|
09/03/2005
Report:
Government secrecy expands and grows more costly
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) _ The government is withholding more information
than ever from the public and expanding ways of shrouding
data. Last year, federal agencies spent a record $148 creating
and storing new secrets for each $1 spent declassifying old
secrets, a coalition of watchdog groups reported Saturday.
That's a $28 jump from 2003 when $120 was spent to keep secrets
for every $1 spent revealing them. In the late 1990s, the
ratio was $15-$17 a year to $1, according to the secrecy report
card by OpenTheGovernment.org.
Overall, the government spent $7.2 billion in 2004 stamping
15.6 million documents "top secret," "secret"
or "confidential." That almost doubled the 8.6 million
new documents classified as recently as 2001.
Last year, the number of pages declassified declined for
the fourth straight year to 28.4 million. In 2001, 100 million
pages were declassified; the record was 204 million pages
in 1997.
These figures cover 41 federal agencies, excluding the CIA,
whose classification totals are secret.
"These numbers show we are going in the wrong direction,"
said Rick Blum, author of the report and director of the coalition
of consumer, environmental, labor, journalism and library
groups.
The report also noted the growing use of secret searches,
court secrecy, closed meetings by government advisory groups
and patents kept from public view.
"The 9-11 Commission pointed out that too much secrecy
can make us less safe from terrorists, and the inadequate
response to Hurricane Katrina shows the public needs to know
what could happen in their communities and what the response
plans are," said Blum. He said a new law outside the
classification system shrouds "sensitive homeland security
information" about infrastructure vulnerabilities and
plans.
"Public engagement in helping fight terrorism or addressing
public health risks is the biggest single advantage American
society has," Blum said.
The numbers do not solely reflect overclassification, said
J. William Leonard, director of the National Archives' Information
Security Oversight Office, which monitors classification.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "many agencies have
gone to 24/7 operations, others have increased their intelligence
product, and the military is fighting two wars. You can't
do that without producing more classified, and unclassified,
information."
Leonard said classification costs rise as agencies share
secrets electronically. Yet, he said, "the great lesson
of 9-11 is that improper hoarding of information can cost
lives and harm national security."
The report identified 50 new restrictions in laws, regulations
or "mere assertions by government officials" that
keep unclassified information from the public. Some are needed
to protect privacy or trade secrets, the report said, but
"such unchecked secrecy threatens accountability in government."
These include labels like "limited official use,"
"critical infrastructure information" and "operations
security protected."
"The volume and impact of these pseudo-classifications
is growing," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman
of the House national security subcommittee, and "inhibits
the free flow of critical information."
Leonard said, "No one individual in government can
identify all the controlled, unclassified (markings), let
alone describe their rules."
Blum said he was encouraged by emergence in the last year
of "a vocal chorus pushing back against secrecy."
He cited a bipartisan bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information
Act and efforts like the Sunshine in Government Initiative,
organized by The Associated Press and seven organizations
interested in journalism.
___
On the Net:
The report: http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/SRC2005_embargoed.pdf
|
