US State Dept. republished WikiLeaks document from Feb 2009

[katty]

more:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/state-department-republishes-document-wikileaks/

Is viewing and republishing documents from WikiLeaks illegal, or isn't it? Apparently not even the US State Department knows.

America's top diplomatic agency republished a document leaked by the secrets outlet, which the site revealed today via Twitter.

"State department republishes Wikileaks' doc," they wrote on their Twitter page. "Will they now try to sue themselves?"

The document (.pdf) is a congressional report on US trade policy in the Caribbean.

[struggle4progress]

1. If people want copies of various CRS documents, lots of folk collect them:

Congressional Research Service Reports
http://rules.house.gov/crs_reports.htm

Congressional Research Service <CRS> Reports
American taxpayers spend over $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports ... http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html

Featured Report Collections
http://opencrs.com/

CRS Reports
http://ncseonline.org/nle/crs/

Congressional Research Service
... Since 1952 Congress has stipulated that it alone be granted access to CRS studies, analysis, and research. CRS is precluded by this 1952 law “from general public distribution of its material without prior approval by one of its two congressional oversight committees.” ... http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congressional_Research_Service

So Congress, not the State Department, is the appropriate pressure point for folk who want greater availability of various CRS reports