Groups warn of growing government secrecy

[lanlady]

Source: Goverment Executive

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government secrecy is on the rise by almost every measure, according to a report by a coalition of government oversight groups.

They said the U.S. is classifying more records as top secret or otherwise confidential and employing fewer workers who make federal documents available publicly.

"The open society on which we pride ourselves has been undermined and will take hard work to repair," said the report, described as a "secrecy report card" by OpenTheGovernment.org. It cited 14 different measurements to quantify government secrecy, including patents hidden from the public, secret court approvals for surveillance in sensitive terrorism and espionage investigations and the expanding use of informal labels to keep documents from being disclosed.

The group said there was an 80 percent decline over the last decade in the number of pages of records declassified, dropping last year to 37 million pages. Such declassifications peaked in the Clinton administration, with the opening of 204 million pages in 1997. The findings were based on the government's own figures.

Read more: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=40912&dcn=todaysnews

[snappyturtle]

1. K&R

:kick:

[Wilms]

2. k&r n/t