Hearing on Overclassification of Government Documents

Emerging Threats: Overclassification and Psuedo-Classification, House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, March 2, 2005.
Related resources:

  • Shays Holds Hearing on Overclassification: “Last year, more federal officials classified more information, and declassified less, than the year before. In our previous hearing on official secrecy policies, the Department of Defense (DOD) witness estimated that fully half of all the data deemed “Confidential,” “Secret” or “Top Secret” by the Pentagon was needlessly or improperly withheld from public view. Further resisting the call to move from a ‘need to know” to a “need to share” standard, some agencies have become proliferators of new categories of shielded data. Legally ambiguous markings like “Sensitive but Unclassified”, “Sensitive Homeland Security Information” and “For Official Use Only” create new bureaucratic barriers to information sharing. These pseudo-classifications can have persistent and pernicious practical effects on the flow of threat information.”
  • Public Access to Unclassified Data Blocked By Unnecessary Restrictions
  • Hearing, Too Many Secrets: Overclassification as a Barrier to Critical Information Sharing, Tuesday, August 24, 2004

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