[Music from the Military Bands]

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

They died from fire, smoke inhalation,

and by jumping off a 10-story building to avoid the flames.

They died because the fire exits were chained shut. They died because there were no fire codes in 1911.

They died because there were no fire codes in 1911.

Today, there's a law for that. But when we ignore the law, history repeats itself.

In 2012, at the Tazreen Fashion Factory in Bangladesh, 117 people died and 200 were injured

because basic building and fire codes were not observed.

In 2005, a hydrocarbon vapor cloud exploded at a refinery in Texas City, shattering windows

3/4 of a mile away. In 2010, a natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, California exploded

into a wall of fire 1,000 feet high. There are laws —technical standards—that govern

pipelines and refineries and hazardous materials. There are laws—occupational safety standards—that

govern our workplaces, consumer product safety standards that govern baby strollers and microwave

ovens and toys for toddlers. There's a law for all that, but most of

these public safety standards have not been available

unless you payed hundreds of dollars per copy.

This is wrong, and we are changing that.

I'm here today to ask for your help. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

That's why Justice Stephen Breyer said "if a law isn't public, it isn't a law."

That's why John Podesta said "the American people have the right to know the laws by which they

are governed." If we're going to have due process under

the law, if we're going to have equal protection under the law, the law has to be public.

There can be no poll tax on access to justice. We've been changing this situation, we've

been trying to promote the rule of law. In the last five years, we've posted over

28,000 legally-mandated technical safety codes covering dozens of countries. Just a few weeks

ago, we published 18,592 safety codes for India.

I need your help to take this to the next level. All of these codes start as PDF files.

Some of them are just scans. Our project—that you can help with—is

to unlock these documents by transforming them so anybody can build ever more useful

applications for public safety. We're turning these documents into valid HTML, with high-quality

vector graphics, properly coded mathematical formulas, and useful metadata.

Your participation—your financial contribution—helps take a technical standard and rekey it so

it can be used freely and effectively on the net. I hope you'll see merit in this exercise

and that you'll join me—today—to help make sure that if code is law, then the law

is available to all. We can—as a people, as nations of the world,

as informed citizens—we can own our law, but only if we stand up—only if you stand

up—only if we all stand up together. I hope you'll join me in making our world a safer place.

Thank you for your support.

[Music: Eternal Father] [Virginia Grand Military Band]