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EXAMINING THE COSTS OF OVERCLASSIFICATION 

ON TRANSPARENCY AND SECURITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 7, 2016 

Serial No. 114–174 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

ANDREW DOCKHAM, General Counsel 

KATHY ROTHER, Senior Counsel 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on December 7, 2016 ........................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. J. William Leonard, Former Director, Information Security Oversight 

Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 5 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Mr. Steven Aftergood, Director, Project on Government Secrecy, Federation 

of American Scientists 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 47 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 49 

Mr. Tom Blanton, Director, National Security Archive, The George Washington University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 57 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 59 

Mr. Scott Amey, General Counsel, Project on Government Oversight 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 69 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 71 

APPENDIX 

2015 Report to the President ISOO-National Archives submitted by Mr. 

Chaffetz can be found here: https://www.archives.gov/files/isoo/reports/ 

2015-annual-report.pdf 


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EXAMINING THE COSTS OF OVERCLASSIFICATION ON TRANSPARENCY AND SECURITY 

Wednesday, December 7, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:00 a.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Duncan, Jordan, 

Walberg, Amash, Farenthold, Massie, Meadows, DeSantis, 

Mulvaney, Buck, Walker, Hice, Russell, Carter, Grothman, Hurd, 

Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Clay, Lynch, Connolly, Kelly, Lawrence, Watson Coleman, Plaskett, DeSaulnier, Welch, and Lujan 

Grisham. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Good morning. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. 

And, without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess 

at any time. 

We have an important hearing this morning: ‘‘Examining the 

Costs of Overclassification on Transparency and Security.’’ Sunlight 

is said to be the best disinfectant, and without knowing what our 

government is doing, we can’t ensure it is operating efficiently and 

effectively. It is also important to remember that the American people pay for the Federal Government. The Federal Government 

works for the American people. It is not the other way around, and 

so it is, you would think, logical to make sure that we are as open 

and transparent and accessible as possible, but this is always a 

running battle. We always have to find the proper balance between 

safety and security and openness and transparency, but we can’t 

give up all of our liberties in the name of security. And so we have 

this hearing today with four experts, people who have poured their 

time, effort, talent, their careers really, into this topic. There is a 

wealth of information that they are going to share with us, and 

that is what we are excited to hear about today. 

Without knowing what our government is doing, we can’t ensure 

it is operating efficiently and effectively, as I said. Transparency is 

the basis ultimately for accountability. At the same time, transparency into certain government activities can create an opportunity for those who wish to do us harm, and so Congress gives 

some agencies the authority to withhold certain information from 

public disclosure. This authority to classify information and create 

secrets is needed to protect our national security. I don’t think anybody doubts that there should be a degree of this. The question is 


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what degree of this. But when you give the authority to classify 

certain information, Congress has a role to play in making sure 

that authority is being properly excercised. 

Overclassification of information has become a concern. Estimates range from 50 to 90 percent of classified material is not 

properly labeled. In the 1990s, Congress established the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy to study 

those issues and develop recommendations. In 1997, the Commission issued a final report, including 16 recommendations. Three of 

those recommendations were implemented. Seven were partially 

implemented, and six remain open today. The Chairman of the 

Commission, the late Senator Patrick Moynihan, wrote, and I 

quote: ‘‘If the present report is to serve any large purpose, it is to 

introduce the public to the thought that secrecy is a mode of regulation. In truth, it is the ultimate mode for the citizen does not 

even know that he or she is being regulated,’’ end quote. 

Patrick Moynihan, hats off to him and his leadership in understanding and really helping to champion this effort to move forward and really examine the degree of which secrecy is needed in 

our Nation. 

Here we don’t even know what can hurt us. As the tendency to 

overclassify information goes, so does the lack of accountability to 

both Congress and the American taxpayer. The Commission also 

warned about the dangers of restricting information from those 

who actually do need it. Looking back, that point seems almost prophetic in light of the events that would unfold on September 11, 

2001. 

After conducting an exhaustive study of the attacks, the 9/11 

Commission issued its own report that found we need to move forward from a system of need-to-know to a culture of need-to-share. 

