Cost of Secrecy Continues to Increase

xerid writes "The Associated Press is running an article about the increasing costs of government secrecy. The information stems from a report (PDF Warning) posted at OpenTheGovernment.org. From the article: 'The government is withholding more information than ever from the public and expanding ways of shrouding data. Last year, federal agencies spent a record $148 creating and storing new secrets for each $1 spent declassifying old secrets, a coalition of watchdog groups reported Saturday. That's a $28 jump from 2003 when $120 was spent to keep secrets for every $1 spent revealing them.'"

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

$148! I can't believe the government spent that little on anything.

Re:Wow

[digitalchinky]

So now you Americans are paying 148 bucks for black marker pens at the rate of one per document : )

Over on this side of the world (Australia) we're still paying $10,000 per hammer, so I guess it's all relative given exchange rates and all...

No Surprise

[RAMMS EIN]

With so many of the government services running on Windows, it comes as no surprise that the cost of keeping secrets secret is ever increasing.

for now on

[FudRucker]

i am only supporting OpenSource/GPLed governments...

who released this information?

[big whiffer]

i thought it was supposed to be secret?

It's not $128:$1

[AFairlyNormalPerson]

Don't let the figures fool you.

The real figure is $3:$1.

The other $123 went towards buying the hammers and wrenches that they claim to spend $500 for - which they don't - those $500 aren't spent on the hammers and wrenches - it is actually used towards funding the stuff that they are trying to keep secret in the first place.
It shouldn't be much of a secret though that the secret is this crazy scheme of keeping secrets.

Got it?

wtf

[briancurtin]

i keep secrets for free. these "secrets" they are paying $148 for will get leaked. they need to find a new secret keeper.

Re:The real question

[ShakiirNvar]

Possibly the whole state bureaucracy, whole state machine is just like a Windows installation. It degrades over time and at some point you have to re-install from scratch.

Now there's an idea I like, deleting the current government and creating a new one from scratch ...

Is it sustainable?

[Weezul]

Clearly one can classify almost everything, but this will have major economic costs eventually. If your society competes with an open society which does not pay secrecy costs, execpt on a few things it does not want you to know about, can your society survive?

Re:Catch 22

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenny: Shhh, it's a secret!

Karl: Shut Up!

Nothing odd about the figure.

[raehl]

Steps for submitting an article on Slashdot:

1) Figure out what you want people to believe.

(The government is hoarding secrets!)

2) Find the single figure that appears to most severely support your position.

($148 spent classifying secrets per $1 spent declassifying secrets.)

3) Hope nobody notices that your figure is utter bullshit.

The reason

[suricatta]

I'd tell you why the government spends so much on keeping secrets, but it's classified.