http://www.sunshineweek.org/sunshineweek/charts06

Quote :

"Secrecy on the March: Making the Case for Sunshine Week Approaching its 40th birthday, the Freedom of Information Act is looking more than a little worn around the edges. In fact, what it needs is a week of good, solid sunshine, and Sunshine Week 2006, March 12-18, is just the ticket. The current administration has been characterized by open government observers—both conservatives and liberals—as one of the most secretive in recent history; a stance adopted even before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The past several years have been particularly difficult. The first visible symptom came in October 2001, when then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft issued a memo to federal agencies telling them to no longer presume the public had a right to government information and to look instead for a legal basis to turn down FOIA requests. Until recently, the evidence linking the Ashcroft memo to increased government secrecy was anecdotal. That is until the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government analyzed FOIA requests and denials in 2000 and 2004. The Presumption Moves from Openness to Secrecy CJOG found that even though the number of requests processed fell 13 percent, the use of three particular exemptions to deny FOIA requests—Exemption 2, information about internal agency procedures; Exemption 4, protecting trade secrets and commercial and financial information; and Exemption 5, inter- or intra-agency memos or letters—increased notably. As the chart at right shows, there has been a clear increase in utilization of those exemptions specifically mentioned in Ashcroft's 2001 memo and in the subsequent directive from White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. The CJOG report, "When Exemptions Become the Rule," also looked at the bottom line for information release. Though there were slightly fewer flat-out denials in 2004 than four years earlier, the big picture shows that less information was released. That's because there were significantly more partial denials—release of only a portion of the information requested—and far fewer total grants that provide requesters with all they seek. (See chart at left.) "In real numbers, that's 6,439 fewer denials and 96,021 fewer full grants," CJOG explained. There are no data detailing the amount of information released in a partial denial, but growth in that category at the expense of full grants certainly means more people are getting less information. The Incentive is to Classify It is the government's own numbers—and actions—that make the strongest case for Sunshine Week. There's no argument that any nation has compelling and legitimate needs for some secrecy, and for reasonable use of FOIA's exemptions in this regard. The degree to which secrecy has been growing, coupled with the sharp decline in declassification, however, suggest that secrecy feeds on itself. The Information Security Oversight Office, a division of the National Archives and Records Administration, reported that from 2001 to 2004, the number of annual classification decisions jumped from 8.6 million to 15.6 million. (See chart at right.) In its "2004 Report to the President," ISOO also reported that the total number of pages declassified fell dramatically from slightly more than 100 million in 2001 to 44.4 million in 2002 and has continued to decline, charting at just 28.4 million in 2004. (See chart below.) "Right now, all of the incentive is for classifying information. You might say the motto is: 'when in doubt, classify,' " remarked Lee. H. Hamilton, president and director of The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, speaking at an ISOO symposium in October 2005, continued: "People in government think they can get into trouble declassifying information, but that they cannot get in trouble if they stamp 'Secret' on a document. There are risks for mistakenly declassifying information—administrative, civil, and criminal—but no risks for classifying—and not sharing—information. "We need to readjust that balance. We need to make it clear that the American people can be hurt by the disclosure of certain information, but they are also hurt by the over-classification of information," Hamilton said. The Cost of Keeping Secrets Those already tiny yellow slivers on the bar graph at right represent the diminished spending on the declassification of information, even as the spending on classification has steadily increased. The gap has widened each year. OpenTheGovernment.org notes in its "Secrecy Report Card 2005" that the federal government now spends $148 "creating new secrets" for every $1 spent releasing old secrets; marking a $28 jump from 2003 and a $31 increase over 2000. Clearly, though, the cost of secrecy is not simply monetary. In an interview with Cox News Service reporter Bob Dart, Sunshine Week Honorary Chairman Hodding Carter III observed that people generally don't worry about access to government information, "Until the flood comes and you discover that they've been lying to you about the levees. "It's better to find out before the flood hits," Carter added. Secrecy Isn't Just for Feds While overarching secrecy at the federal level is troubling for a nation, the epidemic of hidden government is reaching people at the state and community levels at troubling rates. While this is difficult to measure, OTG's "Secrecy Report Card" compared state legislation that promoted openness to bills promulgating closure. As seen in the chart at left, what OTG found was that while roughly the same number of "secrecy" and "openness" bills were introduced, fewer openness measures passed state legislatures. Nearly half of the "secrecy" measures were adopted, less than a third of the "openness" bills were. Sunshine Week and the Quest for Open Government Responding to this spreading culture of secrecy, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, launched the first national Sunshine Week in 2005. The Sunshine Week concept had proven effective in Florida, where it began as Sunshine Sunday in 2002, and then in other states in focusing a critical mass of attention on the open government issue. In 2005, the more than 750 participating news organizations produced thousands of news and feature stories in print, online and for broadcast; they wrote editorials and opinion columns and ran editorial cartoons; they produced extensive FOI guides that showed residents not only what information they have a right to, but also how to get it; and they went beyond the news product to host public events and bring the issue into the community in a variety of ways. They were joined by state press and FOI groups, civic organizations, schools, libraries and others who engaged in activities focused on the importance of preserving access to government information and meetings. Examples of different Sunshine Week approaches can be found in "Bright Ideas", which was designed to encourage editors and reporters to find creative new ways to tell the open government story during Sunshine Week 2006, March 12-18. Sunshine Week 2005 got lawmakers' attention. In Washington, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) coordinated the introduction of and hearings for their FOIA reform legislation, the OPEN the Government Act of 2005, to Sunshine Week. In at least two states, Georgia and New York, Sunshine Week coverage spurred the legislature to ensure that access to government information was not further restricted or delayed. A dozen governors and three state legislatures issued proclamations in support of Sunshine Week. And the Sunshine Week coverage caught the public’s attention. Several participants told us they'd heard from readers about how they used the information to access information they never knew was available. In one example, when a newspaper ran a link to the tax assessor's site, the surge in traffic caused the site to shut down. Sunshine Week is not about journalists, it's not about partisan politics, it's about the public and how important protecting and promoting open government is to individuals and their communities. Sunshine Week is not about protecting journalists' rights, it's about the right of all citizens to know what their government is doing—and why. In fact, Sunshine Week 2006 participation by non-journalism groups is being strengthened, with national and local forums already planned by civic groups, libraries, open government and FOI groups, as well as by student media. Sunshine Week 2005 proved that developing a critical mass of discussion about the importance of open government can move the needle a little. Sunshine Week 2006 is off to a fantastic start, but the sunlight at the end of the tunnel remains a long way off."

Celebrate one of the awesome things Republicans did thirty years ago, and are working to undo today!

[This portion of my post has been redacted]

3/13/2006 10:51:53 PM