Agencies Struggle To Count Secrets

In the past, many agencies undercounted the amount of information they classified each year because departments did not include classification decisions made while communicating online. The fact that most agencies underreported the secrets they created last year may lead one to assume that number of secrets generated this year would go up. But the opposite happened.

In fiscal 2009, agencies reported 183,224 original classification decisions, or new secrets -- a ten percent decrease from the 203,541 decisions reported last year, according to a report issued April 15 by an internal oversight panel.

The counterintuitive decrease may be the result of more transparency in government -- and agencies having difficulty complying with a new policy on tabulating e-secrets.

"Methods of communicating classified information electronically have expanded significantly, to include classified Web pages, blogs, wikis, bulletin boards, instant messaging etc.," stated the 2009 report to President Obama from the Information Security Oversight Office. "As a result, the data reported has not truly reflected the changing ways agencies have generated and used classified information in the electronic environment."

So, this year, for the first time, the oversight office issued guidance directing agencies to report secrets established through digital communications. "With respect to e-mail, agencies were asked not to count e-mail messages that were merely 'replies' or 'forwards' and instead count only those messages containing new original or derivative classification decisions," the report stated.

"As we revised the guidance, we acknowledged that it might not be possible for all agencies to comply this fiscal year since counting in the electronic environment had never been done before in many agencies," the report added.