Presidential Libraries: The Federal System and Related Legislation, by Harold C. Relyea, updated November 26, 2008, Order Code RS20825. (PDF, 6 pp).

Thanks to FAS.

Now that a new administration will be coming into office soon, it is more important than ever to encourage our Government to make Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports publicly accessible online. Here at FGI, the topic of CRS Reports has been written about often, but I was inspired to create this blog post and take action after seeing Starr Hoffman’s DLC conference presentation last week (click on "Search Document" and enter "Starr Hoffman". Her PowerPoint, "Encouraging An Informed Citizenry" will come up as a PDF to download).

Starr is responsible for maintaining University of North Texas's Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports Archive. In her presentation, she gives tips for writing to Congressmen and lists some past legislative efforts (Bills that never passed both houses of Congress) to make CRS Reports publicly accessible. I have gathered some other Bills, as well as all the contact information for the sponsoring Congressmen and have included them in my Delicious.com "CRS" tag as well as in this list:

1998 H.R. 3131, S. 1578
1999 H.R. 654, S. 393
2000 H.R. 4582
2001 S. Res. 21
2003 H.R. 3630, S. Res. 54
2007 H.R. 2545, S. Res. 401

Senator John McCain
Introduced S. 1578, S. 393, S.Res. 21, S. Res. 54, & co-sponsored S. Res. 401
Senator Mike Enzi
Co-sponsored S. 393
Senator Leahy
Co-sponsored S. 393, S. Res. 21, S. Res. 54, and S. Res. 401.
Senator Tom Coburn
H.R. 4582 co-sponsor when he was in the House.
Senator Jim DeMint
Introduced H.R. 4582 when he was in the House.
Senator Joe Lieberman
Introduced S. Res. 401 and co-sponsored S. Res. 21 and S. Res. 54
Senator Tom Harkin
Co-sponsored S. Res. 54 and S. Res. 401
Senator Susan M. Collins
Co-sponsored S. Res. 401
Senator John Cornyn
Co-sponsored S. Res. 401

Congressman David Price
Co-sponsor for H.R. 3131, H.R. 654, H.R. 3630, and H.R. 2545
Congressman Christopher Shays
Introduced H.R. 3131, H.R. 654, H.R. 3630, and H.R. 2545
Congressman John Campbell
Co-sponsored H.R. 654
Congressman Tom Tancredo
Co-sponsored H.R. 4582
Congressman Jay Inslee
Co-sponsored H.R. 3630 and H.R. 2545

And you can find and contact your local Senator and your Representatives too.

James A. Jacobs did a Google search this past June for "Received through the CRS Web" OR "CRS Report for Congress" combined with site:house.gov and then again for site:senate.gov and got around 600 hits with each. For example, here are some domains he found that you can search within for CRS Reports or to search for those in Congress who may support public access to CRS Reports: bartlett.house.gov, holt.house.gov, radanovich.house.gov, weldon.house.gov, bennelson.senate.gov, carper.senate.gov, lugar.senate.gov, murray.senate.gov, etc.

For more information on CRS Report legislation efforts, visit this site which contains a "Campaign for Online Access" section.

Spread the word about this post and good luck in writing to your Congressmen! If you have other ideas, please share them in the comments.

This is a presentation by Stephen Schultze, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard on the topic "Open Access to Government Documents." He focuses on CRS reports, Oregon State Codes, and PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). The presentation is available as streaming video, downloadable video, and as a downloadable audio-only MP3 file.

• Open Access to Government Documents, Berkman Center. October 13, 2008.

In the past twenty years, a remarkable number of government documents have been put online. In some cases, these documents are made easily and freely accessible. In others, technology has failed to overcome barriers or even created new barriers to access. One particular subset of documents -- opinions, dockets, and the full public record in federal court cases -- remain behind a pay wall. Although the U.S. Government cannot hold copyright in documents it creates, it has for a long time long charged for the cost of creating and maintaining these documents. While the courts understandably seek to pay for the services they provide, this talk will argue that there is an alternative path in which the public benefits far outweigh the costs. Stephen Schultze makes a dynamic case for free access to government documents, in honor of Open Access Day 2008.

