Wikileaks Publishes $1B of Public Domain Research Reports

laird writes "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 1990. 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. 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."

Comments

Re:The U.S. government is extremely corrupt.

[Ethanol-fueled]

I actually went though and read a few at random, and there's nothing super-secret there.

The documents are actually reassuring because they state that people are aware that things are wrong. Among the few I briefly scanned are paraphrased thusly: "Oil companies are fixing prices and US law should render oil cartels illegal", "CEO's make way too much damn money, even as their companies are being run into the ground", etc.

Again, the documents are basically admissions that our country is fucked up. Disclaimer: I haven't scanned all of them, and I hope that the discussion turns up interesting facts.

Re:Where do I send my donations?

[nxsty]

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:Donate

There you go! :)

Re:Saddening

[the eric conspiracy]

One of the Changes was greater transparency. (cough)

What is it with the readers on Slashdot? A couple of weeks in office and Obama has already loosened several regulations and policies pertaining to transparency, including.

1. The Ashcroft directive to automatically deny FOIA applications.
2. Made changes to the Presidential Records Act.
3. Started work on an Open Government Directive.

Also as a Senator Obama has been instrumental in legislation fostering transpaency.

http://www.propublica.org/article/obama-begins-rollback-of-bush-era-secrecy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Funding_Accountability_and_Transparency_Act_of_2006

All you have done is revealed your complete lack of knowledge on the topic.

Maybe you should see a doctor for that cough.

Re:Why not under FOIA?

[YourExperiment]

Why wouldn't these reports be available under FOIA?

FTFA:

"The CRS, as a branch of Congress, is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act."

I'd go further

[MoellerPlesset2]

Having looked through some as well, I'd take it a step further.

I don't think there's anything secret in there at ALL.
It's just simple, journalistic-style research and analysis, with information entirely from public sources.

I don't think you're going to find any buried scandals here. At all. You'd probably get more from reading a
good selection of newspapers. Journalists tend to have inside sources, after all.

The worst I could imagine from what I've seen is stuff like "Congressman so-and-so said he didn't know about X..
but he should have if he'd read Congress' own report on it!"

Let's start with these

[sTeF]

Computer Software and Open Source Issues: A Primer, December 17, 2003

The use of open source software by the federal government has been gaining attention as organizations continue to search for opportunities to enhance their information technology operations while containing costs. For the federal government and Congress, the debate over the use of open source software intersects several other issues, including, but not limited to, the development of homeland security and e-government initiatives, improving government information technology management practices, strengthening computer security, and protecting intellectual property rights. Currently, the debate over open source software often revolves primarily around information security and intellectual property rights. However, issues related to cost and quality are often raised as well.

Intellectual Property, Computer Software and the Open Source Movement, March 11, 2004

This report considers the impact of intellectual property rights upon open source software. It provides an introduction to the open source movement in the software industry. It reviews the intellectual property laws, including copyrights, patents, and trade secrets. After identifying issues of interface between open source software and the intellectual property laws, the report concludes with a discussion of possible legislative issues and approaches.

Telecommunications Japans Telecommunications Deregulation: NTTs Access Fees and Worldwide Expansion, August 9, 2000

The United States and Japan are negotiating over Japan's costly rates for telecommunications companies to hook into the telephone network owned by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company (NTT), Japan's dominant provider of telecom services. The U.S. has argued for a 41 percent cut in the rates, while Japan has insisted on a 22 percent cut. NTT also is attempting to acquire Verio, an Internet service provider in the United States.

Telecommunications Act: Competition, Innovation, and Reform, June 7, 2007

Both houses of Congress have begun debating how to modify the 1996 Act, most of which resides within the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. That debate focuses on how to foster investment, innovation and competition in both the physical broadband network and in the applications that ride over that network while also meeting the many non-economic objectives of U.S. telecommunications policy: universal service, homeland security, public safety, diversity of voices, localism, consumer protection, etc.

Patent-related The Obviousness Standard in Patent Law: KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., May 31, 2007

The Patent Act provides protection for processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter that are useful, novel, and nonobvious. Of these three statutory requirements, the nonobviousness of an invention is often the most difficult to establish. To help courts and patent examiners make the determination, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit developed a test called "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" (TSM). This test provided that a patent claim is only proved obvious if

not really anonymous

[commodoresloat]

Their Advisory Board is hardly anonymous, and of course they have a bunch of Contact information that would lead you to owners of domains. I don't know how anonymous Wikileaks is overall; it looks more distributed to me.

Re:Saddening

[tsm_sf]

Threatening the UK with withdrawing intelligence cooperation if the UK government hands evidence in a torture case to the courts.

Actually what happened here is that the UK government is concerned that the US might withdraw cooperation if the evidence makes it to court. There hasn't been word one from the US on this, let alone a statement or directive from the Prez. I'm not saying that the concern isn't legitimate, but to say that Obama has threatened to withhold intelligence is simply false.

As usual, The Economist has a good article on the matter.

Re:So, what's so interesting?

[commodoresloat]

It is not "pointless" to release such reports -- they show the results specifically of an organization's investigation into a topic. Not just a source of info about the topic but also a source of info about what the organization considered and concluded on that topic. Very important for an organization that is supposed to be accountable to the people, such as Congress. These CRS reports used to be (and should be again) released by the GPO in hardcopy. CRS lobbied against bills that would have required them to be published over the internet.