[Infowarrior] - Wikileaks: CRS Reports Bonanza

[Richard Forno]

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Change_you_can_download:_a_billion_in_secret_Congressional_reports


WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE
Sat Feb  8 02:27:22 GMT 2009

For immediate release.

"Change you can download"

Wikileaks has released nearly a billion dollars worth of quasi-secret  
reports
commissioned by the United States Congress.

The 6,780 reports, current as of this month, comprise over 127,000  
pages of
material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from  
the U.S.
relationship with Israel to abortion legislation. Nearly 2,300 of the  
reports
were updated in the last 12 months, while the oldest report goes back  
to 1996.
The release represents the total output of the Congressional Research  
Service
(CRS) electronically available to Congressional offices. The CRS is  
Congress's
analytical agency and has a budget in excess of $100M per year.

Open government lawmakers such as Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and  
Patrick
J. Leahy (D-Vermont) have fought for years make the reports public,  
with bills
being introduced--and rejected--almost every year since 1998.

CRS reports are highly regarded as non-partisan, in-depth, and timely.  
The
reports top the list of the "10 Most-Wanted Government Documents"  
compiled by
the Washington based Center for Democracy and Technology[1]. The  
Federation of
American Scientists, in pushing for the reports to be made public,  
stated that
the "CRS is Congress' Brain and it's useful for the public to be  
plugged into
it,"[2]. While Wired magazine called their concealment "The biggest
Congressional scandal of the digital age"[3].

Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are
quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports
available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and  
select
sister agencies such as the GAO.

Members of Congress are free to selectively release CRS reports to the  
public
but are only motivated to do so when they feel the results would  
assist them
politically. Universally embarrassing reports are kept quiet.

Each time the topic of opening up the reports comes up, it runs into  
walls
erected by opposing lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who  
"like
many members of Congress, views CRS as an extension of his staff,". If  
the
reports were made public, "every time a member requests a particular  
document,
the public may infer that he's staking out a particular policy  
position."
(Aaron Saunders, Stevens' spokesman, Washington Post, 2007)[4].

However that hasn't stopped a grey market forming around the documents.
Opportunists smuggle out nearly all reports and sell them to cashed up  
special
interests--lobbyists, law firms, multi-nationals, and presumably,  
foreign
governments. Congress has turned a blind eye to special interest  
access, while
continuing to vote down public access.

Opposition to public availability comes not only from members of  
Congress but,
also, from within the CRS.

One might think that the CRS, as an agency of the Library of Congress,  
would
institutionally support having a wider audience. But an internal memo  
reveals
the CRS lobbying against the idea and opposing bills (S. Res. 54 and  
H.R.
3630)
which would have given the public access to its reports (Project on  
Government
Secrecy, FAS, 2003)[5].

The first line pushed by the CRS is the one that appeals most to  
Congressional
members--open publication would prevent spin control. The memo states  
this in
delicate terms, referring to such spin failures as "Impairment of Member
Communication with Constituents".

Of course the CRS doesn't really care about politicians facing much  
needed
voter discipline, but it does have reasons of its own to avoid public
oversight. Institutionally, the CRS has established an advisory  
relationship
with members of Congress similar to the oversight-free relationship
established
between intelligence agencies and the office of the President.

Free from meaningful public oversight of its work, the CRS, as  
"Congress's
brain", is able to influence Congressional outcomes, even when its  
reports
contain errors. Arguably, its institutional power over congress is  
second only
to the parties themselves. Public oversight would reduce its ability to
exercise that influence without criticism. That is why it opposes such
oversight, and that is why such oversight must be established  
immediately.

In 1913 Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a forceful proponent for  
open
government, stated "Sunlight is the best disinfectant; electric light  
the most
efficient policeman". Those wise words are still true today.

Welcome, Congress, to our generation's electric sun.

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Change_you_can_download:_a_billion_in_secret_Congressional_reports