So That's What Happened

From Tribune News Services:

The government is withholding more information than ever from the public
and expanding ways of shrouding data, a coalition of watchdog groups reported
Saturday.

Last year, for each $1 spent declassifying old secrets, federal agencies
spent a record $148 creating and storing new secrets, the groups said. That's a
$28 jump from 2003 when $120 was spent to keep secrets for every $1 spent
revealing them. In the late 1990s, the ratio was $15-$17 a year to $1, according
to the secrecy report card by OpenTheGovernment.org.

Overall, the government spent $7.2 billion in 2004 stamping 15.6 million
documents "top secret," "secret" or "confidential." That almost doubled the 8.6
million new documents classified as recently as 2001.

Last year, the number of pages declassified declined for the fourth
straight year to 28.4 million. In 2001, 100 million pages were declassified; the
record was 204 million pages in 1997.

These figures cover 41 federal agencies, excluding the CIA, whose
classification totals are secret.The report also noted the growing use of secret
searches, court secrecy, closed meetings by government advisory groups and
patents kept from public view.

So let me guess: a detailed, workable plan for disaster relief in New Orleans existed, it's just that it was marked Top Secret and no one was able to access it...

But that's ok, because George W. says "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Funny how Michael Brown was appointed Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, despite his dismissal as a horse-show organizer for not following instructions.

As long as you get the important instructions, like who to give campaign contributions to, you'll be set.