Produced 13 Oct 2008

Steven Aftergood (of the Federation of American Scientists and Secrecy News) has long been working on the issue of releasing Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports out to the public. In fact, for many years, he's posted them on his site in spite of the fact that the federal government refuses to publish and distribute CRS reports to federal depository libraries and the public.

In a post a couple of weeks ago (yes I'm behind!) entitled, "CRS Reports Are Still Out of Bounds," Aftergood highlighted exactly why CRS reports are so important and why they need to be accessible (go to the story for live links to the reports mentioned):

When a military judge ruled last month that Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, could be tried for war crimes, the first footnote in his July 14 opinion (pdf) was to a Congressional Research Service report. (Hamdan was convicted yesterday for material support of terrorism.)

But Military Judge Keith J. Allred, lacking an official source for the CRS analysis by Jennifer K. Elsea (with which he ultimately differed), provided a link instead (see footnote 1 on page 3) to a copy of the document on the Federation of American Scientists web site.

By doing so, the Judge simultaneously highlighted the centrality of such CRS analyses to public discourse and the strange fact that these official documents are still not approved for direct release to the public.

Perhaps he also implicitly affirmed that FAS and other public interest publishers of CRS collections are helping to compensate for that continuing policy defect by providing the online access to CRS reports that Congress has denied.

Way to go Steven Aftergood and Secrecy News!!

And on the shameless plug side of things, I’ve begun harvesting sites that post digital CRS reports (including FAS) and making them searchable and accessible at the Internet Archive. Please check out the site and let me know if there are other sites that I’ve missed (jrjacobs AT stanford DOT edu).

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek, has published a "lost chapter" from the 1993 Iran-Contra report:

• Launching the Private Network an 84-page draft, plus a CRS study on "Public Diplomacy, Project Democracy and Contra Aid" (attached as an Appendix). (PDF, 3.4 Mb, 104pp).

For background and Parry's report on this chapter, see: Iran-Contra's 'Lost Chapter' By Robert Parry, Consortium News, June 30, 2008.

[T]he Iran-Contra scandal's "lost chapter" is a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan's administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.

For a copy of the document, National Security Decision Directive NSDD-77, "Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security," January 14, 1983, which is mentioned in the chapter, and other related documents, see: Rumsfeld's Roadmap to Propaganda, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 177. January 26, 2006.

Volume 1 of the three volume Final Report Of The Independent Counsel For Iran/Contra Matters is available online here from the Federation of American Scientists, and here from the Federal Bulletin Board, and here from permanent.access.gpo.gov.

OpenCRS has posted another list of "fugitive" Congressional Research Service reports -- reports that are not yet openly available and online. They ask for your help by requesting them from your members of Congress and then uploading them to the OpenCRS.

Check out the list and request one that matches the needs of your own library and upload it today!

There is even a facebook group for OpenCRS.

Here is an update on Senator Lieberman's Congressional Research Service bill, S.Res. 401. and a comment on it:

Senator pushes alternative to full CRS report access, By Dan Friedman, Government Executive, March 28, 2008.

The story says:

After consultations among committee aides, CRS and others, a prototype will be rolled out "very soon," according to a CRS spokeswoman and Gantman. The plan aims to balance public needs and the views of "a significant number of members" who oppose Lieberman's bill due to their belief some CRS reports should remain confidential, Gantman said.

But this approach would disappoint government transparency advocates who say all taxpayer-funded reports should be publicly available. "They should simply move on the Lieberman proposal or something like it and get on with their job," said Stephen Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.

CRS Access Update, Speech or Debate Clause, by John Wonderlich, The Open House Project, April 3rd, 2008

John notes that reports of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) are published and searchable on the agencies’ Web sites and are syndicated in RSS and this hasn’t harmed their effectiveness or perceived objectivity at all.

The Congressional Research Service has issued a report entitled (45 page pdf) Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2007, updated January 14, 2008 .  It reviews hundreds of instances in which the United States has sent military forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict to protect U.S. citizens or promote U.S. interests. The listed deployments vary in size and length, legal authorization and significance. In eleven separate cases listed in bold-face type the U.S. formally declared war against foreign nations; but for most the status of the action under domestic or international law hasn't been addressed.  A sample entry:

"1798-1800      Undeclared  Naval  War  with  France.    This  contest  included  land actions, such as that in the Dominican Republic, city of Puerto Plata, where marines captured a French privateer under the guns of the forts. Congress authorized military action through a series of statutes.
1801-05          Tripoli.   The   First   Barbary   War   included   the U.S.S. George Washington and Philadelphia affairs and the Eaton expedition, during which a few marines landed with United States Agent William Eaton to raise a force against Tripoli in an effort to free the crew of the Philadelphia.    Tripoli  declared  war  but  not  the  United  States, although Congress authorized U.S. military action by statute."

This hearing should be of professional interest to government information specialists!

• Hearing, U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. E-Government 2.0: Improving Innovation, Collaboration, and Access 12/11/07 10:00 AM (EST). [The hearing was broadcast live and will be available for viewing later here.]

In pre-hearing news coverage (Web Leaders Seek More Searchable Government, by Kim Hart, Washington Post, December 11, 2007; page D08), Hart quotes the witnesses as saying that, even though four out of five Web surfers use search engines to find information and bypass the agency's home page, basic government information often does not show up in results provided by search engines run by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com.

Witnesses Testimony is already available online as PDF documents:

• Karen S. Evans, Administrator, Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology , Office of Management and Budget
• John Lewis Needham, Manager, Public Sector Content Partnerships , Google, Inc.
• Ari Schwartz, Deputy Director , Center for Democracy and Technology
• Jimmy Wales, Founder , Wikipedia

The purpose of the hearing is to examine what progress the government has made in getting services and information online and available to the public; what new technologies can be used to enhance the government's ability to collaborate and share information; and what challenges remain five years since the passage of the E-Government Act.

In addition, Senator Lieberman will be announcing at the hearing that he'll be introducing legislation to make CRS reports available to the public, and an initiative to enhance the availability and format of legislative information through THOMAS.

We've written about how secret Senate holds have blocked transparency legislation that had wide bipartisan support. Last month the Congressional Research Service came out with this report on the subject of holds:

RL34255
Senate Policy on "Holds": Action in the 110th Congress
November 20, 2007

"When the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (S. 1, 110th Congress) was signed into law on September 14, 2007, Section 512 of that statute specifically addressed the issue of secret "holds." Holds are a longstanding custom of the Senate that enabled Members to provide notice to their party leader of their intent to object on the floor to taking up or passing a measure or matter. Their potency as a blocking, delaying, or bargaining device is linked to Senators' ability to conduct filibusters or object to unanimous consent agreements or requests. The new holds process outlined in Section 512 is designed to constrain the frequency of anonymous holds and promote more openness and transparency with respect to their use. Ultimately, it is up to the majority leader of the Senate -- who sets the chamber's agenda after consulting various people -- to decide whether, or for how long, he will honor a colleague's hold. This report will be updated if circumstances warrant a revision."

--------------------------------

So the next time there is a secret hold, the main chap to complain to will be:

Reid, Harry- (D - NV)   
528 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3542
Web Form: reid.senate.gov/contact/email_form.cfm

--------------------------------

Thanks to the Open CRS project at http://opencrs.com for getting ahold of this report and making it available to the public. Their work is very important because Congress has prevented its research arm from making CRS reports available to the public, even though they are in the public domain and unclassified. Most of the arguments we've heard not releasing CRS reports apply equally well to the Government Accountability Office, which has released all of its non-classified information products for many years.

The Congressional Research Service is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress and solely serves Congress as a source of nonpartisan, objective analysis and research on all legislative issues. Through the Congress, the National Agricultural Law Center is periodically receiving CRS reports related to agriculture and food issues. New and updated reports will be posted here as they are obtained: www.nationalaglawcenter.org/crs/

Thanks to our friends at the Open House Project and Open CRS, we can bring the Congressional Research Service summary of GPO's FY 2008 budget request contained in the report:

RL34031
Legislative Branch: FY2008 Appropriations
June 05, 2007

Government Printing Office (GPO). The agency’s FY2008 request of $181.98 million represents a 49% increase over the $122.1 million made available for FY2007. GPO’s budget authority is  contained in three accounts: (1) congressional printing and binding, (2) Office of Superintendent of Documents (salaries and expenses), and (3) the revolving fund. FY2008 requests for these accounts are ! congressional printing and binding — $109.5 million;  Office of Superintendent of Documents (salaries and expenses) — $45.6 million; and  revolving fund — $26.8 million.

