Details on the secret U.S. spy budget spilled into the public realm yesterday after The Washington Post published selective pages from the 16-agency intelligence community’s fiscal year 2012 congressional budget justification, leaked by former Booz Allen Hamilton employee Edward Snowden.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) today launched the initial registry of controlled unclassified information (CUI) categories that agencies can use to safeguard sensitive but unclassified information. President Obama called for the registry in his executive order on CUI, which he signed one year ago today.

Today, OpenTheGovernment.org released their annual Secrecy Report card, which tracks key indicators and statistics for executive branch secrecy. The Obama administration came into office placing a high priority on transparency and collaboration, promising to be the most open and accountable administration in history. The report, which covers the first 9 months of the Obama presidency, indicates the administration made noticeable progress in several areas.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post ran a story about the intelligence community’s efforts to push legislators to amend the Intelligence Authorization Act (S. 1494) to exempt “terrorist identity information (TII)” from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  Currently, this information is marked as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) with a stamp that reads “for official use only” but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) made claims that the information could readily be requested under FOIA with little protection.  We have proof that these claims were ridiculous.