Al Kamen’s column in the Post today points out the incredible increase in secrecy under this administration — something we already know, but he gives an example:
Executive branch agencies — mostly the CIA, the Pentagon, the spy satellite folks and the Justice Department — discovered more than 14 million new secrets last year, according to a report to the president by the Information Security Oversight Office, part of the National Archives.
That’s a 25 percent increase over the prior year in creating things that must be “secret.” Just before Sept. 11, 2001, the rate was 8 million a year. So that’s a substantial surge in the urge to submerge. (Sorry.)
… National Security Archive at George Washington University got a Defense Intelligence Agency biographical sketch of our old pal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1999. This was released in full as part of the Clinton administration’s declassification on Chile, Latin America’s strongest democracy until Pinochet’s coup in 1973.
Then, in response to ongoing Freedom of Information Act requests, DIA released the same bio again in 2003 but, to protect our security, blacked out the really secret information.
For example, both versions describe him as “Caucasian” with an “oval face and a mustache.” We’re allowed to know he wears reading glasses and is “quiet.” But the new version has blacked out this part: [WARNING: If You Do Not Have An “Eyes Only” Clearance, Do Not Continue Reading!] “Mild-mannered; very businesslike. Very honest, hard working, dedicated. A devoted, tolerant husband and father; lives very modestly. Drinks scotch and pisco sours; smokes cigarettes; likes parties. Sports interests are fencing, boxing and horseback riding. . . . Enjoys discussing world military problems and would respond to a frank, man-to-man approach.”
Pisco sours?