The congressional printing and binding account pays for expenses of printing and binding required for congressional use, and for statutorily authorized printing, binding, and distribution of government publications for specified recipients at no charge. Included within these publications are the  Congressional Record; Congressional Directory; Senate and House Journals; memorial addresses of Members; nominations; U.S. Code and supplements; serial sets; publications printed without a document or report number, for example, laws and treaties; envelopes provided to Members of Congress for the mailing of documents; House and Senate business and committee calendars; bills, resolutions, and amendments; committee reports and prints; hearings; and other documents.

The Office of Superintendent of Documents account funds the mailing of government documents for Members of Congress and federal agencies, as statutorily authorized; the compilation of catalogs and indexes of government publications; and the cataloging, indexing, and distribution of government publications to the Federal Depository and International Exchange libraries, and to other individuals and entities, as authorized by law.

GPO requested $26.8 million for its revolving fund to support the agency’s acquisition of information technology infrastructure and security enhancements, workforce retraining and restructuring efforts, and facilities maintenance and repairs. This is an increase of $25.8 million over the $1 million provided in FY2007. Of the requested amount, $10.5 million was proposed for the completion of the development of GPO’s Future Digital System, while $9.4 million would cover the replacement of a 30-year-old automated composition system.20

Highlights of House and Senate Hearings on FY2008 Budget of the GPO.

Acting Public Printer William H. Turri, in his written testimony, discussed recent efforts to transform GPO’s operations for the digital age.21 GPO’s production of U.S. passports to meet new standards and increased demand has also been of
interest to appropriators.

20 Testimony of William H. Turri, Acting Public Printer of the United States, U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, Legislative Branch Appropriations for 2008, hearings, 110th Cong., 1st sess., March 16, 2007 (not yet published).

We at FGI would welcome any comments that GPO staff would want to post here, along with any other interested party's comments.

Ari Schwartz reports on the Open House Project mailing list some good news from OpenCRS.com about CRS reports and an opportunity to help.

He says that OpenCRS has gotten 76 of 100 new reports from the past 6 weeks.

Follow the link below to the complete email that has a list of the fugitives, pick a report that sounds interesting, call up one of your representatives offices in DC, ask them to email you a pdf of the report, and post it at http://www.opencrs.com/addreport.php

Fugitive CRS Reports by Ari Schwartz, Open House Project mailing list Aug 21, 2007

The Open House Project (OHP) has started a new thread called CRS Tuesdays. It's not quite Mardi Gras, but throw in a little gumbo, and this thread is just as fun :-)

This week, OHP has posted PDFs of the following:

• Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security (updated June 20, 2007)
• Post-War Iraq: Foreign Contributions to Training, Peacekeeping, and Reconstruction
• Foreign Science and Engineering Presence in U.S. Institutions and the Labor Force
• Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE): A Comparison of Selected Legislation in the 110th Congress
• And in honor of the 10 year anniversary of Internet free speech, there's Internet Search Engines: Copyright’s “Fair Use” in Reproduction and Public Display Rights

And as an aside, the OHP is really doing good work. Their site is worth a daily, or at least weekly, visit. We've added them to the FGI aggregator In Other News so make sure you visit. Just in the last week, they've posted about CRS reports, Politics is Architecture, George Miller taps Web2.0, and House Leg Branch Appropriations Review. Good stuff indeed!

I just became aware of a handy feature of the University of North Texas' collection of Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports. You can create RSS feeds of search results.

For example, here is a feed to CRS reports mentioning "government information"

http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/rss/?q=%22government+informat...

Once you have your RSS feed, you can plug it into your favorite application or into something like feed2js like this:

The only drawback is that neither UNT, Open CRS or any other public source of CRS reports is complete. As readers of FGI know, Congress has chosen to hold back these valuable reports. Thankfully groups like the Open House Project are trying to change this.