What we have learned is that overclassification can also be damaging to national security, or at a minimum, it can lead to second 

guessing what might have been if we were only able to get the information in the right hands at the right time. 

According to a report by the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives, in the last 10 years, the Federal Government has spent more than $100 billion on security classification 

activities. In fact, I would ask unanimous consent to enter that report into the record. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Last year alone, classification is estimated 

to have cost $16 billion. It is unclear what exactly the taxpayers 

got in return for this expense. There was presumably some level of 

greater security as a result of restricting access to certain information. Again, no doubt that there needs to be classification that 

needs to be implicated, but at what level? This leads us to a number of basic questions. Does the billions of dollars spent to classify 

make us safer? How much money did we spend on security clearances for folks who probably didn’t need them in the first place? 

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported the Department of Defense found $125 billion in savings over 5 years by simply 

streamlining bureaucracy—$125 billion. To give you an idea, the 

entire State of Utah, everything we do in Utah—it is a smaller 

State, granted—but everything we do, from education to the NaVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:50 Jul 21, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26177.TXT APRIL

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tional Guard to roads and paying teachers, is about $14 billion. 

And here at the Department of Defense, 5 years’ savings, $125 billion, by simply streamlining bureaucracy. 

The Department of Defense was sufficiently embarrassed by this, 

as they should be, and decided to bury the study, but trust me: we 

are going to look into this. According to the article, quote, ‘‘The 

Pentagon imposed secrecy restrictions on the data, which ensured 

that no one could replicate the findings,’’ end quote. Not what we 

should be doing as a Nation. It is a prime example of why we are 

holding this hearing today. And when agencies have a tool to keep 

information from the public, Congress must ensure those tools 

aren’t used for nefarious reasons. 

I look forward to discussing those issues with the witnesses 

today. I thank the panel of experts for coming before the committee 

to help us better understand some of the complexities of the government secrecy. I think you will find that Congress, in particular 

this committee, has a keen interest on this. The committee has 

been has been a leader and a champion of the Freedom of Information Act, one of the tools that is important for the American public 

to understand what their government—their government is supposed to be working for them—is actually doing. So I look forward 

to this discussion. 

Somebody I know who holds an equal passion for this is my colleague, Elijah Cummings, the ranking member, from Maryland, 

and I would like to recognize him for his opening statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you very much for holding this hearing. Government 

transparency is a bipartisan issue. Over multiple sessions of Congress, our committee has made significant progress in making the 

Federal Government more open and accountable. We do this best 

when we work together. 

During this Congress, we worked together to strengthen the 

Freedom of Information Act, and those amendments were signed 

into law by President Obama in June. Just this past Monday, we 

sent another bill to the White House to strengthen protections for 

employees working for contractors and grantees who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, and abuse. 

We now have the opportunity to work together to address the 

flaws in our classification system. Over the past several years, our 

committee has conducted multiple investigations, including our review of Secretary Clinton’s emails, that exposed serious flaws in 

our classification system. We have seen agencies disagree with 

each other on whether an email was classified. We have seen information that began unclassified later being retroactively classified. 

We have seen documents that were not properly marked as classified. And we have seen documents that were classified after they 

had already been publicly released. And, first and foremost, I believe that we in Congress should exercise our authority to improve 

the classification system and make government information more 

transparent. We can conduct oversight, such as these hearings, and 

we can investigate specific allegations of security breaches and unwarranted government secrecy. Congress can also legislate them. 

We can pass reforms that actually address the problems we will 

hear about today. 


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Twenty years ago, the Moynihan Commission provided a roadmap to improving the classification system. But too little has been 

done since that report was issued. For example, the Commission 

recommended that Congress enact a statute establishing the principles of classification, but Congress still has not taken that step. 

The fundamental purpose underlying all of our efforts today is to 

provide the American people with more information, especially 

when it impacts our national security. Our operating premise is 

that a better informed electorate leads to a better-functioning government on behalf of all of the American people. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for calling today’s critical hearing, 

but there is another national security area that I believe the American people should have much more information about from their 

government. 

