Reducing Overclassification Through Accountability Publications, by Elizabeth Goitein and David M. Shapiro, October 5,2011
“The authority to classify documents exists to protect information that could threaten national security if it got into the wrong hands. It is one of the most important tools our government has to keep us safe. But many secrets protected by the classification system pose no danger to the nations safety. On the contrary, needless classificationoverclassificationjeopardizes national security. Excessive secrecy prevents federal agencies from sharing information internally, with other agencies, and with state and local law enforcement, making it more difficult to draw connections and anticipate threats. The 9/11 Commission found that the failure to share information contributed to intelligence gaps in the months before the September 11, 2001, attacks, cautioning that [c]urrent security requirements nurture overclassification and excessive compartmentation of information among agencies. Overclassification also corrodes democratic government. Secret programs stifled public debate on the decisions that shaped our response to the September 11 attacks. Should the military and CIA have used torture to extract information from detainees in secret overseas prisons and at Guantánamo Bay? Should the National Security Agency have eavesdropped on Americans telephone calls without warrants? Even leaving aside the legality of these measures, whether to use torture or to forego the use of warrants are questions that, in a democracy, properly belong in the public sphere. Classification forced the nation to rely on leaked information to debate these questions, and to do so well after torture and warrantless surveillance programs were in place…When a member of the public asks an agency to review particular records for declassification (through a process called mandatory declassification review), 92 percent of the time the agency determines that at least some of the requested records need not remain classified. But the number of documents reviewed through this process pales in comparison to the universe of documents that, though they may not require classification, remain unreviewedand thus classifiedfor many years..A major theme of this reportand a source of frustration to those who have studied the classification systemis the persistent gap between written regulation and actual practice.”
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