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President Bush has said that he wants to "create a culture of transparency"1 in government, but according to a new report to be released today by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), his administration is going to extraordinary lengths to increase government secrecy. The Waxman report is consistent with earlier signs that the Bush administration is doing everything it can to limit the amount of information the public can get from its government. Last month, a coalition of 30 organizations issued a report saying "Secrecy has increased dramatically in recent years under the policies of the current administration." The report found that "the number of documents being classified has jumped 40 percent from 2001" and that the number of documents declassified in 2003 was about one fifth the amount declasssified in 1997. The result "is an increasing backlog of requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act."2 [more

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