Authoritarian governments use different methods to keep citizens in the dark. Some burn books. Others shut down schools. Still others ban television.
The Bush administration uses more finesse. It has authorized federal agencies to stamp documents as too sensitive for common American folks to read or to delete whole passages. It also has slowed document declassification to a trickle—from 204 million pages in 1997 to 28 million pages last year.
Documents are being stamped secret at the rate of 125 per minute—15.6 million last year, double the 2001 rate. To keep this mountain of secrecy under lock cost taxpayers $7.2 billion last year.
National security? Forget it.
The Defense Intelligence Agency blacked out major portions of a biography of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, including his interests in fencing, boxing and horseback riding. That's no joke.
The Justice Department deleted a four-line quotation from a Supreme Court decision already widely published.
Those are the silly secrets. What's not known of more serious documents under seal is the worrisome part.
Congressmen alarmed by the secrecy epidemic, including conservative Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, are unmasking it and demanding more government openness. "People should get information they need to see if government is doing what they want," Cornyn says.
One of President Bush's first acts was an executive order sealing presidential papers. Now, with bureaucracy paperwork also being sealed, the Bush presidency apparently intends to keep its inner workings from public scrutiny for generations.
That's ridiculous. Other than matters that threaten national security, the president should have nothing to hide from the American people he serves.
