secrecy

ipsnews.net — The administration of President George W. Bush continues to expand government secrecy across a broad array of agencies and actions — and at greatly increased cost to taxpayers, according to a coalition of groups that promote greater transparency. In its "Secrecy Report Card 2008," released Sept. 9, Open the Government concluded that the Bush administration "exercised unprecedented levels not only of restriction of access to information about federal government's policies and decisions, but also of suppression of discussion of those policies and their underpinnings and sources."

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hosted.ap.org — 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.

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