Document about federal Documents. Free of charge.

So I was wandering the internets today and I stumbled upon an interesting article.  Did you know that the federal government spends almost $200 to keep a secret for each dollar spent to reveal a secret?  I've never thought about the comparison before.

NINE BILLION dollars were spent to hide documents in 2008 compared to 45 million dollars spent to declassify (openthegovernment.org).  Go 'head, read that line again.  Try it out loud - it resonates better =)

It's quite a number when you come to think of the money we spend to keep so many secrets that I am guessing we could do without containing.  Not all secrets, just a large portion.  (see previous post about Able Danger and Operation: Dark Heart where roughly 10% of the federally censored information was actually worth censoring for national security's sake - according to one 'expert'.)

Strangely, while the cost of keeping the documents secretive went up slightly over the past couple of years, the amount of documents actually granted to be revealed went down in the same time-frame. (Roughly 2006-2008).

Have any of you heard of this disparity in the mass media as a whole?  I have not.  Should the mass media bring this statistic to a larger audience?  Or is this the price we pay for a free(ish), safe(ish) nation?  This seems like it would be a great piece for the 24-hour news channels because of the simplicity in the statistic.  A real time-chewer.

Here's the full story that initially caught my attention.  It was written by Marian Wang of ProPublica.org.  She created her article through the statistics compiled at openthegovernment.org.  Accompanying articles may be found below.

The federal government has significantly reduced the backlog of Freedom of Information requests in the last year, but has been slow to act in other areas related to government secrecy, according to a new secrecy report card by OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of more than 70 watchdog groups.

“The country elected a president who has promised the most open, transparent and accountable federal Executive Branch in history,” the report said. “The record to date is mixed, but some indicators are trending in the right direction.”

Perhaps among the more promising trends the group highlighted: Freedom of Information request backlogs were reduced by 40 percent across the federal government. 

The new report, released Tuesday, covers the last three months of the Bush administration and the first nine months of the Obama administration. OpenTheGovernment.org’s director, Patrice McDermott, noted other “encouraging” trends, such as a decline in the creation of new national security secrets.

According to the report, the number of federal workers who have “original classification authority” — or the authority to create a new document and classify it as “top secret,” “secret” or “confidential” — dropped from 4,109 in 2008 to 2,557 last year. Original classifications, accordingly, have dropped by about 10 percent.

Decisions to declassify records, however, also declined by 8 percent compared to the year before. In all, government agencies spent nearly $9 billion last year "maintaining the secrets on the books," the report describes, while spending about $45 million on declassifying documents.

If you'd like some more statistical information about FOIA requests, sunshinethegovernment.org has an extensive backlog.

If you'd like to make a FOIA request (good luck!), the official form may be found at http://www.fcc.gov/foia/.  This blog is not responsible for any denials!

Sources:
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/watchdogs-govt-spent-196-maintaining-secrets-for-every-1-spent-declassifyin

http://www.alternet.org/rights/99080/how_much_have_taxpayers_coughed_up_for_the_most_secretive_white_house_ever/

http://openthegovernment.org/

http://www.sunshineingovernment.org/index.php?cat=213

What about Gitmo, yo?

Barack Obama promised to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within one year of becoming President of the United States of America.  You know, that prison camp at the oldest overseas U. S. military base.  The closing would have to occur before the end of January, 2010 in order for the promise to be kept.  As we all know, things don't always go to plan.  But for the highest office in the world, shouldn't accountability be a primary job for the mass media?

                            

Then President-elect Obama's address to a joint session of congress, Feb 24th, 2009:

"To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend - because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America.  That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists - because living our values doesn't make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger."



Wow, sounds like he's not playing around!

Here we sit over 19 months later and - by some form of mass media magic - it is one of the least-talked about subjects in regard to the administration's initial intentions.

I believe the President made this promise with little intention of following through.  If he did happen to have the pure intentions, then he made the promise with the mentality that the President will get whatever he wants, with no opposition to 'little things' like a suspected terrorist-detaining facility.  So why did he really make the promise?  Well, he needed votes.  Nothing like a 'human suffering injustice' to get the people in a political base all worked up and maybe nab a percentage point or two in each state during the election, huh?

