

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