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Open CRS: Free Government Research Reports 95

Posted by samzenpus from the 4-out-of-5-politicians dept.
securitas writes "Ted Bridis of the Associated Press reports that more than 8000 Congressional Research Service reports produced exclusively for legislators are now available to the public for free. The Center for Democracy & Technology's Open CRS project is a Web-based central clearinghouse that features several collections of government reports. The research service has '... a staff of more than 700 and a nearly $100 million budget ...' but 'CRS Reports do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.' The Open CRS project wants your help in obtaining and adding reports to the database."
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Open CRS: Free Government Research Reports More

Open CRS: Free Government Research Reports

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  • Ok (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KaptNKrunchy ( 876661 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:02PM (#12947576)
    Not like anything important won't get black inked anyway though.

  • A nit worth picking ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:04PM (#12947586) Journal
    "Ted Bridis of the Associated Press reports that more than 8000 Congressional Research Service reports produced exclusively for legislators are now available to the public for free."

    Shouldn't that read something more like "Ted Bridis of the Associated Press reports that more than 8000 Congressional Research Service reports produced exclusively for legislators are now available to the public, who already paid for it, and whose children will keep paying thanks to reckless spending and cavalier taxation, at no additional charge"?

    That complaint aside, kudos to the people who helped liberate some of the knowledge (and probably some of the fluff) that tax dollars have paid for.

    Ahem.

    timothy

    • Re:A nit worth picking ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by joeljkp ( 254783 ) <joeljkparker@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:40PM (#12947753)
      Having had experience dealing with CRS in the past, I'm of the opinion that they are far from a fluff service.

      They provide comprehensive non-partisan reports on any subject imaginable at the request of the major decision-makers in this country. The public sees this in the short, clearly-worded descriptions that accompany every bill and resolution in the THOMAS system. They don't see the massive stacks of policy and historical reports intended to brief legislators on complex areas they may not have time to explore fully (or want a place to start).
      • I hope you're right about the lack of fluff, and don't have specific reason to doubt it.

        I'd prefer that the "major decision makers in this country" be ordinary citizens living their individual private lives rather than politicians, though; I'd like the job of Congress (generally) to be fairly pedestrian: keep laws in tune with the grand scheme laid out by the Constitution, in some cases by writing new ones and in some cases by revising or eliminating old ones.

        I do not believe that new laws are generally b
    • You think its reckless to spend money on a research service to inform democratically elected representatives with regard to the issues they are debating and making decisions upon?

      I think you take this libertarian notion of not paying taxes for anything superfluous too far, or would you rather politicians legislated on the basis of dog-eared back issues of Time magazine and National Geographic?
      • Hey, that's not what I said! (Or meant) :)

        The reckless spending I'm thinking of (which is both cause and symptom of the cavalier taxation) isn't on the CRS, which I understand to be pretty good value -- as government spending goes -- especially if it increases the apparent intelligence of the members of Congress.

        Also, while I tend to vote libertarian, I don't think anyone wants to pay taxes for things that are actually "superfluous" -- right? As to how I'd prefer politicians legislated, well, I'd mostly p

    • Re:A nit worth picking ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by securitas ( 411694 ) on Thursday June 30, 2005 @03:41AM (#12948701) Homepage Journal


      timothy,

      I thought about adding text to the write-up that pointed out the taxpaying public have already paid for those reports (and thousands more).

      I decided against it for a few reasons:

      1. Brevity
      2. The Open CRS site discusses that point
      3. I assumed that the 'staff of more than 700 and a nearly $100 million budget' quotation made it clear enough to Slashdot readers that the reports are funded by tax dollars
      4. 'Free' is much more economical than 'no additional charge'
      5. I didn't want to editorialize so I left that to the comments section.

      But point taken.

      • heh -- if I hadn't refreshed the page and noticed that there were nearly no comments up, I might have left well enough alone. And I don't think anyone was misled by your phrasing; I just get hung up on certain words, and am not a big fan of the way the government tends to spend my money, so that's what my brain made my fingers do. "No additional charge" sure would be awkward, of course, I was just being contrary about it.

