One reason why classification is an unreliable guide as to what should or should not be published by the press is that classification policy is implemented erratically by the government.
In a new report for Congress, the Government Accountability Office found numerous problems in classification activity at the Department of Defense.
“Our review of a … sample of 111 classified DOD documents from five OSD offices shows that, within these offices, DOD personnel are not uniformly following established procedures for classifying information, to include correctly marking classified information,” the GAO report said.
“In our review of the OSD documents, we questioned DOD officials’ classification decisions for 29 documents–that is, 26 percent of the sample.”
“The majority of our questions centered around two problems: the inconsistent treatment of similar information within the same document, and whether all of the information marked as classified met established criteria for classification.”
See “Managing Sensitive Information: DOD Can More Effectively Reduce the Risk of Classification Errors” (pdf), June 30, 2006.
A companion report reviewed classification activity at the Department of Energy.
See “Managing Sensitive Information: Actions Needed to Ensure Recent Changes in DOE Oversight Do Not Weaken an Effective Classification System” (pdf), June 30, 2006.
To fight the climate crises, we must do more than connect power plants to the grid: we need new policy frameworks and expanded coalitions to facilitate the rapid transformation of the electricity system.
Without information, without factual information, you can’t act. You can’t relate to the world you live in. And so it’s super important for us to be able to monitor what’s happening around the world, analyze the material, and translate it into something that different audiences can understand.
There is a lot to like in OPM’s new memos on federal hiring and senior executives, much of which reformers have been after for years, but there’s also a troubling focus on politicizing the federal workforce.
FAS is excited to announce it has acquired MetroLab Network (MLN), bringing together two teams with a shared commitment to harnessing science, technology and innovation to drive impact in new ways in communities across the country.