The mass media covered the President's intended action toward the Guantanamo detention camp during and just after the election.  Then, like many subjects, it faded away until around January 20th, 2010 - the one-year, self-imposed deadline.  The mass media rightfully asked, "When?  Where?  How?"  President Obama made the suggestion of moving the camp to Thompson, Illinois.  He then ordered Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to purchase a prison in the small Illinois town.  Does anyone remember what happened?  The Presidents own party, along with the other side, unanimously voted to prohibit the replacement of Gitmo (or any similar detention facility) on United States ground.

Then ... nothing.  I guess the mass media had a new missing white woman story to cover.

Oh, well, there are now more important things to focus on, aren't there, Mr President?  Sweep that one under the rug.  We'll just reissue that promise during the next presidential campaign.

                      

Sources:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay.htm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/07/obama-guantanamo.html  (I suggest you read this one)

http://www.notable-quotes.com/o/obama_barack.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQXZoM__vU0

Operation 'Try (and fail) to Keep in the Dark'

So the Department of Defense decided to spend almost 50,000 dollars to destroy 9,500 books that may be a threat to national security.  Actually, they incinerated them.  Why?  These 9,500 printed books are already in the hands of many in uncensored, electronic format.

Operation Dark Heart:  Spycraft and special ops on the frontlines of Afghanistan- and the path to victory is a book written by former Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, an ex-intelligence officer and Afghanistan war veteran.  In the book, Lt. Col. Shaffer tells his story as an intelligence officer forced to deal with Washington's hand-tying policies.

The reason the DoD wanted to destroy the uncensored versions and edit a significant portion of Operation Dark Heart is because a particular chapter may lead to questions about an operation coined 'Able Danger' and the 9/11 Commission's 2006 report on the 9/11 attacks.  For context, Able Danger was a military intelligence project designed to gather data about possible terrorist attacks.  The program was abandoned and the data was destroyed in 2000 by the Department of Defense.  A potential DoD cover-up is the basis for the book Operation Dark Heart to come into the limelight.

The DoD did not object to the outright publishing of the book, just the 'threat's' which are apparently tied to national security items.  However, as fas.org points out, only about 10 percent of the governmentally redacted information could even be considered a threat to national security.  As I said previously, however, much of that information could be found with a bit of research on the web.

*Fun governmental redaction, paid for by you and me*:  Ned Beatty must be one profound government secret.  For some reason, the DoD felt his name should be redacted from the text of Operation Dark Heart.  Yes, the actor, Ned Beatty.  Funnier thing is, in the version of the book that the DoD approves of, the actor's name (and page number of its appearance) is listed in the index!  Heck, 20 percent of Americans probably didn't know many books even have indexes - apparently non of the redactors did, either =P

So when I stumbled upon this news story I thought to myself "Great, some hard news" ... until I looked at the three accompanying attention-grabbing headlines - soft news x3.  Just soft news stories slapped up there to get more clicks where advertisements may be shoved in consumer's faces.  Fox News may just want this story as a fall-back piece if details get juicier and the mud starts slinging - hello ratings!  CNN.com was just as guilty.  ONE, yes O-N-E hard news story adorned their front page at the time of this blog publishing (out of eight large attention-grabbers).

I'm not sure if the mass media cares if anyone notices this story.  "Government spends money to destroy information you can get anyhow" might be a more appropriate, attention-grabbing title.  Sure, it may have implications to the possibility of the federal government's 9/11 report cover-up, but the mass media isn't making a large percentage of money on these types of hard news stories.  Foxnews.com is the website where I first heard of the Able Danger project's re-emergence into the news cycle.  Operation Dark Heart's government buyout/burnout was just a major side note I decided to speculate on.

CNN.com returned no relevance results for "Dark Heart" or, more surprisingly, "Able Danger".  Why do you think that is?

Sources:

For a run-down of the most common objections the Department of Defense has with Operation Dark Heart's content, visit http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/09/behind_the_censor.html

For a few side-by-side comparison of each version, visit http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2010/09/dark-contrast.pdf

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/04/exclusive-witnesses-defense-department-report-suggest-cover-findings/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/operation-dark-heart-comp_n_744123.html

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Operation-Dark-Heart/Anthony-Shaffer/e/9780312603694#TABS

http://www.cnn.com/