Answer about NSA spying and Congressional testimony

1. How are written statements entered into the government record? Who enters them? Who catalogs them?

There are basically two areas where written statements are entered into the record: Committee hearings and proceedings of Congress. Both are collected and disseminated by the Government Printing Office (GPO) and made available from the GPO website. There are official reporters (like court reporters) at all hearings and while Congress is in session. There are rules and procedures for this, but as with everything governmental, rules are not set in stone and traditions are in place that sometimes allow for the circumvention of the rules.

Hearings: Hearings are held in the various Congressional committees in order to gather background information for proposed legislation or to perform oversight investigations for any number of reasons. Committees ask experts, govt officials, scholars, and/or special interest groups to deliver written statements and answer questions. Testimony is transcribed verbatim, reviewed, compiled and edited by committee staff and sent to GPO for dissemination. Members and witnesses are traditionally allowed to correct their grammar and syntax, called "smoothing." Be aware that off-the-record statements are excluded from the transcription and testimony on confidential matters discussed in closed sessions are noted but not divulged. Supplementary (and often copyrighted) material may be inserted into the record. In addition, some hearings are never published.

To access hearings:

--GPO Congressional Hearings site, 104th Congress (1995-96). This is a free service.

--Published hearings are collected at many libraries in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Locate your nearest depository library. Hearings before 1995 are in paper, microfiche and/or microfilm. NOTE: Anyone can enter a depository library to access government publications, EVEN IF that library is generally closed to the public. So, for example, anyone can go into NYU's library IF they tell the gatekeeper that they need to access government publications.

--LexisNexis (available in many libraries) is a valuable online tool for searching through hearings, including name search for committee witnesses, and historical searches back to 1789 (index only, not full-text. Gotta go to the library to get the material!). LexisNexis (and other library tools) also give access the index of unpublished hearings.

Congressional Record:

The Congressional Record is the supposedly verbatim account of Congressional proceedings on the floors of the Senate and House of Representatives transcribed by Congressional reporters (like court reporters). I say "supposedly" because historically, the Congressional Record has legally been changed. Under the guise of correcting transcription errors grammar or other mistakes, legislators have changed, omitted, or added remarks. Speakers have changed the meaning of their words (i.e., "I vote against this measure." To "I vote FOR this measure."); they've withdrawn remarks that were actually spoken; and they've inserted remarks when they didn't actually say anything. The most famous occurrence of this is when Louisiana Representative Hale Boggs made a "speech" before Congress on October 18, 1972, two days AFTER he died in a plane crash!

Access to the Congressional Record:

--Thomas, Library of Congress (101st Congress, 1989 — present) (Free)

--GPO Congressional Record site (1994 — present) (Free)

--LexisNexis (Accessible at many libraries)

2. Are there often times when something like this happens, where there are, as FAS notes on its website "The version of this Statement that was published by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence does not include several key paragraphs of Mr. Baker's discussion of Senator DeWine's bill S. 2659 that are presented below. The reason for this discrepancy is currently unknown, but it appears that two versions of the Statement were prepared and circulated at the July 31, 2002 hearing. --Steven Aftergood" Are there usually TWO statements circulated at a hearing?

The short answer is no.

Senate Rules state:

Committee Procedure
(e) Each committee shall prepare and keep a complete transcript or electronic recording adequate to fully record the proceeding of each meeting or conference whether or not such meeting or any part thereof is closed under this paragraph, unless a majority of its members vote to forgo such a record. (Source)

Seems like the Senate has a lot of leeway in transcripts. Certainly more than the House.

Despite these rules, and as stated above, discrepancies DO arise, and they arise more often than the public generally understands. However, the fact that they DO happen does not necessarily mean that some illegal activity occurred. In hearings, the discrepancy could be the difference between spoken testimony and written testimony, it could be a mistaken transcription from committee staff (who hasn't been to a meeting or conference where the transcription service has made sometimes hilarious mistakes?!) or could arise from reporters mistaking or misrepresenting something said in the hearing — any of these examples could be explained away as either a simple mistake or a nefarious attempt to skew or change the debate. As you can see from the information above, the fact that there are two written testimonies is not a weird glitch, but I doubt whether we can ever know for sure if this instance of discrepancy in the written record is a deliberate attempt at confusion and subterfuge — that is unless there is an investigation or impeachment proceedings where the truth is teased out by the special counsel during sworn testimony.