        Of course, for a micro-rant ... 700 people and nearly 100 million dollars?! That's pre
        • it's not that hefty - it adds up to about 130K per person. Salaries will easily account for half of that. A lot of their employees have PhDs.

          I'm an academic and I relied on a number of CRS papers in the past - they are usually excellently written, non-partisan, just the kind of source you want to look at if you need an objective reference on the topic you are interested in. In each case had to go to the library/send RAs to make copiess off microfilms because they were not (or were hard to find) online, so

        • 700 people and nearly 100 million dollars?! That's pretty hefty, per-head. Do they write with James Bond typewriters?

          What they write with is either black ink, to hide things, or invisible ink, again to hide things.

          Falcon

  • Report on the Patriot Act (Score:5, Informative)

    by Woogiemonger ( 628172 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:08PM (#12947602)
    Just for a heads up, a couple of the reports cover details on the Patriot Act [opencrs.com] including provisions that expire at the end of this year. Figured it was a topic of interest on /.

  • If the government were truly free (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:08PM (#12947607) Journal
    If the government were truly representative of the People, you wouldn't have trouble with openness. As it stands, though, the People care more about their Big Macs and SUVs than voting.

    This project is doomed to stagnate. The People are satisfied with their little flag bumper stickers and patriotic country music. They have little interest in the minutiae of government.

    And who blames them? That's the reason we have representatives in the first place.

    • Re:If the government were truly free (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:22PM (#12947672)
      If the government were truly representative of the People, you wouldn't have trouble with openness. As it stands, though, the People care more about their Big Macs and SUVs than voting.

      The government *is* representative of the people: as you say yourself, the people doesn't give a fuck about the government, so it's no surprise the government doesn't give a fuck about the people either.

      People have the government they deserve: if all they can do is groan a little during tax time, but otherwise trust the administration to run things, what do you expect? The government will (and does) run amok eventually.
      • Surely you mean that the people get the government that the majority deserves. I don't think we can say that any of the people voting for Gore or McCain in 2000 or Kerry in 2004 deserve the current U.S. administration.

        So what is the giving-a-fuck minority to do when they are overwhelmed in numbers by Joe Sixpack?
      • People dont expect the government to be competent. They dont really expect the government to be active and efficient at resolving the issues of the everyday person. I'm quite suprised that the government is even close to the level of service that it maintains today.

        I dont care to worry about the day to day dealings of the government, Reading what congress changes daily (Reading the Full Bill with comprehension) would eat about 79 hours out of each day. When the Patriot Act was passed 98-0 how many of th

        • When the Patriot Act was passed 98-0 how many of the senators actually read through the THOUSANDS of pages?

          Not one congress critter read the whole thing, at best they only read parts of it. I'd bet there's not many people who recall that when congress was "debating" the PATRIOT Act Ralph Nader challenged everyone in congress to take a quiz on the act, saying that if they passed it he would donate I think it was $10,000 to any charity the person wanted it donated to and not one person took him up on it.

    • "As it stands, though, the People care more about their Big Macs and SUVs than voting."

      I'd find this more insightful if not for the fact that nearly all politicians are self-serving asses. The problem isn't with the voters, it's who's running.
      • "I'd find this more insightful if not for the fact that nearly all politicians are self-serving asses. The problem isn't with the voters, it's who's running.

        I'd find this more insightful if not for the fact that nearly all voters vote on said politicians. The problem isn't just with the politicians, it is with the voters and the politicians.

      • I'd find this more insightful if not for the fact that nearly all politicians are self-serving asses. The problem isn't with the voters, it's who's running

        If people don't like who's running then they need to get someone they do want to run or run themselves. The problem with this is who is willing to deal with the hassle, have their lives put through an electronic microscope, or have dirt manufactured on them? Carl Rove is real good at that.

        Falcon

    • Re:If the government were truly free (Score:4, Funny)

      by wallykeyster ( 818978 ) on Thursday June 30, 2005 @12:06AM (#12948086)
      As it stands, though, the People care more about their Big Macs and SUVs than voting.

      How many voters does it take to change a lightbulb?

      None. Voters can't change anything.

