A new report released by OpenTheGovernment.org indicates that the government’s spending on maintaining secrets is rising across the board. The summary of findings indicates that in 2004, $148 was spent keeping new secrets for every $1 spent releasing old secrets; this cost has been on the rise for the past several years, and as recently as 2001 the government only spent $20 to keep secrets for every $1 to release them.

The U.S. government also classified more documents last year than any year previously: 15.6 million documents classified, at a cost of $460 per document to keep it secret. Conversely, the number of Freedom of Information Requests hit an all-time annual high, with 4,080,737 requests for information. The government is still unable to keep up, though agencies are improving in their ability to handle requests.

This report is interesting in its discussion of how the government keeps secrets, what types of secrets are being kept, and the costs involved.

The AP has a story on the new report that summarizes many of the key findings and presents some reasons for the increased secrecy.