What are the risks of overclassifying millions of U.S. documents as secret?

On January 17, 2023, the company “Pantheon” published a book by “Matthew Connelly,” a history professor at Columbia University, titled “The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Most Secret Secrets.” In this book, the author discusses the contradictions surrounding the issue of secrecy within the U.S. government and outlines the dangers of overclassifying millions of documents as secret. Ultimately, he offers a solution that balances the need to protect the most sensitive documents with the release of others that would not jeopardize U.S. national security.

Erosion of Secrets

The book highlights that the United States experienced one of the most catastrophic leaks of confidential information in history in August 2016. This incident, according to the text, exposed the dangers associated with leaking secret information on U.S. national security. Some notable consequences included:

Empowerment of Hackers with U.S. Electronic Weapons: The book reveals that an unknown entity calling itself “the Shadow Brokers” disclosed a cache of sophisticated electronic weapons developed in complete secrecy by the National Security Agency (NSA). With the source code for these powerful weapons released online, hackers repurposed them to launch sizeable ransomware attacks, ultimately leading to the shutdown of millions of computers worldwide and crippling thousands of private companies, ranging from automobile manufacturers in France to chocolate factories in Australia.

Adverse Use by Hostile Governments: The author details how hostile foreign governments also capitalized on these tools; North Korea used NSA malware to attack the British healthcare system, Iran targeted airlines in the Middle East, and Russia employed the tools against Ukraine.

Making Certain U.S. Secrets Accessible Worldwide: The book notes that in 2017, The New York Times reported that, after a 15-month investigation, authorities were unable to identify the perpetrator of this leak. Even if they could identify the perpetrator, that information would remain “secret.” The author believes that this entire disaster sheds light on the issue of government classification; while U.S. agencies, including the NSA, are known for their secrecy, a massive leak occurred, bringing some state secrets to light for the world.

Bureaucratic Pressures

According to the book, the practice of large-scale document classification in the United States emerged in the aftermath of World War II, influenced by several considerations, primarily:

The Rise of Defense Bureaucracy and the Military-Industrial Complex: The book posits that the establishment of a permanent defense bureaucracy and the military-industrial complex immediately following World War II gave rise to what could be described as a “tyrant” of classification imposed by official entities.

Institutionalizing Secrecy with the Onset of the Cold War: Rather than curtailing the prevailing culture and institutions of secrecy from World War II, the Truman administration institutionalized it as the Cold War began. The establishment of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, combined with the secrecy surrounding the U.S. nuclear arsenal, accelerated the professionalization of state classifications.

In this context, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s running mate, remarked in 1955, “Our current security system is a phenomenon of the last decade alone. We have enacted espionage laws, tightened existing regulations, and requested investigations and approvals for millions of our citizens. We have classified information and locked it away. We have not paused in our necessary quest for security to ask ourselves: What are we trying to protect? And against what?”

Records Inflation

The book explains that millions of new government documents are classified as “top secret” each year, adding that more areas of official activity are placed beyond the oversight of citizens, journalists, and even Congress. This excessive classification, according to the author, presents numerous risks and disadvantages, including:

Waste of Government Financial Resources: The federal government spent over $18 billion in 2017 just to maintain this classification system, almost double what was spent five years prior. The book highlights that as much of the government’s work is now shrouded in secrecy, permits have been granted to an increasing number of federal employees, resulting in approximately 1.3 million Americans holding top-secret clearance—almost double the population of Washington, D.C.

Increased Likelihood of Leaks: Given the vast amounts of classified materials and the number of individuals requiring access to perform their duties, combined with the growing ease of copying and transferring large quantities of digital information, the book posits that wholesale leaks of classified information are almost assured.

Erosion of Transparency and Democratic Accountability: The author argues that decades of poor practices by government agencies related to classification have undermined transparency and democratic accountability. The rush towards arbitrary classification is often justified in the name of national security. The book states, “When everything is secret, nothing remains secret,” suggesting that the scale of this particular dark state poses security risks.

Additionally, the book references the 9/11 Commission Report, which concluded that overclassification could jeopardize national security, noting that “while secrecy is essential, it can harm oversight” and that “the best oversight mechanism in a democracy is public disclosure.”

Serving the Interests of Executive Power Members: The book asserts that classification is an exercise of power and is often driven by political or bureaucratic considerations rather than national security imperatives. The text notes, “It was clear from the outset that a secret is anything that serves the interests of the president and those around him who invest in executive power. In any bureaucracy, the ability to present something as secret becomes an irresistible bargaining chip; it serves as a means to evade oversight, promote narrow priorities, and conceal failures.”

Inflation of Historical State Records: The author believes another challenge is the immense volume of classified documents. Since the government classifies more documents than it declassifies, the size of the historical record continues to grow each year, hindering U.S. government efforts to declassify all this information. According to the book, there is no electronic system to automate declassification, and relevant federal agencies lack the staff and resources to manually review and edit billions of classified documents. It warns that if these records are indefinitely obscured or destroyed, it will be impossible to reconstruct what officials did under the veil of secrecy.

Big Data

In conclusion, the book proposes an innovative technical solution to overcome the issues of overclassification and the inflation of historical records. It notes that given the vast amount of still-classified information, the only way to tackle this problem is through big data. By scanning hundreds of thousands of declassified documents—some of which remain concealed while others are accessible—the author and his colleagues at Columbia University were able to search for specific keywords, topics, and communications to identify areas with heightened sensitivity.

The book emphasizes that by comparing the redacted and unredacted versions of the same documents that have been declassified for some time, a series of technological methods were devised to quickly sort vast archives and select documents meeting particular criteria. It stressed that if such technologies were harnessed in the declassification process, it might become possible to “train algorithms to search for sensitive records requiring closer scrutiny while simultaneously speeding up the release of everything else.” This constitutes what the author refers to as the “declassification engine,” an innovative technical solution to a complex bureaucratic issue.

Matthew James Connelly, The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets, (USA: ‎ Pantheon, 2023).

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SAKHRI Mohamed
SAKHRI Mohamed

I hold a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Relations in addition to a Master's degree in International Security Studies. Alongside this, I have a passion for web development. During my studies, I acquired a strong understanding of fundamental political concepts and theories in international relations, security studies, and strategic studies.

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