    • It becomes more and more obvious everyday that government is obsolete. When will people take their lives into their own hands and start living without the chains of the sick abuse (any use of authority is abuse) of authority we call government.
    • This project is doomed to stagnate. The People are satisfied with their little flag bumper stickers and patriotic country music. They have little interest in the minutiae of government.

      I have to disagree...from the reports I've read so far, they are all concise and direct, not the wonkish 80-page reports that other gov't-related offices churn out. Remember, the CRS is writing for congressmen, not policy wonks!

  • What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 )
    I understand the taxpayers already spent 100 million on this, likely a lot more, but are they really worth anything at all? Isn't it just going to cost the taxpayers more to make 8000 or more reports available for free? Do these reports have any real value at all, or are they just noise and opnions?
    • no, this isn't going to cost the taxpayers more to make these reports available for free. opencrs is apparently being funded by CDT- http://www.cdt.org/ [cdt.org]. all the additional costs incurred by the taxpayers is from any negligible costs for congressional staffers to disseminate these reports.
      • is from any negligible costs for congressional staffers to disseminate these reports

        By negligible costs for congressional staffers I assume you mean like the negligible one huundred million the congressional staffers were paid to create them in the first place.

        • umm, no. if you're going to be sarcastic, at least try to be correct. the $100M the article referred to was the CRS budget- they are not congressional staffers. by negligible cost, i'm referring to the staff that all congressmen already have- you request the already completed documents from them, and they do the leg work of getting it to you.

  • Read this newsletter! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) * on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @10:22PM (#12947675) Homepage Journal
    If you've not already subscribed to the Secrecy Newsletter [fas.org] from the Federation of American Scientists, or added their [fas.org] RSS feed [fas.org] to your reader, do it now! It's an incredibly fascinating -- and exasperating -- daily report on government secrecy around the world.

    Plus, Steven Aftergood has been publishing CRS reports for a while now. Here's what he has to say on why the CRS won't release 'em in the first place:

    "CRS HAS NO PUBLIC MISSION"

    Why aren't non-confidential Congressional Research Service reports automatically made available to the public? At first glance, the policy appears to reflect institutional arrogance or reflexive secrecy on the part of CRS and the Congress. But there is more to it than that, congressional officials say.

    CRS repeatedly stresses that it works for Congress, and only for Congress.

    "CRS assists every Member and committee," said Director Daniel P. Mulhollan in May 23 testimony before the House Appropriations Committee. "All of our work is confidential and focuses solely, directly, and specifically on the needs of the congressional community. CRS has no public mission." By insisting on this point, CRS is distinguishing itself from the larger and higher-profile Government Accountability Office. More subtly, CRS is repudiating any comparison with the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which was dismantled by Congressional Republicans in 1995, an event that is seared in the consciousness of CRS officials.

    What CRS is saying is that it has no institutional agenda of its own aside from support to members of Congress, and that, unlike OTA, it takes no position on disputed policy matters.

    CRS believes that its uniqueness as a congressional support agency, which constitutes its central claim to continued funding, would only be diluted by direct interactions with public consumers.

    "Over time, CRS products might come to be written with a large public audience in mind and could no longer be focused solely on congressional needs," CRS Director Mulhollan said in a written statement yesterday.

    And the current congressional leadership apparently agrees.

    "CRS has received clear indication from its oversight committees that no change in the current policy is authorized," Director Mulhollan wrote yesterday.

    "It is important to recognize that while the restriction on public access to CRS products is frequently characterized as CRS 'resistance,' the reality is that the policy is a congressional one," he noted.

    In any case, "As CRS obtains no copyright in its products, little can be done to discourage the trend toward further public availability of CRS products brought about without the permission of a Member or committee."

    A 1999 CRS memorandum outlined several reasons why it believed direct public access to CRS products would have unfavorable legal and institutional consequences.

    See "Congressional Policy Concerning the Distribution of CRS Written Products," March 9, 1999:

    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/policy.html [fas.org]

    • why should it be a surprise than an organization that serves them would not seek to serve us?

      Congress has long left the public interest behind, its probably been a good 50 years since they were accountable or felt accountable to the people. They have their own retirement programs so it not be surprising they have created other government groups just to service themselves.

