Legal Research

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has sold off a good portion of the national heritage, documents that were generated with public money.  It entered into a deal with Thomson West to digitize the legislative histories prepared by the GAO between 1915 and 1995.  In return for allowing Thomson West to market the rights to mine this treasure trove of information, the GAO gets an account on Westlaw, and can visit its documents - after it's logged in, of course.  The public, that would be you and me, is invited to travel to the GAO office, conveniently located in Washington, DC, and pay the GAO 20 cents a page for paper copies.

The group Public.Resource.Org, which is dedicated to making public information more accessible to the public (check out their website at Public.Resource.Org), has proposed to the GAO that they enter into a joint venture which would digitize the documents for posting on their FREE website, allowing public access to public information.  What a concept!