Sounds like some crazy lefty, right? Too bad it is a quote from Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut and chairman of the Government Reform Committee's national security panel.
The problem is growing, said J. William Leonard, director of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which monitors federal practices. Officials classified documents 8 percent more often in 2003 than in 2002.
''This administration believes the less known the better," said Shays, noting that he was speaking of a GOP administration. ''I believe the more known the better."
But in 2003, President Bush ordered officials to use the more restrictive level.
Steven Aftergood, director of a Federation of American Scientists project on secrecy, said some classification clearly aimed to conceal illegality or avoid embarrassment, even though that is forbidden.
Aftergood cited the ''secret" stamp on Army Major General Antonio Taguba's report of ''numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted on Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.