On November 17, 2016, I wrote a letter to the chairman requesting that our committee conduct a bipartisan investigation into Russia’s role into interfering with and influencing the 2016 Presidential election. I specifically requested that we receive a classified 

briefing from the intelligence community. Today, nearly 3 weeks 

have now gone by. I have received no response, and the committee 

has taken no action. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I know you have said that you do not want 

to do any oversight relating to President-elect Donald Trump until 

he is sworn into office, and I can understand that. But these attacks on our country have already happened. It already happened. 

This is not something of a future threat. This has already been 

done. And unless we act, it may very well happen again. For these 

reasons, yesterday, I joined Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer, and 

ranking members of the Committees on Armed Services, Homeland 

Security, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs, and we did 

ourselves what this committee did not. We sent a letter to the 

President requesting that all Members, that all of us, all Members 

of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, be provided the opportunity to receive a classified briefing by the intelligence community 

with the most up-to-date information on this issue. 

This is not a partisan issue, and it should not be. Republican 

Senator Lindsey Graham has called for this type of investigation 

in the Senate, essentially saying that Republicans should not sit on 

the sidelines and let allegations about foreign governments interfering in our election go unanswered just because it may have been 

beneficial to them in this instance. Republican Senator Marco 

Rubio put it even more bluntly saying, quote: ‘‘Today, it is the 

Democrats. Tomorrow, it could be us,’’ end of quote. 

The bottom line is that this is not a Democratic issue, and it is 

not a Republican issue. This is an American issue. Elections are a 

core American value and are central to our democracy, and any foreign interference with our elections should be of the greatest concern to every single Member of this Congress. The American people 

deserve as much information as possible about these threats and 

the actions their government is taking to address them. As I say 

to my constituents over and over again in the last election and during these times, this is bigger than Hillary Clinton. This is bigger 

than Donald Trump. This is about a struggle for the soul of our democracy, and so it is our job to ensure that we get this kind of inVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:50 Jul 21, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26177.TXT APRIL

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formation since it is our duty to make sure that our democracy 

stands strong and that our children’s children can have a democracy just as strong as the one that we have experienced. 

And, with that, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

We will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement. 

I will now recognize our panel of witnesses. I am pleased to welcome Mr. J. William Leonard, former Director of the Information 

Security Oversight Office; Mr. Steven Aftergood, director of the 

Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists; Mr. Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive 

at the George Washington University; and Mr. Scott—is it Amey? 

Mr. AMEY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I just want to make sure I pronounce that 

properly. Mr. Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight. 

We welcome you and thank you for being here. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn in before they testify. If you will please rise and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

Thank you. You may be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. In order to allow time for discussion, we would appreciate 

your limiting your verbal comments to no greater than 5 minutes 

so members can have ample time to ask questions. Your entire 

written statement and extraneous materials will be entered into 

the record. 

Mr. Leonard, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. And the 

microphones in this committee, you have got to straighten them up 

and put them right up uncomfortably close. Thank you. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF J. WILLIAM LEONARD 

Mr. LEONARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cummings, members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to attend this 

meeting this morning. The ability and authority to classify national 

security information is a critical tool of the Federal Government 

and its leaders to protect our Nation and its citizens. However, 

when negligently or recklessly applied, overclassification of information can undermine the very integrity of the classification system and also create needless impediments to transparency that can 

undermine our form of government and its constitutional system of 

checks and balances. 

I have come to the conclusion that, on its own, the executive 

branch is both incapable and unwilling to achieve true reform in 

this area. Incapable in that, absent external pressure from either 

the legislative or judiciary branches of our government, true reform 

within the executive branch when the matter involves the equities 

of multiple agencies can only be achieved with the direct leadership 

emanating from the White House. 


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Over the past 40 years, we have seen only one White House-led 

attempt at classification reform, and that was in the 1990s. Bureaucracy’s response to those attempts at reform were typical— 

delay and foot drag—because agency officials know that, sooner or 

later, every administration eventually goes away, providing opportunities for rollback. 

