The financial costs of national security classification-related activities continued to rise in 2009, reaching a record high of $9.93 billion for the combined costs of protecting classified information in government and industry, the Information Security Oversight Office reported today (pdf).
Classification-related costs include not simply the act of classification, but also everything that follows from it: physical security for classified materials, computer security for classified information systems, personnel security, and so forth. “The agencies also reported a modest, but welcome increase in spending on declassification programs,” wrote ISOO Director William J. Bosanko in his transmittal letter to the President.
The newly reported cost data do not include classification-related costs for CIA or the large Pentagon intelligence agencies — since those costs are themselves considered to be classified. This means that the costs incurred by the most classification-intensive agencies are outside the scope of the published report, which significantly limits its value. See “Report on Cost Estimates for Security Classification Activities for Fiscal Year 2009,” Information Security Oversight Office, June 25, 2010.
At a time when universities are already facing intense pressure to re-envision their role in the S&T ecosystem, we encourage NSF to ensure that the ambitious research acceleration remains compatible with their expertise.
FAS CEO Daniel Correa recently spoke with Adam Marblestone and Sam Rodriques, former FAS fellows who developed the idea for FROs and advocated for their use in a 2020 policy memo.
In a year when management issues like human capital, IT modernization, and improper payments have received greater attention from the public, examining this PMA tells us a lot about where the Administration’s policy is going to be focused through its last three years.
Congress must enact a Digital Public Infrastructure Act, a recognition that the government’s most fundamental responsibility in the digital era is to provide a solid, trustworthy foundation upon which people, businesses, and communities can build.