One reason why classification is an unreliable guide as to what should or should not be published by the press is that classification policy is implemented erratically by the government.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.
At a time when universities are already facing intense pressure to re-envision their role in the S&T ecosystem, we encourage NSF to ensure that the ambitious research acceleration remains compatible with their expertise.
FAS CEO Daniel Correa recently spoke with Adam Marblestone and Sam Rodriques, former FAS fellows who developed the idea for FROs and advocated for their use in a 2020 policy memo.
In a year when management issues like human capital, IT modernization, and improper payments have received greater attention from the public, examining this PMA tells us a lot about where the Administration’s policy is going to be focused through its last three years.
Congress must enact a Digital Public Infrastructure Act, a recognition that the government’s most fundamental responsibility in the digital era is to provide a solid, trustworthy foundation upon which people, businesses, and communities can build.