      Now, one way to start fixing this is to make the public aware of it. The problem to overcome is the lack of interest the public has.

    • Re:Read this newsletter! (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This might be a tougher battle, but would it be possible to get Congress to change its own policies, rather than CRS's policies?

      Currently, the default is that the reports are effectively secret, unless a congresscritter decides to release it. How about making a congressional policy that effectively inverts that. Congress gets the reports, and they go public automatically after, say 30 days, during which there is the potential for review. Anything truly classified/confidential could be flaggedas staying

  • I think there is some good content, for example:

    U.S. Housing Prices: Is There a Bubble?
    May 16, 2003

    http://www.opencrs.com/document/RL31918/ [opencrs.com]

  • Authenticity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hobotron ( 891379 )
    This is a great step for authenticity, Lord only knows how many bad/misrepresented/outright made up reports have graced the committees' of our government.

    Hopefully this quasi peer review will help eliminate erroneous research.
  • There's an inherent problem that lies in politically-sponsored research. Having "research" done on political ideas is a tactic that politions (e.g. Reagan) use to justify their point. If there is a group with sufficient grounds to cause any *possible* roadblock, the politician will have a committee research the issue, and then he is able to freely push his agenda once more because he has "disproven" the group. The bias may be so great that the work is worthless to all but the politicians themselves.

  • Well, duh... (Score:4, Informative)

    by ankhcraft ( 811009 ) on Wednesday June 29, 2005 @11:52PM (#12948035) Homepage

    "Over time, CRS products might come to be written with a large public audience in mind and could no longer be focused solely on congressional needs," CRS Director Mulhollan said in a written statement yesterday. And the current congressional leadership apparently agrees.

    I worked as a contractor at Congressional Research Services for a bit over a year, so let me put in my two cents.

    Of course they agree, because it's an obvious truth. When does a author not consider their audience when writing a document? How hard would it be to try not to consider your audience when writing a piece? Furthermore, how cumbersome do you think it would be, administratively, to effectively convince one's employees not to worry about what hundreds of millions of people think about your writing, and just focus on a few hundred? Here's a better idea: Don't worry about any of the above, because CRS's job is to inform congressman and their staffers on the issues so that they may legislative effectively.

    In my stay at CRS, I learned a good amount about a part of our government which was previously entirely unknown to me. CRS does very good work for our congressman, and I was proud to build good software for CRS employees' and congressman to use alike.

    Also, it's worth noting that 99.999% of what you'll find in CRS reports are gleaned from sourced that any Joe Q. Public could find anywhere. It's condensed into a format that lets congressman read a lot of facts at once, without having to go read 20-30 books/magazines/publications to glean the same content.

    OpenCRS is probably as public as this stuff is ever going to get. This way, CRS still doesn't have to deal w/ the public. They can keep their target audience narrow and their coverage broad.

    • "Over time, CRS products might come to be written with a large public audience in mind and could no longer be focused solely on congressional needs,"

      That sounds like a problem with CRS then. If CRS Director Mulhollan can't keep CRS directed at their target audience (congress) than congress should just do away with them at that point and support a different organization that stays on task: writing reports for congress. Blaming the public because CRS wouldn't be able stick to thier mission is ridiculous,

      • Re:Well, duh... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hartree ( 191324 ) on Thursday June 30, 2005 @02:17AM (#12948502)
        So I grasp what you're saying, We don't want CRS to become some politically-correct-don't-write-anything-really-us eful-the- public-might-see-it organization, but I really don't imagine that happening.

        I can.

        In the late 70s when there was congressional investigation over windfall profits by the oil companies. There were also trials resulting from it. The lawyers of those companies tried to subpeona the files of the CRS to try to use in their cases. (Likely it was a tactic to create a chilling effect).

        Now, multiply that by everly pressure group and lobbyist you can think of on any side of any issue. It's hard to write a balanced and neutral report when you're worried about being called to testify, or going to have your phone overflow with angry (insert-special-interest).
    • Personally I find the legislative branch's (and your) attitude toward information puzzling. The Executive Branch produces all kinds of information with millions of people watching thanks to FOIA. Officials responsible for producing that information are expected to do their jobs in a responsible manner.

