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

Where do I send my donations?

[drdanny_orig]

That's good work, folks. Keep it up.

Re:Where do I send my donations?

[nxsty]

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

There you go! :)

Sunshine

[TubeSteak]

Unreleased reports are the bane of a modern society.
Unfavorable medical studies get buries, Congressional reports that never see the light of day.
Hopefully this ray of sunshine will shake things up and give everyone something to complain about.

Re:Sunshine

[worthawholebean]

Watergate? If the offense is particularly egregious, getting it out in the open is usually enough to force change.

Re:Sunshine

[Eil]

Your staggering level of cynicism has been duly noted, but it doesn't change the fact that releasing these reports is beneficial for everyone even if every single person doesn't have an explicit interest in them. As a comparison, relatively few people actually ever utilize their 1st Amendment right to say unpopular things, but the fact that the right exists is invaluable.

And yes, I do wonder why studies sponsored by my tax dollars weren't publicly available to begin with.

Re:Sunshine

[TubeSteak]

A lot of people go on about government conspiracies but there is no reason for the government to do anything in secret because it can be done out in the open and most people won't take notice and if they do find out odds are they won't care enough to do anything about it.

Lets start with government conspiracies. Two examples: telecom spying and extraordinary renditions. The first was done secretly, but journalists knew long before they made it public. The second was done out in the open and a small group of private citizens tracked a fleet of secret CIA jets to a variety of international destinations (which proved hugely embarrassing to quite a few intermediate European countries).

Most people don't have to take notice, nor do they have to care enough to do anything about it.
All that matters is that all of the time, some part of the populace cares and is capable of making a good case why "most people" should too.

Saddening

[Seraphim_72]

It is saddening to have to have this "leaked". It should reside at something like www.Government.us/research/ :(

Re:Saddening

[Protonk]

Just a note, the (C) in CRS stands for "Congressional". It operates under legislation, not executive order, so changing its policies requires a little more than changing who is president.

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:Saddening

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

For all we know, this was "leaked" by someone in the administration who wanted to bypass the years of red type required to simply release the stuff...

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.

For the .01% of the people who would read it...

[Improv]

For the .01% of the people who would actually read stuff like this, this is fantastic. It's important that the public has access to this, and a shame that no suitable politician has decided to request all the reports and publish the whole lot (is there any reason this is not the case? Contact your representatives!).

For the rest of us, this is more in a long line of public information that we'll never read - more (potentially interesting but lost among the rest) documents are published by the military, various departments, etc, than we could shake a stick at, and it'd already be a fulltime job to even try to read everything in a field.

Re:For the .01% of the people who would read it...

[TubeSteak]

For the rest of us, this is more in a long line of public information that we'll never read - more (potentially interesting but lost among the rest) documents are published by the military, various departments, etc, than we could shake a stick at,

Think tanks, research groups, journalists, students, historians and a whole passle of other professions will find this stuff invaluable.

They have always provided a filter between raw material and the general public. I guarantee that these reports will immediately start getting cited in journals and newspaper articles. Best of all, we can read the primary source without having to pay the RAND Corporation or some other think tank $XYZ to get our hands on the document.

Re:For the .01% of the people who would read it...

[Protonk]

For the rest of us, this is more in a long line of public information that we'll never read - more (potentially interesting but lost among the rest) documents are published by the military, various departments, etc, than we could shake a stick at,

Think tanks, research groups, journalists, students, historians and a whole passle of other professions will find this stuff invaluable.

They have always provided a filter between raw material and the general public. I guarantee that these reports will immediately start getting cited in journals and newspaper articles. Best of all, we can read the primary source without having to pay the RAND Corporation or some other think tank $XYZ to get our hands on the document.

Most of the RAND studies commissioned by the government which are not classified are available free from their wesbite. Just search around or browse to the topic area that interests you.

Re:For the .01% of the people who would read it...

[mpe]

For the .01% of the people who would actually read stuff like this, this is fantastic. It's important that the public has access to this, and a shame that no suitable politician has decided to request all the reports and publish the whole lot (is there any reason this is not the case? Contact your representatives!).

The original article states that politicians are only motivated to release information that potentially helps them politically. There is very likely to be information which would be politically dangerous. e.g. information lobby groups do not want know. Anyway what's to say it wasn't a politician who gave the information to Wikileaks?

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.

If it embarrasses politicians, it should be leaked

[cabalamat3]

If research embarrasses some politicians, it should be leaked, because it suggests that reality is not in accordance with those politicians' beliefs, and that therefore those politicians may make wrong decisions.

If research embarrasses all the politicians in Congress, it's even more important that it be leaked.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. government is extremely corrupt.

Human beings are extremely corrupt.

There, fixed that for ya.

Kill all humans!

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

[mysticgoat]

All governments are corrupt. From nations down to neighborhood associations.

It is the nature of some men and women to seek power over others, and because of this driving need, they are more likely to end up in government positions than other persons who might be more qualified in all kinds of ways, but who are not attracted to power. It is also true that those who are ethically unencumbered are more likely to win the races they enter than anyone who tries to follow the rules. The end result is the old adage I first heard applied to the Chicago political machine of the 1960s:

A government does not have to be good, and rarely is. It only has to be good enough that the populace will tolerate it.

