Think of it as ‘double secret probation.’

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/eff-launches-new-fight-free-law

EFF Launches New Fight to Free the Law

EFF has filed a new lawsuit against the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ensure that the public has full access to the laws that govern us.

Our client Public.Resource.Org (Public Resource), a tiny non-profit founded by open records advocate Carl Malamud, has a mission that’s both simple and powerful: to make government information more accessible. Public Resource acquires and makes available online a wide variety of public documents such as tax filings, government-produced videos, and federal rules about safety and product designs. Those rules are initially created through private standards organizations and later incorporated into federal law. Such documents are often difficult to access otherwise, meaning the public cannot read, share, or comment on them. 

Working with Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, Public Resource has been submitting Freedom of Information Act requests to the CPSC requesting copies of the legally binding safety codes for children’s products—an area of law of intense interest to child safety advocates and consumer advocates, not to mention the families who use those products. But CPSC says it can’t release the codes, because the private association that coordinated their initial development insists that it retains copyright in them even after they have been adopted into law. That’s like saying a lobbyist who drafted a new tax law gets to control who reads it or shares it, even after it becomes a legal mandate.