Known as the so-called “brain of Congress,” the Congressional Research Service (CRS) is being denied access to the thousands of State Department cables illegally released by WikiLeaks. As an arm of the Library of Congress, CRS is unable to review the documents because the library’s computers have been blocked from accessing the WikiLeaks website.

 

Several current and former CRS analysts interviewed by Secrecy News questioned the move. Some understood that as a federal office, CRS should not be “aiding and abetting this illegal dissemination” by WikiLeaks. But at the same time, the documents are on the Web for anyone to read, which forces CRS analysts to read the materials at home. But they are unable to directly cite the information in their reports without getting into trouble.

 

It’s been pointed out that the effort to keep federal workers from reading the classified materials originated from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the Executive Branch. But the Library of Congress is part of the legislative branch. Also, OMB’s decree merely warned federal employees about the illegality of reading the documents—it did not call for a ban on accessing them. So the library’s move exceeds the orders of the OMB.

 

Back in February 2009, it was WikiLeaks that published 6,780 CRS reports when they were not available to the general public.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

Blocking Access to Wikileaks May Harm CRS, Analysts Say (by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News)

Wikileaks Publishes 6,780 Congressional Research Reports AllGov}