New York Paralegal Blog

The federal judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronics Records service attracted more than 50,000 new accounts in the first four months of fiscal year 2011. There are now nearly 1.2 million PACER accounts in existence. The service allows users to obtain case and docket information from federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts. The PACER Case Locator is a national index for the federal courts. Users may conduct nationwide searches to determine whether or not a party is involved in federal litigation. The federal judiciary’s current fiscal year began October 1, 2010. There were 13,221 new PACER accounts created in October; 12,485 in November; 11,518 in December; and 13,908 in January 2011.

A sixth individual pleaded guilty today to illegally accessing numerous confidential passport application files. Karal Busch, 28, of District Heights, Md., pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in the District of Columbia to a one-count criminal information charging her with unauthorized computer access. Busch is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 15, 2009. According to court documents, Busch worked fulltime for the State Department as a citizens services specialist in the Office of Children’s Issues from June 2003 through July 2006. In pleading guilty, Busch admitted that she had access to official State Department computer databases in the regular course of her employment, including the Passport Information Electronic Records System (PIERS), which contains all imaged passport applications dating back to 1994. The imaged passport applications on PIERS contain, among other things, a photograph of the passport applicant as well as certain personal information including t...