Open Government Advocates Urge the Senate to Improve Public Access to CRS Reports

Over 40 organizations and advocates concerned with government transparency signed on to a letter asking the Senate Rules Committee to hold public hearings on open government issues and to mark-up and pass a resolution by Senator Lieberman (I-CT), S.R. 118, that would improve public access to reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The breadth of organizations supporting the letter, which was organized by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and OpenTheGovernment.org, reflects the importance of public access to CRS reports.

American taxpayers spend over $100 million a year to fund the CRS, which generates detailed reports relevant to current political events for lawmakers. But while the reports are non-classified, and play a critical role in our legislative process, they have never been made available in a consistent and official way to members of the public. A recent report by OpenTheGovernment.org and CDT, ” Show Us the Data: Most Wanted Federal Documents” identified CRS reports as the number one most desired government document by the public. This report has been issued three times in the past 10 years, with CRS reports in the top 10 each time.

Source: OpenTheGovernment.org

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 and is filed under Access to Information, Government Documents and Political Information, Search News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.