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Congressional Research Service Reports Leaked
The U.S. Congressional Research Service provides reports at the request of lawmakers on about every issues Congress decides on.
The Federation of American Scientists has pressed to get these released as they are paid for with $100 million tax dollars per year and are thought to be of decent quality. At least they tell what congress might think about an issue. But except for a few that got leaked to Open CRS most of them so far were kept secret.
Today Wikileak published copies of 6,731 CRS reports spanning over several years and current up to this month.
If you want to know what the CRS teaches lawmakers about China's Holdings of U.S. Securities: Implications for the U.S. Economy, Income Inequality and the U.S. Tax System or Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa and a thousand other issues it is now all out there for everyone to read and assess.
The reports by date list is good starting point.
Have at it!
Speaking of cloudy things and things that SHOULD be in the open and in the public domain in a democratic society…
In His memo on government transparency, President Obama has stated that his Admin
“will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
From:
New Obama Orders on Transparency, FOIA Requests
—
These are the things that I keep harping incessantly on, the people within these systems close ranks, when threatened with exposure to how they run and defend their vested interests at all costs, often at detrimental costs to the tax payer, these Local, State, and Federal operations work in house and behind various fire walls of bureaucracy ;a closed or highly contained in house system.
‘compartmentalization models’ with regards to and how the MIC military structure has saturated every aspect of these operations. Further, they are systematic of a ‘total institution’. Take for example, this recent news, or I should say, news that SHOULD be news.
AP (Associated Press) is the world’s biggest independent news agency, with more than 4,000 employees worldwide.
The Pentagon is spending at least $4.7 billion this year on “influence operations” and has more than 27,000 employees devoted to this task.
AP CEO: Pentagon threatened to “ruin” him & AP
AP CEO: Bush Turned Military Into Propaganda Machine
JOHN HANNA | February 6, 2009 07:09 PM EST | AP
LAWRENCE, Kan. — The Bush administration turned the U.S. military into a global propaganda machine while imposing tough restrictions on journalists seeking to give the public truthful reports about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley said Friday.
Curley, speaking to journalists at the University of Kansas, said the news industry must immediately negotiate a new set of rules for covering war because “we are the only force out there to keep the government in check and to hold it accountable.”
Much like in Vietnam, “civilian policymakers and soldiers alike have cracked down on independent reporting from the battlefield” when the news has been unflattering, Curley said. “Top commanders have told me that if I stood and the AP stood by its journalistic principles, the AP and I would be ruined.” …
[…]
His remarks came a day after an AP investigation disclosed that the Pentagon is spending at least $4.7 billion this year on “influence operations” and has more than 27,000 employees devoted to such activities. At the same time, Curley said, the military has grown more aggressive in withholding information and hindering reporters. …
Answering questions from his audience of about 160 people, Curley said AP remains concerned about journalists’ detentions. He said most appear to occur when someone else, often a competitor, “trashes” the journalist.”There is a procedure that takes place which sounds an awful lot like torture to us,” Curley said. “If people agree to trash other people, they are freed. If they don’t immediately agree to trash other people, they are kept for some period of time _ two or three weeks _ and they are put through additional questioning.”
Repeat: that’s the head of the world’s biggest news agency speaking, so he can’t be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”.
Therefore, we can expect CNN, the BBC, the Washington Post and the NYT to make this headline news tomorrow, and for weeks to come.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 9 2009 3:44 utc | 5
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