By almost every available measure, government secrecy continued to increase over the past year, according to report this week from OpenTheGovernment.org, a broad coalition of consumer and open government groups.
The report (pdf) describes the mostly unfavorable trends across a range of quantitative indicators, including classification and declassification activity, “black budget” spending, invention secrecy, Freedom of Information Act processing, and more.
“These trends indicate that citizens will have to wait even longer to find out what their government is doing,” said Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org.
The new report is the fifth in an annual series issued by the coalition. See the 2008 Secrecy Report Card from OpenTheGovernment.org.
The Federation of American Scientists strongly supports the Modernizing Wildfire Safety and Prevention Act of 2025.
The Federation of American Scientists strongly supports the Regional Leadership in Wildland Fire Research Act of 2025.
In an era of such massive sweeps upending federal programs, increased transparency is even more important to provide the public with the knowledge necessary to respond and hold the government accountable.
Dr. Lim will help develop, organize, and implement FAS’s growing contribution in the area of catastrophic risk including on core areas of nuclear weapons, AI and national security, space, and other emerging technologies.