{"id":33117,"date":"2023-03-04T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=33117"},"modified":"2023-03-10T17:24:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T17:24:42","slug":"overclassification-overkill-the-us-government-is-drowning-in-a-sea-of-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/overclassification-overkill-the-us-government-is-drowning-in-a-sea-of-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Overclassification overkill: The US government is drowning in a sea of\u00a0secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Cuillier<\/a>, University of Arizona<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. faces far more threats to its national security than from spy balloons<\/a> or classified documents discovered in former<\/a> and current<\/a> presidents\u2019 homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 50 million more threats<\/a> every year. That\u2019s the estimated number of records annually classified as confidential, secret or top secret by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. has an overclassification problem, which, experts say, ironically threatens the nation\u2019s security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those in the intelligence field, along with at least eight special commissions through the decades, acknowledge the security risk of nearly 2,000 workers<\/a> processing tens of millions of classified records<\/a> each year, which could be viewed and potentially leaked or misplaced by more than 4.2 million government employees and contractors<\/a> who have access to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have seen the secrecy creep \u2013 more classification and more withholding of information by the government \u2013 growing for decades, as a scholar who studies freedom of information, as recent president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition<\/a> and as incoming director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida. Also, as a member of the Federal Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee<\/a>, I see firsthand the struggles the U.S. faces in maintaining transparent, accountable government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The classified federal records are made secret based on categories defined by the president through executive orders, not law<\/a>. These records can include just about anything a government employee deems confidential, secret, top secret, sensitive or restricted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While classification is intended to protect the national security of the nation<\/a> \u2013 such as weapons data, military plans and codes \u2013 often records with no direct connection to national security are hidden, including already published newspaper articles<\/a>, sometimes to prevent agency embarrassment or accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
The National Archives, pictured here, provides guidance to government agencies on document classification. Mark Wilson\/Getty Images North America<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Overclassification kills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Experts and members of Congress acknowledge that 90% of classified records do not need to be classified<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J. William Leonard, former director of the Information Security Oversight Office<\/a>, which oversees the classification system, testified in 2016 before Congress that overclassification is rampant<\/a> throughout federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 9\/11 Commission concluded that excessive classification inhibited<\/a> the ability of defense agencies to share critical files, contributing to the terrorists\u2019 success in killing nearly 3,000 Americans. They said, \u201cNo one has to pay the long-term costs of overclassifying information, though these costs \u2013 even in literal financial terms \u2013 are substantial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former President Barack Obama noted the problem in a 2016 Fox News interview<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s classified,\u201d he said, \u201cand then there\u2019s \u2018classified.\u2019 There\u2019s stuff that is really top secret top secret, and there\u2019s stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of state that you might not want on the transom or going out over the wire but is basically stuff that you could get in open source.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overclassification leads to more leaking of dangerous information, according to the Public Interest Declassification Board<\/a>, a congressional advisory group that recommends policies to the president on classification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overclassification impedes information-sharing by agencies and makes people trust the system less. Some government employees may even come to believe the system is too secretive. That \u201cmay encourage dangerous information leaks from within the government,\u201d stated the board\u2019s 2020 report urging modernization of the system<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founders started it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Government secrecy started before the U.S. even had a government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Constitutional Convention in 1787 was held in secret, and the Senate debated the Bill of Rights behind closed doors in 1791. Congress didn\u2019t print its approved laws<\/a> for the public until 1795 \u2013 nearly two decades after the founding of the United States and six years after the Constitution\u2019s ratification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the country\u2019s earliest days, presidents sought to restrict information from the public<\/a> \u2013 and even from Congress. George Washington kept secret his treaty communications with Britain in 1795, and John Adams hid treaty negotiations with France in 1798, all in the name of national security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to officially classify documents<\/a>. He issued Executive Order 8381 in 1940 to keep some military records hidden. Succeeding presidents followed suit, greatly expanding secrecy through the decades. The most recent order<\/a>, issued by Barack Obama in 2009, stands today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santa and Conan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Classification has become so prevalent that the outcomes are sometimes meaningless, sometimes nefarious and sometimes absurd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Harper, director of public policy and open government affairs for the National Security Archive<\/a>, a nonprofit that collects federal records for historians, notes some of the worst examples of overclassification:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The CIA labeled as confidential<\/a> a weekly terrorism situation report on Dec. 17, 1974, stating, \u201cA new organization of uncertain makeup, using the name \u2018Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge,\u2019 plans to sabotage the annual courier flight of the Government of the North Pole. \u2026\u201d The memo, a CIA inside-office joke, wasn\u2019t made public until 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 A 1975 government biographical dossier on former Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet, kept secret on national security grounds, stated that the dictator\u2019s favorite liquor was \u201cscotch and pisco sours<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 The government argued that records documenting the sex of Conan the dog<\/a>, which participated in the 2019 raid to kill Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were a national security secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Historical documents about the Bay of Pigs<\/a> were released in 2016 after decades of the CIA arguing the information would \u201cconfuse the public.\u201d In actuality, they were covering up embarrassing internal political bickering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes records are kept secret to avoid criticism, such as the documents hidden by the George W. Bush administration to cover up instructions for effective torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
A page from a 1984 CIA report that the agency refused to release for decades because it would \u2018confuse the public.\u2019 National Security Archive<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Transparency vs. secrecy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many recommendations to diminish overclassification have been offered by experts and special commissions over the decades, with little progress. Federal agencies push back against transparency, presidents defer to secrecy and the inertia of federal bureaucracy favors the status quo. But perhaps bipartisan cooperation in Congress can get somewhere on several fronts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legislators could simplify the levels of classification<\/a>, focusing only on what specific information would truly harm national security and align the level of protection with the level of harm<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly increased funding would help modernize the operations of the National Archives and Records Administration<\/a>, which oversees classification efforts and is hamstrung by old technology in a digitized world. The agency\u2019s annual budget has flatlined at about US$320 million<\/a> for the past three decades. Congress could invest in more sophisticated technology<\/a>, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to better identify records that should be classified and those that shouldn\u2019t be classified. New research<\/a> indicates that machine learning can save government employees time in identifying parts of records that should be kept secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, classifications can be hit and miss, and agencies should be required to accurately delineate what is classified and what isn\u2019t and label the classified parts of records accurately, as recommended last year by the Federal FOIA Advisory Committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some secrets are necessary, and I believe the classification system can be strengthened, for the good of national security and the ability of citizens to know what their government is up to. Sometimes, less secrecy brings more safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Cuillier<\/a>, Associate Professor, School of Journalism, University of Arizona<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Cuillier, University of Arizona The U.S. faces far more threats to its national security than from spy balloons or classified documents discovered in former and current presidents\u2019 homes. About 50 million more threats every year. That\u2019s the estimated number of records annually classified as confidential, secret or top secret by the U.S. government. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,4],"tags":[2243,13640,3626,12306,9996,9987,13642,1749,13641],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33184,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117\/revisions\/33184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}