Slashdot Mirror
Senator Questions The Declassification Policies of America's National Intelligence Office (senate.gov)
America spent $16 billion on classifying documents last year, and Senator Wyden argues the process is now "too unwieldy to be truly secure... over-classification prevents effective information sharing between agencies." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Senator's new announcement:
The Reducing Over-Classification Act of 2010 allows government agencies to pay cash awards to employees who accurately classify government documents consistently and avoid unnecessary over-classification of information that is not a threat to national security. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the EFF, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it could not locate any records about the criteria for awarding those incentives.
"Congress included this provision...to reverse the culture of unnecessary classification, reduce the volume of classified documents, and better protect the secrets whose disclosure would truly threaten national security," Wyden wrote [in a new letter to National Intelligence]. "I am concerned that federal agencies with the power to classify and declassify documents may not be taking advantage of these payment awards, and I believe doing so could benefit our national security."
"Congress included this provision...to reverse the culture of unnecessary classification, reduce the volume of classified documents, and better protect the secrets whose disclosure would truly threaten national security," Wyden wrote [in a new letter to National Intelligence]. "I am concerned that federal agencies with the power to classify and declassify documents may not be taking advantage of these payment awards, and I believe doing so could benefit our national security."
Exactly. Plausible deniability is the actual goal. If it benefits national security, that's purely ancillary.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
However the existing programs that are in place have been altered to do exactly as the previous comments.
In other words, the weeds have overtaken the garden.
In the mid-90s we had a department wide meeting discussing care and disposal of company confidential documents. Actually, it was the VP blathering along for some 30 minutes with the rest of us wishing smartphones had been invented already. At the end he asked for comments. I raised my hand, then said "It's hard to take it seriously when even the cafeteria weekly menu is marked confidential".
He said he'd look into it, nothing changed, when I left a few years later the menus were still considered company confidential.