With respect to the executive branch’s unwillingness to implement real classification reform, I believe it is unreasonable to expect it to do so primarily since the unconstrained ability to classify 

information is such an attractive tool for any administration to facilitate implementation of its national security agenda. In this regard, especially in the years since 9/11, we have seen successive administrations lay claim to new and novel authorities and to often 

wrap these claims in classification. This can amount to unchecked 

executive power. While the President must have the ability to interpret and define the constitutional authority of the office and at 

times to act unilaterally, the limits of the President’s authority to 

act unilaterally are defined by the willingness and the ability of 

Congress and the courts to constrain them. 

Of course, before the Congress or the courts can constrain Presidential claims to inherent unilateral powers, they must first be 

aware of those claims. Yet a long recognized power of the President 

is to classify and thus restrict the dissemination of information in 

the interest of national security, to include access by Congress or 

the courts. The combination of these two powers, that is when the 

President lays claim to inherent powers to act unilaterally but does 

so in secret, can equate to the very open-ended noncircumscribed 

executive authority that the Constitution’s Framers sought to avoid 

in constructing a system of checks and balances. 

Thus, absent ongoing congressional oversight or judicial review of 

executive assertions of classification, no one should ever be surprised that the authority to class information is routinely abused 

in matters both big and small. 

I have attached to my formal statement specific examples of classification abuse relating to three criminal cases in which the prosecution ultimately did not prevail in large part due to government 

overreach in its claims that certain information was classified. In 

each of these cases, the government abused the classification system and used it for other than its intended purpose. 

I believe that there are steps that Congress can take in order to 

address this matter. The first deals with enforcing accountability. 

Over the past several decades, a significant number of individuals 

have rightly been held accountable for improperly handling classified information. To my knowledge, during the same period, no one 

has ever been held accountable and subjected to sanctions for abusing the system and for improperly classifying information, despite 

the fact that the President’s executive order governing this authority treats unauthorized disclosures of classified information and inappropriate classification of information as equal violations of the 

order, subjecting perpetrators to comparable sanctions. Absent real 

accountability, it is no surprise that overclassification occurs with 

impunity. 

A second area worthy of possible legislative attention is that of 

providing a mechanism for routine, independent expert review of 


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agency classification decisions, especially as a tool to be made 

available to the executive’s two coequal branches of government 

when exercising congressional oversight or judicial action and to 

which they could come to their own independent judgment as to 

the appropriateness of executive assertions of classification. Traditionally, both Congress and the courts are understandably deferential to such assertions. Nonetheless, when applying the controls of 

classification, government officials are obligated to follow the 

standards set forth by the President and not exceed the governing 

orders, prohibitions, and limitations. 

Thus, it is not only possible but entirely appropriate to conduct 

a standards-based review of classification decisions. I have attached to my formal statement one potential methodology for such 

reviews. 

I applaud this committee for focusing on this critical topic to our 

Nation’s well-being, and I thank you for inviting me here today, 

Mr. Chairman. I will be happy to answer any questions you or 

other committee members might have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Leonard follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Now there is a model for ending right at the 5-minute mark. 

Mr. Aftergood, I challenge you to come within 1 second of that 

mark as well, but you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN AFTERGOOD 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Cummings. 

As you know and as you really expressed very well, overclassification presents many kinds of problems. It makes your oversight 

job more difficult. It incurs substantial financial and operational 

costs, and it often leaves the public in the dark about national security matters of urgent importance that they should be aware of. 

Why do we even have overclassification? I think there are many 

reasons. For one thing, it is easier for officials to restrict access to 

information without carefully weighing the pros and cons of what 

should be disclosed. Overclassification many times is simply the 

path of least resistance. Unchecked classification can also serve the 

political interests of the classifiers. It is a way to manage public 

perceptions, to advance an agenda, to limit oversight, or simply to 

gain a form of political advantage. 

So what is the solution to overclassification? I don’t think there 

is a single solution. I discuss several partial solutions in my written statement. Many of those solutions depend on Congress to assert itself and to affirm its own institutional interests. Congress is 

not a spectator, and it should not be a victim when it comes to 

overclassification. It is a coequal branch of government. 

In the executive branch, there are lots of fine and conscientious 

people who are involved in classification policy, fortunately, but we 

should not have to rely on their integrity. We rely instead on Congress to exercise checks and balances in performing its routine 

oversight duties. 