      How do you recouncile your view with the values codified in FOIA? At a very fundamental level those reports belong to the people of the US who paid for them.

      • The Executive Branch produces all kinds of information with millions of people watching thanks to FOIA.

        The current admin, Bush's, is all to happy keeping secrets. Especially when it comes to whistleblowers. Take Sibel Edmonds [cnn.com] , she worked as an FBI translator until they fired her because she was making too much noise. After she testified to congress after 911 the Bush admin slapped a classified rating on the info and a gag order on her. When she hired an attorney to sue over being falsely fired sh

        • While I agree that the Bush administration is rolling back quite a bit of access that's important to our democracy, there is a vast amount of information that the executive branch routinely releases because of FOIA. The principle has been ensconced within the bureacracy enough that it would be extremely difficult to reverse.

          If CRS was under the executive branch these reports would be online because they would release them rather than have to deal with FOIA requests which require more work on their part.

          • If CRS was under the executive branch these reports would be online because they would release them rather than have to deal with FOIA requests which require more work on their part.

            It doesn't take the FOIA to have the reports from CRS released, what is needed to someone from congress requesting them, then for that person to release them.

            Falcon
            • A FOIA that extended to the legislative branch would mean that any citizen is entitled to the information not just members of Congress. There's a big difference between a right to information and access to information being a privilege that can be granted when a member of Congress decides todo so.

              I hope you can see the difference between a right and a conditional privilege. FOIA is one of the most important tools that the press has for gaining information about what the US govt is doing.

              • I hope you can see the difference between a right and a conditional privilege. FOIA is one of the most important tools that the press has for gaining information about what the US govt is doing.

                Yes I know the difference between rights and priviledges, and know all too well about FOIA requests. Leonard Peltier's [freepeltier.org] legal defense team has been waiting year to get thousands of pages from FOIA requests [freepeltier.org] of FBI records.

                Falcon

  • This new glut of public information gave me an idea. Something similar to Distributed Proofreaders [pgdp.net] but for scrutinising government documents. Volunteer readers would look at a few scanned pages, marking the ones that would be of broad interest, and then the most interesting get compiled into a list.

    If only there were 25 hours in a day.

  • ...does it mean the reports are GPL'ed? We should ask Stallman to check this!
  • The chance to read thousands of pages of undigested government reports? I can't wait! Maybe just as soon as I've finished reading all my phone books.
  • There are numerous program policy and accountability agencies at the state level that create similar reports for lawmakers (and the public alike). OPPAGA [state.fl.us], the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, is one such example. I worked there for three years, and can safely say these folks are the most smart, objective folks around when it comes to issues that matter to state government. Almost all of their reports are available online in PDF format.
  • The Freedom of Information Act is one of the better laws the US has. All information produced by the USG belongs to its citizens (who paid for it), FOIA dictates that it must be shared unless a fairly narrow set of criteria is met.

    Unfortunately, FOIA does not apply to the legislative branch, as Congress apparently saw fit to exempt themselves from it. I could entertain an argument that FOIA is not appropriate for Congress, however, it is difficult to recouncile the values codified in FOIA with not making
  • this has the same acronym as the condition Can't Remember Sh*t which is something I often think most members of congress are afflicted with, but then so many don't read these research reports and their staffers are given to spinning the overview to their bosses to suit their bosses' point of view (frequently that Cranio-Rectal Syndrome mentioned already which is also funny).

    Now, instead of the ratio of external readers to congressmen being 10 to 1, it will be more like 1,000 to 1 which is sad given that
  • "the National Commission on Terrorism (NTC), a congressionally mandated bi-partisan body, issued a report providing a blueprint for U.S. counterterrorism policy with both policy and legislative recommendations. The report could be significant in shaping the direction of U.S. policy and the debate in Congress. It generally argues for a more aggressive U.S. strategy in combating terrorism. Critics, however, argue that NTC conclusions and recommendations ignore competing U.S. goals and interests; i.e that a pr
  • RL30274
    Medical Use of Marijuana: Policy and Regulatory Issues
    March 01, 2002

    Look up this article. You will find it's a historical listing of women in the congress. Also the pdf download is corrupted. I wonder if they are hiding anything.

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