Wikileaks going great guns
From Russ Kick at The Memory Hole:
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 the financial collapse. 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.
They’ve added all those reports to the Open CRS system, which should mean that they’re now searchable at that site.
Also note this post at The Memory Hole:
This afternoon the Pentagon posted several new documents released due to Freedom of Information Act requests:
- Detainees: Incident Reports of Detainee on Detainee Assaults at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Release Date: February 2009 (22 MB) (Posted 11 Feb 09)
- Global War on Terrorism: Memo from USD-P Douglas Feith to Director, DIA, dated Feb 2, 2002, “Request for Support” (7 MB) (Posted 11 Feb 09)
- Global War on Terrorism: DoD Answers to The New Yorker Magazine (7 MB) (Posted 11 Feb 09)
- Detainees: Sampling of Mass Disturbance Incident Reports from NOV 8, 2005 through DEC 2, 2007. Release Date: January 2009 (7 MB) (Posted 11 Feb 09)
- Detainees: List of Mass Disturbances at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from NOV 8, 2005 through DEC 2, 2007. Release Date: January 2009 (10 MB) (Posted 11 Feb 09)
- Detainees: Documents relating to Australian and British citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Release Date: January 2009 (Posted 11 Feb 09)
And another—as you can see, The Memory Hole is an invaluable resource for researchers.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has issued a major new report, “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience” (available here).
CNN reports:
The report says the U.S. government “had neither the established structure nor the necessary resources to carry out the reconstruction mission it took on in mid-2003.”
It weaves interviews, facts and vignettes detailing the use of a “sea of taxpayer dollars” from mid-2002 through autumn 2008.
“Hard Lessons” also looks to the future. It stresses the importance of developing “an agreed-upon doctrine and structure” for reconstruction “so that the United States is ready when it next must intervene in a failed or failing state.” …
“The overuse of cost-plus contracts, high contractor overhead expenses, excessive contractor award fees, and unacceptable program and project delays all contributed to a significant waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” the report said.
One more: Searchable Supreme & federal appellate cases online for free.
