The letter speaks to the accessibility of these valuable public policy (and public domain) documents, which are prepared by the Congressional Research Service for the members and staff of the U.S. Congress. While U.S. taxpayers spend nearly $100 million to fund the CRS, Congress does not disseminate the reports in any systematic way, and no comprehensive list of these reports is even publicly available from which to request reports.
I know it’s not lost on most of you that this is a movie we’ve seen before (or, rather, we see time and time again). It’s time to remove the barriers to access and paywalls we see that surround all public domain legal and government materials.
Resources
Several libraries and other open government organizations are committed to providing free and open access to CRS Reports. Below are a few to check out if you’re interested in reviewing these reports or, if you have actually obtained a report as a result of a request to a member of Congress, you can upload them as well.
opencrs – Access and upload CRS reports here.
University of North Texas Digital Library – CRS Reports Collection
National Council for Science and the Environment – Access to CRS Reports related to the environment and other related topics.
U.S. Department of State – CRS Reports and issues briefs.
Thurgood Marshall Law Library (University of Maryland College of Law) – CRS Reports on homeland security/terrorism and health law & policy.
Federation of American Scientists – CRS Reports on national security, foreign policy and related topics.
Update: @freegovinfo also made note of the following source (thanks!):