Security Classified and Controlled Information: History, Status, and Emerging Management Issues

Publication Date: February 2008

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Media, telecommunications, and information

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Abstract:

The security classification regime in use within the federal executive branch traces its origins to armed forces information protection practices of the World War I era. The classification system -- designating information, according to prescribed criteria and procedures, protected in accordance with one of three levels of sensitivity, based on the amount of harm to the national security that would result from its disclosure -- attained a presidential character in 1940 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the initial executive order prescribing these information security arrangements. Refinements in the creation, management, and declassification of national security information followed over the succeeding decades, and continue today. In many regards, these developments represent attempts to narrow the bases and discretion for assigning official secrecy to executive branch documents and materials. Limiting the quantity of security classified information has been thought to be desirable for a variety of important reasons: (1) promoting an informed citizenry, (2) effectuating accountability for government policies and practices, (3) realizing oversight of government operations, and (4) achieving efficiency and economy in government management.

Because security classification, however, was not possible for some kinds of information deemed in some quarters to be "sensitive," other kinds of designations or markings came to be applied to alert federal employees regarding its privileged or potentially harmful character. Sometimes these markings derived from statutory provisions requiring the protection of a type of information; others were administratively authorized with little detail about their use.

In the current environment, still affected by the long shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, several issues have arisen regarding security classified and controlled information. Volume is a concern: 8 million new classification actions in 2001 jumped to 14 million new actions in 2005, while the quantity of declassified pages dropped from 100 million in 2001 to 29 million in 2005. Expense is vexing: $4.5 billion spent on classification in 2001 increased to $7.1 billion in 2004, while declassification costs fell from $232 million in 2001 to $48.3 million in 2004, according to annual reports by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Some agencies were recently discovered to be withdrawing archived records from public access and reclassifying them. Critically evaluating this activity, ISOO has indicated that the federal government needs to apply a more integrated approach among the classifying agencies. The force of, and authority for, information control markings, other than security classification labels, have come under congressional scrutiny, prompting concerns about their number, variety, lack of underlying managerial regimes, and effects. Among those effects, contend the Government Accountability Office and the manager of the Information Sharing Environment for the intelligence community, is the obstruction of information sharing across the federal government and with state and local governments. These and related matters, including remedial legislation (H.R. 2331, H.R. 5112, H.R. 5441), are examined in this report, which will be updated as events warrant.