Recently the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced the launching USASpending.gov [1], which is a relaunch of www.FederalSpending.gov [2], to provide citizens with easy access to government contract, grant, and other award data (See New OMB Federal Spending Database [3]). But now, Secrecy News says that several defense intelligence agencies will withhold unclassified information about their contracts from USASpending.gov.

• Intel Agencies to Withhold Contract Info from Public Database [4] by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, December 18, 2007.

Several defense intelligence agencies will withhold unclassified information about their contracts from a new public database of government spending.

The new database at USAspending.gov is intended to provide increased transparency regarding most government contracts.

But when it comes to intelligence spending, there will actually be a net loss of public information because categories of intelligence contracting data that were previously disclosed will now be withheld.