Everything seems to go up in price these days—food, clothing, gasoline, even government secrets. A new report from an obscure federal operation (the Information Security Oversight Office) says Washington is now spending at least $9.93 billion to keep a vast amount of information classified. This cost (up from $9.85 billion reported last year) includes not only the process of classifying documents as secret, but also the expense of maintaining human and computer security to guard closeted information.
One important factor worth noting about the report, according to
Secrecy News, is that the $10 billion price tag does not include the money spent by the
CIA or the
Department of Defense spy agencies on their classified information—because those costs are, yes, a secret and not available for public consumption.
-Noel Brinkerhoff