OpenTheGovernment.Org, a coalition of conservative and liberal nonprofit groups, has released a report (PDF, 12 pages) saying that all branches of the U.S. Federal Government are being significantly more secretive . and spending significantly more money on  secrecy. In 2004, federal officials classified 15.6 million new documents, which is 81 percent more than in 2001. Over the same period, the cost of classifying those new documents rose from $4.7 billion to $7.2 billion. These figures do not include documents classified by the CIA, as such information is itself secret. The report is also critical of the fact that only $48.3 million was spent on declassifying old documents in 2004. They conclude that, for every dollar spent on declassification, federal officials spent $ 148 creating and storing new secrets, more than in any previous year. It is estimated to cost $460 to classify one document. The report is critical of poor funding for the processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, with which the majority of federal agencies surveyed can not keep up. There is concern that more of the financial burden for such requests may be being born by those organizations making the requests, instead of the agencies holding the classified documents. FOIA requests increased by 25\% between 2003 and 2004, to 4 million, while funding for processing such requests increased by only 5\%.
OpenTheGovernment.Org, a coalition of conservative and liberal nonprofit groups, released a 2005 report (PDF, 12 pages) saying that all branches of the U.S. Federal Government are being significantly more secretive , and spending significantly more money on document secrecy. In 2004, federal officials classified 15.6 million new documents, which is 81 percent more than in 2001. Over the same period, the cost of classifying those new documents rose from $4.7 billion to $7.2 billion. These figures do not include documents classified by the CIA, as that agency's information is itself secret. The report is also critical of the fact that only $48.3 million was spent on declassifying old documents in 2004. They concluded that for every dollar spent on declassification, the federal officials spent $ 148 creating and storing new secrets, more than in any previous year. It is estimated to cost $460 to classify one document. The report is critical of poor funding for processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, with which the majority of federal agencies surveyed can not keep up. There is concern that more of the financial burden for such requests may be being born by those organizations making the requests, instead of the agencies holding the classified documents. FOIA requests increased by 25\% between 2003 and 2004, to 4 million, while funding for processing such requests increased by only 5\%.
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$48.3 million was spent on declassifying old documents in 2004. They conclude that, for every dollar spent on declassification, federal officials spent $
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