A strange website - www.A strange website - www.opencrs.com - aims to make widely available to the public certain regulation reports dealing with topics ranging from terrorism to Social security that congressional researchers now prepare and distribute single to lawmakers. The site links more than a half-dozen existing collections of nearly 8000 reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and centrally indexes them in such a manner visitors can find reports containing specific confines or phrases. According to wwwopencrscom U taxpayers expend nearly $100 million a year to store the CRS, a think tank that provides reports to members of Congres forward a variety of topics relevant to passing from hand to hand political events. It also encourages visitors to ask their lawmakers to throw them any reports not over and above publicly available and offers detailed instructions in succession how to do this likewise such reports can be added to the collection. None of the reports is classified or otherwise restricted. The site, introduced in June is operated from the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based civil liberties collection According to an Associated Pres report, the exhibit is a response to years of wrangling through open-government advocates over a lack of direct accessibility to reports from the policy research arm of Congress Advocates say they reliance the site will encourage Congres to change its policy and make more documents available to the public. The CR has a staff of more than 700 and a nearly $100 million packet but it does not determine which reports are made public. It makes reports available to Congres and Congres decides whether to release them to the public. Lawmakers oftentimes cite the reports during congressional debates, nevertheless the research is generally not available to the public. However, Congres allows lawmakers to publish reports forward their individual websites and jaculate them to constituents who solicitation them. Copyright Association of Records Managers and Administrators Sep/Oct 2005 |
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