Finally, I would like to say that we are in a peculiar moment in 

our history that makes this issue particularly urgent. Everything 

I have just said about overclassification could have been said 10 

years ago or 20 years ago. This is a stubborn and persistent problem, but there is something different today. We are living in a period of unusual political instability that I believe requires even 

greater transparency. Almost every day, we see increased expressions of hostility against religious and ethnic minorities. So-called 

fake news has lately resulted in actual acts of violence here in 

Washington, D.C., in the past week. And it seems that our political 

institutions are under a subtle form of attack by foreign actors, as 

the ranking member discussed. This is not a normal situation, and 

it is not the way that things have always been. 

What complicates things further is that the incoming administration, at least during the election cycle, has indicated policy preferences that depart significantly from existing law and policy in 

areas such as foreign policy, questions of whether or not to engage 

in torture, questions involving freedom of religion. In some cases, 

these raise basic constitutional issues. So the bottom line is that 

we are entering a turbulent time. Reducing overclassification and 

increasing transparency will not solve our problems. But if we fail 

to reduce overclassification, we are going to make those problems 


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worse and harder to solve. Thank you again for holding this hearing and for the essential work of oversight that you do. I would be 

glad to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Aftergood follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Mr. Blanton, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF TOM BLANTON 

Mr. BLANTON. I am certainly not going to match those timings. 

He did 5 minutes. He did 4 minutes. It was outstanding. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and thank you other distinguished members of this 

committee for having me here today. 

I am here to make three points: One of them is a thank you for 

the Freedom of Information Act amendments that you all mentioned, because it is a model for what you can do here on classification. 

Second is to reinforce the message of that Moynihan Commission 

report. It was actually Moynihan, Combest, Jesse Helms, John Podesta commission. So you can tell when it is a unanimous bipartisan, it is something to pay attention to. And the number one recommendation was to pass a law to govern and fix this system. 

The third thing I am here to tell you is that, when a security official—officials—tell you something is classified, don’t believe them. 

Most of the time they are wrong. Fifty to 90 percent of the time, 

as the chairman commented, they are wrong. So don’t believe them. 

I am going to back that up with a few examples. 

But, first, the Freedom of Information Act amendments and why 

that is a model. You have already had an impact. You all, this committee was the leaders in this House of Representatives to get 

those amendments passed, and already the Central Intelligence 

Agency has released its Bay of Pigs draft history that they locked 

up for 30 years. On what grounds? Well, when you read it, you find 

out the grounds. The historian who wrote it and drafted it said: 

‘‘After more than 20 years, it appears that fear of exposing the 

Agency’s dirty linen, rather than any significant security information, is what prompts continued denial of request for release of 

these records.’’ That is the norm in the bureaucracy. Your amendments broke this loose. The CIA historian wrote on the back: Well, 

shucks, recent 2016 changes in the Freedom of Information Act require us to release some drafts that are responsive to FOIA requests. 

You did it by statute. That is the Congress’ role. You can do it 

to the classification system. And I recommend the detailed list of 

recommendations in the back of this extraordinary report, the Moynihan-Combest report, for how you can do that. You can build in 

cost-benefit into the originating classification decision. You can 

build in assessments of, what is the real risk? What is the real vulnerability? What is the stream of cost to the public and to efficient 

government operations from classifying? You can do that on the 

front end. You can build in a declassification board with power to 

release so you get a rational declassification on the back end so the 

system doesn’t get completely gummed up with unnecessary secrets. You can move those 50 to 90 percent of what shouldn’t be 

secret out to the public. You can do that, but you have got to do 

it by statute. As Bill Leonard says, the government is not going to 

fix itself. You have got to do it. 


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My third point is just don’t believe them on classification. Last 

month, we got a nice, you know, letter from the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff in answer to a Freedom of Information request. That is the 

document they gave us. It is all blacked out because releasing it 

would damage our national security, seriously damage it. This is at 

the secret level, right? It was fascinating because our staff person 

took a look and said: Oh, that is the Joint Chief’s advice on a Presidential policy directive back in July of 1986. That looks kind of familiar. 

