by TChris

Access to information held by the federal government has become tougher to obtain in recent years, according to an Associated Press review.

The locations of stores and restaurants that have received recalled meat, the names of detainees held by the U.S. overseas and details about Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy policy task force are all among the records that the government isn't sharing with the public.

The FBI, always stingy with information, gave Freedom of Information Act requesters "everything they asked for just 1 percent of the time in 2004, compared to 5 percent in 1998." The percentage of requests granted by the CIA dropped from 44 percent to 12 percent in the same period.

In addition to decreasing some types of information released under FOIA, the federal government is increasing the number of documents deemed secret and has pulled thousands of documents and databases off public Web sites.

The administration contends that the new restrictions are necessary for public safety. Yet an open government also keeps us safe by making it more difficult for our public officials and employees to behave abusively.