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Public Citizen Litigation Group is a public interest law firm in the United States.The group is the litigation arm of the non-profit consumer advocacy organization
Public Citizen Public Citizen is a non-profit, progressive consumer rights advocacy group and think tank based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a branch in Austin, Texas. Lobbying efforts Public Citizen advocates before all three branches of the United ...
. Its attorneys work on cases involving health and safety regulation, consumer rights, separation of powers, access to the courts, class actions, open government, and the
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
. In a 2008 study, professor
Richard Lazarus Richard S. Lazarus (March 3, 1922 – November 24, 2002) was an American psychologist who began rising to prominence in the 1960s. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Lazarus as the 80th most cited psychologist of ...
of Georgetown's Supreme Court Institute describes an "elite private sector group of attorneys who are dominating advocacy before the Court to an extent not witnessed since the early nineteenth century." In stark contrast with this specialization among the corporate bar, there is comparatively little in-house Supreme Court expertise among non-profit public interest groups, legal aid organizations, public defenders, or plaintiffs' firms. "The principal exception is Public Citizen’s Supreme Court practice," writes Lazarus, "which has long provided high-quality assistance in the preparation of briefs and presentation of oral argument to public interest advocates with cases before the Court." From its founding, the Litigation Group has devoted a significant portion of its efforts to fighting government secrecy. It has litigated more FOIA cases than any other organization. The Litigation Group has secured from government files information about health risks, safety issues, and financial problems, on behalf of other divisions within Public Citizen, other public interest organizations, reporters, and academics. Among material of significant public interest obtained through its efforts are approximately 2,000 pages of Lt. Col.
Oliver North Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Secu ...
's notebooks (''National Security Archive v. National Archives and Records Administration''). the report relied on by the Attorney General to exclude
Kurt Waldheim Kurt Josef Waldheim (; 21 December 1918 – 14 June 2007) was an Austrian politician and diplomat. Waldheim was the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 and president of Austria from 1986 to 1992. While he was running for th ...
. Litigation Group lawyers have also litigated issues surrounding preservation of and access to electronic records. In the case ''Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President'', Litigation Group lawyers succeeded in establishing that electronic records generated by the White House and the rest of the Executive Branch are subject to federal open records laws. At the end of both the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration, the government had claimed that it was entitled to delete all of the electronic records created and stored by the White House during each president's tenure. As a result of the litigation, in which the court agreed that FOIA required that executive branch email be preserved, the government released more than 3,000 email records from the White House and the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
. The Litigation Group brings many cases under the Administrative Procedure Act to challenge agency regulations or other actions that it deems arbitrary and capricious or unlawful. For example, in 2004, the Litigation Group along with Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH), and Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT) successfully challenged the final rule governing the hours of service of commercial truck drivers, issued by the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation that regulates the trucking industry in the United States. The primary mission of the FMCSA is to reduce crashes, injuries and f ...
. The advocacy groups claimed that the rule expanded the hours that truckers may legally drive, failed to mandate the use of electronic onboard recording devices to put an end to the pervasive violations of legal limits, and would likely to lead to many avoidable deaths and injuries on the nation's highways. In 2002, when the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA ) is an agency of the U.S. federal government, part of the Department of Transportation. It describes its mission as "Save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes" rel ...
(NHTSA) issued a rule to implement a law that required a device in new vehicles to warn drivers when a tire was significantly underinflated, but the rule allowed use of devices that would not warn when two or more tires were underinflated, the Litigation Group successfully sued to force NHTSA to issue a rule that complied with this important safety measure (''Public Citizen v. Mineta''). In 2001, after nine years of delay, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration The Occupational Safety and Health Administration'' (OSHA ) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. Congress established the agenc ...
(OSHA) had not issued a rule to regulate use of the highly toxic chemical
hexavalent chromium Hexavalent chromium (chromium(VI), Cr(VI), chromium 6) is chromium in any chemical compound that contains the element in the +6 oxidation state (thus hexavalent). Virtually all chromium ore is processed via hexavalent chromium, specifically the s ...
, the Litigation Group successfully brought suit to force OSHA to issue a rule (''Public Citizen v. OSHA''). Cases have involved the right to speak and read anonymously on internet message boards; the use of brand names in web site domain names, metatags and
keyword Keyword may refer to: Computing * Keyword (Internet search), a word or phrase typically used by bloggers or online content creator to rank a web page on a particular topic * Index term, a term used as a keyword to documents in an information syst ...
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
; the right to maintain interactive discussions; and file-sharing. Recently they have also defended the rights of small online merchants targeted by large corporations that claim selling less expensive second-hand or competing products infringes the company's intellectual property rights.


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External links

* {{Authority control Intellectual property activism Public Citizen