Government Secrecy is on the Rise: Power to the People

People for Open Government has a new report that government secrecy is on the rise by almost any measure. People for Open Government advocate for "less secrecy and more democracy." I can live with that.

From the executive summary:

The current administration has exercised an unprecedented level not only of restriction of access to information about federal government’s policies and decisions, but also of suppression of discussion of those policies, their underpinnings, and their implications.
It has also increasingly refused to be held accountable to the public through the oversight responsibilities of Congress. These practices inhibit democracy and our representative government; neither the public nor Congress can make informed decisions in these circumstances. Our open society is undermined and made insecure.

Here are some of the highlights of the report:

• In six years, President Bush has issued at least 151 signing statements, challenging 1149 provisions of laws. In the 211 years of our Republic to 2000, fewer than 600 signing statements that took issue with the bills were issued. Among recent presidents, Reagan issued 71 statements challenging provisions of laws before him; G.W.H. Bush issued 146; Clinton, 105.

• Since 2001, the "state secrets" privilege has been invoked a reported 39 times—an average in 6.5 years (6) that is more than double the previous 24 years (2.46).

• On average since 2000, non-competed contract funding makes up more than 25 percent of all awards: 26.2% ($559.9 billion) In 2006, 25.9 percent ($107.5 billion) of federal contract funding was given out without any competition; another 5.1 percent ($21.3 billion) was awarded without competition because of specific requirements. In 2000, 45 percent of contract dollars were awarded under full and open competition; by 2006, only 34 percent followed such open procedures.

• A 2007 Justice Department Office of the Inspector General report on secret wiretap warrants indicated that the government made 143,074 National Security Letter requests in the period 2003-2005. The number for 2006 remains classified.

• With 2,176 secret surveillance orders approved in 2006, federal surveillance activity under the jurisdiction of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court more than doubled in five years.

Patrice McDermott, director for the coalition, said, “The executive branch seems to believe that something is kept under wraps solely on its say-so, whether it is legitimately so or not.”

Here is hoping we change that pattern. America was an experiment in government by the people, not by its leaders. We are losing our way at this point. A lesson from John Lennon: