How to Achieve 90% Reduction -- Step 1: Tootsie Pop Theory

Yesterday, I set forth a vision in which President Obama directs that the amount of information classified by our government be reduced by 90% by the end of his current administration. One simple way to work toward achieving that goal is to simply prohibit the application of what I call the "Tootsie Pop theory."

Even if you don't have kids of your own you probably recall from your own childhood the tootsie pop, the candy in which you had to work your way through a hard, not so good tasting outside in order to reach the soft, chewy, tootsie roll candy on the inside. Many in government, especially in the intelligence community, employ the classification process the same way.

Many intelligence officials will readily admit that they purposely classify a significant amount of information in order to simply obfuscate or otherwise make it more difficult to learn of the truly sensitive information. Probably the best example of this, but by no means only example, is the classification of the intelligence budget. Intelligence officials insist on keeping classified the top line of past year intelligence budgets because of the "slippery slope" argument; i.e., once the top line is released, then the pressure will be on to release the next line and so on. So rather than simply making a rational argument which justifies withholding specific lines of the intelligence budget, officials continually apply a blanket determination, whether it makes sense or not.

Similarly, in 2006 my former office did an audit of the withdrawal of records from public access at the National Archives for classification purposes. During the course of this review, the audit identified at least one review effort whereby the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deliberately removed a considerable number of purely unclassified records in order to obfuscate the classified equity the agency was intent on protecting. By the time of the audit, even the CIA could not distinguish between which records were which.

Other than appearing downright silly, what is the impact of the "tootsie pop theory?" Using the example of the continued classification of intelligence budget information, the "9-11 Commission" stated it best when they observed that no informed public debate over intelligence priorities and resources can occur as long as the public is kept unaware of the total spending and distribution of funds in the intelligence community.

The application of this practice is not isolated. Unfortunately, its impact on any adversary is negligible while the impact on our own government and our ability to make fully informed national security related decisions is severe. It significantly contributes to flawed decisions. Once again, American citizens are placed at increased risk simply because of a bureaucratic impulse to defend a senseless secrecy principle.

It is past time to rethink the fundamentals.