Perhaps this is what you are speaking about?
The person interviewed is working towards getting all standards that are incorporated by reference into federal law to be available to the public for free.
www. onthemedia .org/ blogs/on-the-media/2012/apr/13/carl-malamuds-box-goodies/ - DEAD (404) LINK UNLINKED
Many Cove readers recall a time when "Military Standards" were free and were incorporated by reference into many other documents by reference, regardless if those documents were public or private. Somewhere along the line, the U.S. Government decided to go out of the printing business and decided that "off-the-shelf" products and Standards for everything from raw materials to finished goods and Quality Management Systems and inspection systems were "good enough" and didn't need to be duplicated by the government.
Apparently, this guy has chosen to ignore the entire flapdoodle that surrounded that government action and has decided to right what he sees as a wrong.
Apparently, he's pugnacious enough to invite a copyright suit, but smart copyright holders won't bother because he is NOT selling these copies for profit, but giving them away. When his money runs out, so will his effort. If he chooses to extend the number of copies by soliciting payment or donations,THEN the copyright holders can make life EXPENSIVE by taking him to court. If he tries to publish them on the web, a quick complaint to the ISPwill shut him dow (even freethinkers here at the Cove know better than to try to circumvent copyright by posting complete copies of copyrighted documents without specific written permission (verbal permission is not enough to protect from a lawsuit at a later date [when a new executive takes the place of the one who gave verbal permission.] The government will NOT join in the suit on either side.
I note he mentions
NIST, which still provides lots of free stuff, all copyright free.