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09/06/06
Report: Government
secrecy dips but still near all-time highs
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal officials unsealed more classified
documents in 2005 but shrouded data elsewhere by claiming
more legal privileges in court, a coalition of watchdog groups
reported Sept. 2.
The study by OpenTheGovernment.org shows modest improvement
from record 2004 levels in which Americans were kept in the
dark about information they should be able to access. Overall
government secrecy remained high compared to previous years,
it said.
Federal agencies spent $134 creating and storing new secrets
for each $1 spent to declassify old secrets. That's down from
the record $148 in 2004, but up from the $17-to-$1 ratio spent
in 2000.
Overall, the number of pages declassified in 2005 was 29.5
million, up 1.1 million from the previous year, to post the
first increase in five years. Still, the figure was significantly
lower than the 75 million documents unsealed in 2000, the
year before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The government stamped 14.2 million documents "top secret,"
"secret" or "confidential" at a cost of
$7.7 billion, compared with a record 15.6 million documents
sealed in 2004.
"Every administration wants to control information about
its policies and practices, but the current administration
has restricted access to information about our government
and its policies at unprecedented levels," said Patrice
McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org.
"How can the public or even Congress make informed decisions
under such circumstances?" she asked.
In the study, the watchdog coalition found greater assertions
of executive power by the Bush administration, using the "state
secrets" privilege successfully in court to keep information
secret on national security grounds.
It invoked the privilege 22 times from 2001-July 2005, an
average of four per year that is almost as high as the average
in the previous 24 years. At the height of the Cold War, presidential
administrations used the privilege just six times between
1953 and 1976.
The report also found that President Bush issued 132 signing
statements claiming exceptions to 810 provisions of federal
laws he had just signed, compared with 600 signing statements
in the 211 years of U.S. history preceding 2000. The watchdog
group said the statements, which an American Bar Association
panel has said violate the Constitution, create public confusion.
Other findings:
* Classified or "black" programs account for 17
percent of this year's Pentagon budget of $315.5 billion,
down slightly from 18 percent in 2005.
* The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- which oversees
requests for government surveillance of people within the
United States -- approved all 2,072 requests for secret surveillance
orders, up 18 percent from the year before.
McDermott urged more public disclosure and accountability
with closer oversight by Congress as well as bills to strengthen
the Freedom of Information Act.
On the Net:
The report: http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/SRC2006—embargoed.pdf
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