Watchdogs: Gov2019t Spent $196 Keeping Secrets For Every $1 Spent Declassifying Documents (ProPublica)
by Marian Wang ProPublica, Sep. 8, 12:21 p.m.
The federal government has significantly reduced the backlog of Freedom of Information requests in the last year, but has been slow to act in other areas related to government secrecy, according to a new secrecy report card by OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of more than 70 watchdog groups.
201CThe country elected a president who has promised the most open, transparent and accountable federal Executive Branch in history,201D the report said. 201CThe record to date is mixed, but some indicators are trending in the right direction.201D
Perhaps among the more promising trends the group highlighted: Freedom of Information request backlogs were reduced by 40 percent across the federal government.
The new report, released Tuesday, covers the last three months of the Bush administration and the first nine months of the Obama administration. OpenTheGovernment.org2019s director, Patrice McDermott, noted other 201Cencouraging201D trends, such as a decline in the creation of new national security secrets.
According to the report, the number of federal workers who have 201Coriginal classification authority201D 2014 or the authority to create a new document and classify it as 201Ctop secret,201D 201Csecret201D or 201Cconfidential201D 2014 dropped from 4,109 in 2008 to 2,557 last year. Original classifications, accordingly, have dropped by about 10 percent.
Decisions to declassify records, however, also declined by 8 percent compared to the year before. In all, government agencies spent nearly $9 billion last year "maintaining the secrets on the books," the report describes, while spending about $45 million on declassifying documents.
For more, check out the full report in our document viewer.
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