Secrecy Report Card 2005 (Govt Secrecy Carries a Hefty Price)

[rainbow4321]

Stats/graphs on chimp's regime..less open, more secrets

http://www.openthegovernment.org/otg/SRC2005.pdf

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30195

During 2004, the George W. Bush administration issued more secret court orders, spent 148 dollars creating new classified documents for every dollar spent releasing old ones, invoked the "state secrets" privilege in court cases more frequently than ever before, and received 25 percent more requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
For every dollar the federal government spent releasing old secrets, it spent 148 dollars creating new ones -- a 28-dollar jump from 2003. In contrast, from 1997 to 2001, the government spent less than 20 dollars per year keeping secrets for every dollar spent declassifying them.

The government spent 7.2 billion dollars securing classified information, more than any annual cost in at least a decade. With 15.6 million new documents stamped "secret" in fiscal year 2004, the government created 81 percent more secrets than it did in the year prior to the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.

Nearly two-thirds of the 7,045 meetings of federal advisory committees that fall under the Federal Advisory Committee Act were completely closed to the public, undermining one purpose of the law.

At least 62 new state laws expanded secrecy in 2004 while only 38 strengthened open government. The government now uses at least 50 types of designations to restrict unclassified information deemed "sensitive but unclassified". Many of these numerous terms are duplicative, vague, and endanger the protection of necessary secrets by allowing excessive secrecy to prevail in our open society.

[displacedtexan]

1. Too much math for the backside of the Bell Curve to understand.

BushCo counts on ignorant Americans (his base's base) to ignore reports like that.