Jesse,

This is fantastic! Thanks for taking the time to build the code. I'll add a module that retrieves links online and writes them to local files in the same directory.

That's why I said your simple wget wouldn't work. :)

You at least need a prefix step to click the "I agree" copyright notice blocking page or you will get megabytes of just that notice.

Another poster (Jesse) has a working bash+wget script that requires extending to follow annotation links. He may be posting it to this slashdot story.

Jesse,

Alas, that quick fix doesn't work. Part of the problem is that the HTML links all have file:// URL prefixes, and they need to be http://. But another problem is that even with http://web.lixisnexis.com hardcoded into the link, you get redirected to a sign-in page. There must be some state the server is expecting to be set first.

However, you've built an excellent proof of concept. I'm happy to do the next round of revisions. In the interest of openness, would you be willing to post the bash script in this slashdot thread?

It's great, of course, that citizens can get around the government's attempts to lock down the law. But the real fix is to delete the bureaucracy that is blocking citizen access in the first place! So I am supporting public.research.org's fight against Georgia's lawsuit.

You're missing a lot of the detail in this case. You should read the previous slashdot discussions before commenting further.

Doesn't work. Try it.

Ihtoit,

Wget has been tried and is not sufficient, for various technical reasons. Bash with wget has been shown to work in principle, but there are corner cases, such as the critical history and cross reference links, that are tricky.

But this ignores the fundamental issue: why should citizens have to resort to such technical gymnastics at all, especially if they are easily blocked (e.g., by rate limiting) by a government intent on locking the people out? The "bug" in this system is the obfuscating bureaucracy. The fix is to delete that.

But easily defeated by a government intent on locking out the people. Simple rate limiting can render screen scraping impractical. More importantly, why should citizens have to resort to such tactics? The law belongs to the people. Let the government put away its croniyism and be open and transparent as it should.

I don't know if Oregon's law is available via other channels, or if it's locked up by the state deliberately the way Georgia's is. If the latter, then Oregon needs to relinquish its restriction as well.

I downloaded your HTML extract and found one problem: it did not follow many of the links to subsidiary pages such as "Title Note" and "Article Note". For an example, see 15-10-26. which has the following Title Note:

CROSS REFERENCES. --Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, 35-6A-1 et seq. Establishment of county law libraries, 36-15-1 et seq. Court-martial jurisdiction, 38-2-370 et seq. Designation of courts which possess jurisdiction over traffic offenses, and procedure in such courts, 40-13-1 et seq. Indictment and punishment of judge of probate court for malpractice, partiality, conduct unbecoming office, and other offenses, 45-11-4.

LAW REVIEWS. --For article, "The Majority That Wasn't: Stare Decisis, Majority Rule, and the Mischief of Quorum Requirements," see 58 Emory L. J. 831 (2009).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. Trials. --Judicial Technology in the Courts, 44 Am. Jur. Trials 1.

According to the US Supreme Court, these notes are part of the official code and thus not protected by copyright. Citizens are held accountable to the interpretations given in these notes, and Georgia has made them part of the "official" code, and thus they must be available to all citizens.

Can you update your code to extract these notes as well? Thanks!

From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Requiring a license before allowing citizens to read or speak the law would be a violation of deeply-held principles in our system that the laws apply equally to all.This principle was strongly set out by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall when they stated “the Court is unanimously of opinion that no reporter has or can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by this Court, and that the judges thereof cannot confer on any reporter any such right.” Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 591 (1834). The Supreme Court specifically extended that principle to state law, such as the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, in Banks v. Manchester (128 U.S. 244, 1888) , where it stated that “the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all, whether it is a declaration of unwritten law, or an interpretation of a constitution or a statute."

Good work! I'll download it and check formatting, and host the file as well for public access.

Clearly, though, this is of far less utility than having the government host the file itself. Further, I just read that only the Annotated code is considered official for quotation in actual court cases. I'm trying to find out exactly what that means.

As with firearms, the problem isn't that we need more laws. We need enforcement of existing laws. LEOs inexplicably refuse to intervene when rogue droners recklessly operate the toy they carelessly use to endanger others.

The rules for hobbyists are not lax: line of sight and below 400', not over populated areas or structures. That pretty much means in a mile-square or smaller open field.

I don't know about the laws in Japan, but the U.S. now has enough in the way of FAA rules to prosecute illegal drone operators. But it isn't doing it. I've read many stories of idiots and their flying lawnmowers (and I say that as a drone builder myself) ignoring common sense safety measures by flying their drones in cities, over crowds, and even at (!) airports. Japan has the right idea in fining violators thousands of dollars, but why is law enforcement waiting for crashes -- in either country? Cite illegal drone operators on sight. I've personally reported several incidents to local law enforcement (while we were operating our drones safely in a safe area and below 400'). They did nothing.

Is a citizen's arrest feasible in these situations?

I just tried your link. It seems like you can only read the law a chapter at time, and there are 800+ chapters. And then it is only HTML text that can't be readily saved in formatted form, and with the law, formatting (e.g., indentation) is critical to interpretation. There doesn't appear to be a way to download a PDF of the entire law corpus. And there is no search function at all!

Ominously, there is a link that lets you purchase the 21-volume paper copy for $615.