A rare moment of bipartisan unity has emerged in the halls of Congress - one aimed at tackling a threat not from abroad, but from within: overclassification.
On July 9, 2024, Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the Classification Reform for Transparency Act of 2024 (S.4648), calling the government’s current system of handling classified information a “crisis that undermines both our national security and transparency.”
With up to 50 million new classified documents created each year and a declassification system lagging hopelessly behind, the legislation aims to radically streamline how the U.S. government handles secrets.
📂 Classified, But Why?
At the heart of the problem is a classification system that is:
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Outdated
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Costly
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Inconsistent
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And largely unchecked
Experts estimate that 50% to 90% of classified material could be released without harming national security, yet the cost of maintaining this secret infrastructure now exceeds $18 billion a year.
As public trust in government transparency dwindles, this bloated secrecy machine is increasingly viewed as a threat to democracy.
🏛️ The Bill’s Core Fixes
The proposed legislation calls for sweeping changes:
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Creation of a Presidential Task Force to overhaul classification policy
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Elimination of the “Confidential” classification level, leaving only “Secret” and “Top Secret”
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Automatic declassification mandates
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Accountability measures for original classifiers, including potential penalties or performance incentives
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Narrowing definitions for what qualifies as “classified”
The task force would include senior officials from intelligence, justice, defense, and archival agencies, giving it real teeth to drive systemic reform.
⚠️ When Secrecy Backfires
The bill’s sponsors cite high-profile classification failures as symptoms of a deeper rot:
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Mishandled documents found at President Biden’s Delaware home and Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate
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The Kissinger-to-Nixon memo partially withheld for years by the Department of Defense, despite full publication elsewhere
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The 9/11 Commission Report, which blamed government “overclassification” and “excessive compartmentalization” for hindering intelligence sharing that might have prevented the attacks
In short, overclassification doesn’t just frustrate historians - it kills accountability, undermines trust, and can endanger lives.
🤖 Technology Meets Transparency
The bill also nods to the growing challenge of scale.
With billions of pages of electronic records and the government’s slow digitization efforts, some experts say manual review is “impossible.”
Even the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, despite its deregulatory agenda, called for:
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AI-enhanced declassification tools
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Cloud integration
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Big Data analysis
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More staff with diverse digital skills
Transparency, it seems, requires both technological innovation and human oversight.
🕵️ A Bipartisan History
Calls for classification reform are nothing new.
Back in 1997, Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) introduced a bill to declassify most documents after 10 years unless national security required otherwise.
Now, nearly three decades later, those ideas have returned - but the stakes are higher than ever.
⚖️ The Stakes: Democracy vs. Darkness
Evan Gottesman, a staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee, calls the issue “almost nonpartisan.”
It’s not just about historians or journalists - it’s about governance, security, and the public’s right to know.
“We can do a better job protecting secrets if we have a smaller number of things that are kept secret.”
- Alissa Starzak, Chair, Public Interest Declassification Board
As America approaches an era of deep digital archives and AI-driven security, the real danger may be not what’s leaked - but what’s locked away and never examined at all.