Tomorrow, a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee will hold a hearing  on televising Supreme Court proceedings. This is an important issue, but I  believe it is at least as important that the Court make publicly available its official documents: its opinions, merits briefs, amici briefs, and the like. Unfortunately, they generally do not do so. Opinions are available only from the 2006-07 Term format; merits and amici briefs are generally available from the ABA's website -- not the Court -- and only sporadically for the last few years. Millions of Americans look to the Court for information about what it is doing, and that information is lacking.

Here is a mock-up of what we at the Sunlight Foundation think a much improved Supreme Court website could look like, and an interview I had with SCOTUSblog on the proposed redesign. While the Court has made some minor strides since our redesign, the website still does not accomplish its basic purpose of informing the public. I am looking forward to tomorrow's "Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts" hearing, which will feature, among others, former Senator Arlen Specter and SCOTUSBlog founder Thomas Goldstein.

 

New website

Last year, we made suggestions about how the U.S. Supreme Court should redesign its website. Today, the Court unveiled a new website. The new website is a small but important step towards increased openness and accessibility, although it needs serious work.

Notable improvements include making recent Court decisions available from the homepage, a somewhat more logical design, and an interactive Court calendar that allows you to see what cases are scheduled for argument. According to the Court, additional enhancements include docket files going back to 2000, a new case citation finder, and enhanced search and navigation abilities.

Sunlight's mock-up

There are several areas where important improvements should be made, all of which focus around providing context to the information it provides.

• The webpage needs to provide more information about what the Court is doing, explaining legal terms of art, and grouping relevant information together (such as information pertaining to a particular case).
• It should incorporate a user-friendly advanced search engine.
• Use machine-readable formats (not just PDFs).

Old Site

We strongly encourage those redesigning the Supreme Court's website to talk to members of the user community to get a better feel for the kinds of improvements that would be helpful. Certainly, we would be willing to engage in that conversation.

Additional Resources:

• Blog of the Legal Times (3/18/2010): Supreme Court Unveils New Web Site Design
• SCOTUSBlog (3/18/2010): Changes for Court’s website
• SCOTUSBlog (10/1/2009): A proposed redesign for the Supreme Court
• Sunlight Foundation (8/27/2009): The Supreme Court Website: An Updated Redesign
• Sunlight Foundation (6/2/2009): Redesigning The Government: The U.S. Supreme Court
• A compendium of resources from Sunlight (wiki page)

Today the Federal Communications Commission released "reboot the FCC," an ambitious attempt to "improv[e] citizen interactions with the Federal Communications Commission." The new website features the FCC's new agency-wide blog, many new media tools, and an innovative approach to bringing in the public to share ideas on improving the FCC.

The reboot is a significant attempt to instill the principles of openness, collaboration, and participation into everything that the FCC does. It's not the website redesign that we called for in October -- although they are asking for comments and suggestions on upgrading their website -- but it is a good step forward towards centering the FCC around citizens.

I'm still discovering new things in the reboot website, including this interesting attempt to pull all of the FCC's data into one spot. Take a look and let me (and them) know what you think.

SCOTUSblog, a blog about the U.S. Supreme Court, published an interview with me on Sunlight's proposed website redesign for the Supreme Court. Here are links to our preliminary redesign and final draft.

Judicial appropriations legislation (S. 1432 and H.R. 3170)  to “provide new information technology specialist positions and for new hardware and software to support the Court's website” has passed the House and is pending in the Senate.

Justices Breyer and Thomas testified before the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee on April 23, 2009, and explained the $1 million in costs for staff, hardware, and software.

The Sunlight Foundation is building a mock-up redesign of the Federal Communication Commission’s web site, and we need your help. Unlike our previous government website redesign projects -- USA.gov, the EPA, the FEC, and the U.S. Supreme Court -- we are asking for your ideas first, before we put pen to paper. So tell us what you like, dislike, and would like to see on a re-imagined fcc.gov.

To start off the conversation, we ask that you to focus on big picture issues. What kinds of information are missing from the FCC’s web site? How should its information be organized? How should it be presented? How should it be accessed and downloaded? To what extent should the web site incorporate social media/web 2.0 technology, and how should it be used?

Our discussion will take place in three different locations. Sunlight has two public Google groups, the Open House Project and Sunlight Labs, where you can join and participate. In addition, you can also comment on our introductory blogpost, which is available on the Sunlight Labs blog here.

If you have additional private comments, please contact me. We will read your comments, participate in the conversation, and look forward to drawing upon your ideas to create the mock-up of how the FCC’s site should be improved.