More Files Being Classified; Fewer Pages Being Declassified
From Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Mostly because of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the federal government reports, the number of documents being classified in the U.S. jumped 10% last year, to 15.6 million.

The Information Security Oversight Office included the numbers in its latest annual report to the president.

Meanwhile, the number of pages that the government declassified continued to drop. Last year, 28.4 million pages were declassified.

That was a drop of 34% from the previous year.

The increase in the number of documents being classified has raised concerns that the government is being too secretive.

The report notes that over-classification of documents has been an issue for decades.

“It cannot be said conclusively from this report’s data that recent increases in the number of classification decisions were due substantially to the phenomenon of over-classification,” the Information Security Oversight Office report says.

Before anyone says something about the world changing on 9-11, please note that one of the first executive orders Bush made sealed presidential papers for years longer than before. One of the first meetings held in the White House was on energy policy. The White House went to court to keep the list of attendees secret. These guys are not secretive for patriotic reasons. They learned a lot from Dick Nixon and Ronnie Raygun. mjh