U.S. government keeps more secrets longer.The federal government set a new record for keeping secrets in 2004, during which government employees chose to classify information in a record 15.6 million times, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. new government figures released by the Information Security Oversight Office The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) is responsible to the President of the United States for policy and oversight of the Government-wide security classification system and the National Industrial Security Program. , part of the National Archives National Archives, official depository for records of the U.S. federal government, established in 1934 by an act of Congress. Although displeasure concerning the method of keeping national records was voiced in Congress as early as 1810, the United States continued and Records Administration. The total number of secrecy decisions made in 2004 is 10 percent higher than the 2003 total. The new data show secrecy continued to grow in 2004. For example: * When given a choice, government employees last year chose to keep their new secrets longer than in years past. Sixty-six percent of the time, they chose to keep those new secrets for more than a decade. * At the same time, the flow of old secrets to the public dropped to its lowest point in nearly a decade--28 million pages in 2004. * The government must declassify de·clas·si·fy tr.v. de·clas·si·fied, de·clas·si·fy·ing, de·clas·si·fies To remove official security classification from (a document). de·clas 260 million pages of existing old secrets by the end of 2006. At its current rate, the government will complete the job in February 2013, but then will have to contend with what will likely be a bigger pile of secrets it created in the meantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified" meantime, meanwhile . A more detailed report will be released this summer by the OpenTheGovernment.org coalition, a broad coalition promoting open government. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion