THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, June 25, 1996 TAG: 9606250311
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 22 lines
The government will spend more than $2.7 billion this year to keep secrets.
While the Pentagon accounts for more than 90 percent of the spending, even the Marine Mammal Commission will expend $1,000 protecting classified documents.
The estimate for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 represents a slight increase over the previous year as agencies begin a major declassification effort ordered by President Clinton last year.
``In the short term, costs will rise somewhat as agencies review more documents for declassification,'' Steven Garfinkel, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, said Monday.
The cost estimate covers deciding which records should be classified and how secret they should be, providing physical security, training government workers and managing the system. by CNB