The Eeeeeevil Bush Secrecy Is Gone...

...to be replaced by the even more secretive Obama secrecy:

A shiny new executive order as of 29DEC09

I'm still working slogging my way through this monstrosity of an EO consisting of twisty/twisting/twisted little mazes trying to digest it and figure out what it all means.

Here's what I've found so far that I'm 100% sure of:

-- There's a 10 year "default" on declassifying classified info unless a longer time frame was specified and justified.

-- Unclassified information may BECOME classified upon submission of a FOIA request for it...thus allowing for a public veneer of openness while reserving the right to clam up if said openness should prove inconvenient when someone actually learns of a document's existence and has the nerve to request it.

Its a very lengthy and tortuously worded EO and people will be analyzing its ramifications for quite a while I suspect. I don't imagine the professional intelligence community is terribly happy about the Byzantine procedures outlined here. Their jobs just got a lot harder.

Nifty.

There's my two cents.