Setec Astronomy

Slate's Jack Shafer notes an underreported speech by Bush's secrecy czar, who says that many agencies classify documents (or fail to) without much discernible rhyme or reason. Every time we hear reports of some document or another being de-classified "in response to critics" or some such thing, I invariably wonder: "If it's not too vital to national security to be released for purely political reasons, why exactly was it classified in the first place? Wouldn't it be wacky if transparency were, like, the default?"