The US Constitution was built with this in mind. Its system of checks and balances are designed to keep the natural corruptive nature of politics reined in by making it very difficult for any one individual or group from obtaining across the board power. I think we could now design a better system, since we know a lot more now, and we have some neat technologies that were not available back in the day. But so long as what we've got is good enough, that's not going to happen.

Wikileaks has just raised the bar by shining light into some murky corners. Back room deals and cover-ups that used to be good enough are not good enough any longer... and that's a big win for the Nation.

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

[mpe]

The U.S. government is extremely corrupt.

Corruption is a fairly common attribute of government. Regardless of when and where in human history you look... Power can both corrupt and attract the corrupt/easily corruptable. What's actually more worrying is when people display such great faith that "their government" is immune to or free of corruption.

Why not under FOIA?

[eh2o]

Why wouldn't these reports be available under FOIA? Considering that its "nominally public domain" already, what exemption would it fall under to bar a request?

Re:Why not under FOIA?

[genner]

Why wouldn't these reports be available under FOIA? Considering that its "nominally public domain" already, what exemption would it fall under to bar a request?

You have to know they exist before you can file a FOIA request.

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."

Would Wikileaks publish a document about itself?

[patro]

Suppose someone sends a list to Wikileaks containing all the names of Wikileaks admins and the people behind it.

Would they publish it, so they can stay true to their values, even if this information could effectively mean the end of Wikileaks?

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!"

So, what's so interesting?

[ugen]

So now that these reports are "released", how many of you, slashdot readers that post in this thread, actually read at least 1 of them in its entirety? How many read 2? 5? Hands, anyone?

I did go to the site. I read 3 reports on a topic that interests me. What I found was a dry, relatively correct, summary of public and well known information. These reports are created so that each congressman (or whoever else may need them) does not have to read every single newspaper, web site or send his staff on a search of basic statistics. The information is not obtained in ways that are inaccessible to you and me, and reports do not seem to provide any particular insight not already available to those who follow the topic (for example I found nothing of interest in these reports, everything was well known to me, because I follow this topic on my own).

There are hundreds of thousands of reports like these prepared in each large (or small) organization on variety of themes. They are not specifically released because, frankly, it is pointless to do so. While some sort of a website with these reports would be a symbol of opennes, it would likely have very little practical applicability. The only people who need these reports are those who need information on topics that they don't personally care very much about (so they don't want to do their own research) but do need for whatever reason to know what's going on. That means:
1) politicians
2) students, in particular during midterms and finals :) :)

1st group has access anyway and 2nd could benefit from doing a bit of research on their own.

Feel free to rate this flamebait.

Re:So, what's so interesting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that you skimmed some reports, you can judge that they were harmless, and claim it's "pointless" to release them. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

I skimmed some too, and found them similarly dry, but had exactly the opposite reaction. I am upset that they have not been released earlier. $1,000,000,000 of taxpayers' money went to producing these reports. We paid for them and if they are not a matter of national security (in which case they should be classified), then we should have access to them.

If democracy is going to work, voters need as much information as possible when deciding whether or not to replace their leaders come election time. Therefore, open access to harmless material should be the rule, not the exception. Closed access should be used only when absolutely necessary. Anything else makes it too easy for bad leaders (incompetent or otherwise) to cover their tracks and maintain power undeservedly.

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who desire power tend to be the least deserving of 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.

available for cost from penny hill

[commodoresloat]

What's more, these documents were apparently already available for a fee from this company. All they're doing is (rightly, imho) making them available for free rather than forcing people to pay a publishing company for access to records that we supposedly already own.

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

[LanMan04]

We should draft random people to become politicians.

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

[Tubal-Cain]

And the geek shall inherit the Earth.

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

[syntaxglitch]

Don't forget the classic Douglas Adams quote!

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

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

[msouth]

We should draft random people to become politicians.

Ah, yes! Use force! Only by taking away freedom (the freedom not to be a politician) can we protect freedom!

That's my knee-jerk reaction, and it's like that for a reason--just about the only thing anyone ever proposes is more force. Forcing banks to lend money to people that wouldn't have qualified for loans under the bank's own rules, coupled with the creation (again, through force of federal law) things like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which gave institutions a place to unburden themselves of that debt, got us into the mess we have now. And the first thing people think (well, to give them credit, they did stop it the first time, but when the fear mongering set in, they caved) is "the government should do something". And when they say that, they mean "by force".

Every time you think of or hear of a possible government solution to a problem, ask yourself if this is just another scheme to try to use force to make things the way someone thinks they should be. Force is seductive--it looks so easy. End poverty! Take all the rich bastards' money and give it to the poor! Stop the horrors of drug addiction! Make drugs illegal! Prostitution is immoral! Make it illegal! Pornography {feminist: victimizes women!} {religious right:offends God!} It should be illegal!

The alternative is _so_ _much_ _more_ _work_! It staggers the mind to think of what it would take to teach, encourage, get people to choose to do the thing you think is right. Some of them might not ever do it. It would be _so_ _much_ _easier_ to just _make_ them! And that, basically, is what you get from the left and the right. A plan to force others to do things they way they think they should be done.

The thing is, the people that are in positions of power aren't the problem. It's the power that we have conceded to them. The constitution does not give the government the right to do 1/3rd (made that up, I bet it's actually smaller) of what it does. What we should do is work to reign government back to what the constitution says it is. Then you can fret less about who gets elected, because they will have less power to mess up your life.