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Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

judyrecords.com

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Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#71
post #11
post #3

This is... not great. It's crucial that these records be open to public inspection. But instant full-text search of the entire dockets of 630M cases feels wrong, invasive, and dangerous to me. It's yet another instance of panopticon surveillance now being too cheap to meter. I think our society needs to come to grips with this new reality and figure out what to do about it. Or are we all just cool with this?

I couldn't find my name. And i know it should be in here. So I'm not that worried yet...

There's no escape. It's just a matter of time.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#73
post #2

This is amazing. Can you share any info on how you were able to compile so much info from different sources? In my limited experience of hunting for legal filings, it seemed like every court had its own system, with nothing standardized or programmatic. Thanks!

The search uses elasticsearch 7 for full text search. It's been extremely fast and worked very well. You're right court data is scattered across many different systems and needs to be aggregated, which is a difficult process.

How much ram does that use up? What’s the latency? Is it sharded? Is it a cluster? So many questions

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#74
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These records have always been available to people with money to spend on a lawyer with a subscription. So what you're complaining about is that normal people can also access the information now.

Nice false equivalence. Lawyer: duty-bound professional, is an officer of the court, can be publicly disbarred, very expensive degree that needs to be paid off Some guy on the internet with an axe to grind: ???

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#76
post #3

This is... not great. It's crucial that these records be open to public inspection. But instant full-text search of the entire dockets of 630M cases feels wrong, invasive, and dangerous to me. It's yet another instance of panopticon surveillance now being too cheap to meter. I think our society needs to come to grips with this new reality and figure out what to do about it. Or are we all just cool with this?

I don't see any problem with this. These cases are in the public record, why should the public not have the ability to search them for free without requiring access to expensive legal indices?

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The search uses elasticsearch 7 for full text search. It's been extremely fast and worked very well. You're right court data is scattered across many different systems and needs to be aggregated, which is a difficult process.

How much ram does that use up? What’s the latency? Is it sharded? Is it a cluster? So many questions

There are 2 search boxes going. One for storing the search index without source and another which stores the source, which is only used for highlighting. Searches usually take under 200ms and SRP and individual pages usually take less than 20ms. The 2 ES nodes are not formally part of a single cluster due to the index storage difference. Another box uses a traditional LAMP setup. Feel free to send a message on reddit if interested in more detail.

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#78
post #69

Here's Steve Jobs' speeding ticket: https://www.judyrecords.com/record/vde11sdzw25ac

Was trying to find speeding tickets of John von Neumann, but in vain. It would be nice if one could limit search by years.

Apparently importing a Jaguar through Canada went horribly wrong for him: https://www.judyrecords.com/record/0vctgni5684d

Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases

#80
post #69

Here's Steve Jobs' speeding ticket: https://www.judyrecords.com/record/vde11sdzw25ac

Was trying to find speeding tickets of John von Neumann, but in vain. It would be nice if one could limit search by years.

“One does not have to be a Richard Feynman to figure out that 200 tons is 100% greater than 100 tons.“ https://www.judyrecords.com/record/dhuql2nm6942
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