Abstract
During an era of great, many would say excessive, secrecy, we are still not safe. Indeed, excessive secrecy almost certainly makes us less secure. As J. William Leonard, the former director of the government's Information Security Oversight Office, told Congress in 2004, “It is no secret that the government classifies too much information. Too much classification unnecessarily impedes effective information sharing, and inappropriate classification undermines the integrity of the entire process.” It also erodes public trust, prevents accountability, and depletes our resources.
To improve the declassification process, President George W. Bush and Congress would be well advised to heed many of the recommendations of the Public Interest Declassification Board's (PIDB) recent report, “Improving Declassification.” Key recommendations in the report are the establishment of a National Declassification Center at the National Archives and Records Administration, and requirements that departments and agencies consolidate their declassification activities in one office, record declassification decisions on a single computerized system (to be made publicly available with at least minimal information within five years), and report their progress annually to the declassification center. Notably, after receiving the report, the president formally forwarded it to federal agencies for comment. The public should urge the PIDB to make these comments public.
One of the 14 issue areas in the PIDB report deals with the status and treatment of Formerly Restricted Data. As with unclassified secrets–such as information designated For Official Use Only or Treat As Classified–this data generally remains outside the scope of information that can be requested by the public and is not subject to declassification review. The PIDB recommends that Formerly Restricted Data be treated as defense information within the classification system and also suggests how to accommodate the public's interest in this information.
A brief look at the recent record of federal secrecy justifies such actions. In 2004 Congress was told that the Defense Department overclassified as much as 50 percent of its information. Indeed, original classification decisions in 2006 (the most recent year for which numbers are available) remain substantially higher than they were in 2000, according to the 2007 Secrecy Report Card by Open The Government.org. Derivative classifications, where by information is classified based on the precedent of earlier classified documents, increased more than 50 percent from 2005 to 2006. (Some of this increase is attributable to improved data sampling during declassification.) The percentage of classified Defense acquisitions has more than doubled in real terms since 1995; 18 percent of the $179.8 billion 2007 acquisitions budget was classified.
The government faces a massive financial burden to keep its secrets safe, and eventually, to pay for reviewing those secrets to be declassified. In 2006, $44 million was allocated for declassification, while $8.2 billion was set aside for overall security classification costs.
The government faces a massive–and growing–financial burden to keep all of these secrets safe, and eventually, to pay for reviewing those secrets to be declassified. In 2000, the overall cost of securing classified information was $4.3 billion, while $231 million was spent on declassification, a ratio of 17 to 1. In 2006, only $44 million was allocated for declassification (at the height of the automatic declassification effort), while $8.2 billion was set aside for overall security classification costs, a ratio of 185 to 1. Such excessive classification is tolerated despite the cost to our national budget–and to public trust and the public interest.
Access to vital information is the bedrock of government accountability. As James Madison said, “A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” The public is increasingly unable to arm itself, thus the recommendations put forward by the PIDB merit close attention and discussion.
Supplementary Material
Improving Declassification: A Report to the President from the Public Interest Declassification Board