Posted on March 16, 2008

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Public Affairs

A new report from OpenTheGovernment.org suggests that government secrecy has increased over the last few years despite growing public concern. According to the Secrecy Report Card 2007 (28 pages, PDF), the federal government has used "state secrets" provisions thirty-nine times since 2001 to keep information from the public — more than twice as frequently as during the previous twenty-four years — while funding of "black" programs has more than doubled in real dollar amounts since 1995. The report was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Educational Foundation of America, the Fund for Constitutional Government, the National Security Archive, OMB Watch, the Open Society Institute, the Angelina Fund, and the CS Fund/Warsh-Mott Legacy.