And he flipped back in the files. Turns out we got it in 2010 in 

full. That made us go look at the cover letter. You know what the 

cover letter says? It says: We have coordinated your Freedom of Information review in consultation with the Joint Staff and the National Security Council. This is from the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense. It says OSD and NSC have no objection to declassification 

in full. However, Mr. Mark Patrick of the Joint Staff thinks it 

ought to be classified, and thus you got the black blotches. Classic 

case. One office doesn’t agree with another office. One says it has 

been released for 6 years. Another says it is going to damage our 

national security. 

Attached to my testimony, I got a half dozen other examples 

where it is not even one office and another office. It’s the same reviewer one week apart had diametrically opposed views of what 

would damage our national security from release. So, bottom line, 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member: Don’t believe them. Thank you 

very much for your time. I welcome your questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Blanton follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, thank you. We love your passion for 

it. It is good. 

Mr. Amey, you are now recognized for 5 minute. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT AMEY 

Mr. AMEY. That is a tough act to follow. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and members of the 

committee. POGO has always recognized the tension between openness and protecting legitimate government secrets, but the executive branch frequently overclassifies more information than is necessary and has developed new ways to conceal government information. Such obstructions create barriers to public deliberations on 

policy and government spending, impede sharing, and harm efforts 

to identify and remedy waste, fraud, and abuse. The 9/11 Commission said it simply: ‘‘Secrecy, while necessary, can also harm oversight.’’ Sometimes the result of classification is not for the legitimate need of secrecy but the concealment of embarrassing information, which creates public distrust. 

There are five main points that I want to briefly discuss today: 

overclassification, retroactive classification, controlled unclassified 

information, treatment in handling cases, and, finally, executive 

branch use of secret laws. 

In overclassification, overclassification might be a form of either 

excessive redactions or improper markings. Reports by the National Security Archive and ISOO show that the classification process is mostly heading in the right direction, and we have seen some 

improvement over the last few years, especially considering the 

amount of electronic documents that have to be reviewed. But one 

number is a concern. In 2015, classification decisions were overturned in whole or in part in over 50 percent of the challenges. 

That was 411 cases overturned out of 814 decisions that were 

made. Additionally, we have heard stories about the lack of clarity 

and authority in standards leading different agencies to come to 

different conclusions, as Mr. Blanton just discussed. 

POGO is also concerned about the lack of clarity about what constitutes intelligence sources and methods, which also can lead to 

overclassification. 

And, finally, classifications aren’t free. As the chairman mentioned, total security classification costs exceeded $16 billion back 

in 2015. 

The Moynihan Commission had an excellent recommendation to 

improve the system: classification decisions, including the establishment of special access programs, no longer be based on damage 

to national security. Additional factors, such as cost of protection, 

vulnerability, threat, risk, value of the information, and public benefit from release, could also be considered when making classification decisions. POGO is in agreement that such factors should be 

considered to reduce executive branch secrecy. 

On the issue of retroactive classification, for years, POGO has expressed concerns about questionable activities to retroactively classify government information. POGO has firsthand experience because we were involved in instances involving Area 51 and unclassified briefings to Members of Congress in a whistleblower retaliation case. POGO believes that any reviews of the classification 


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process should include a comprehensive look at issues affecting retroactive classification, including failures in the system to classify 

the information appropriately, how frequently it occurs, what considerations were given to the information, if it is publicly available, 

and what constitutes constitutional issues related to prior restraints. 

On the issue of controlled unclassified information, there has 

been a proliferation of CUI, and by 2010, there were over 100 different CUI markings within government agencies. We have even 

witnessed examples of misuse, and POGO hopes that the committee will consider providing oversight of the implementation of 

the recently released CUI regulations. We have also even recently 

heard an example—and it was something that we had complained 

about during the process—that employees at DHS, when they were 

given FOIA training, were also instructed that, if they have a FOIA 

that comes in and the information is marked ‘‘CUI,’’ it should not 

be released. And so that is opposite to the executive order that the 

President issued as well as the language that is in the final regulation from there and ISOO. 

Unequal treatment in handling cases. In the past few years, we 

have witnessed numerous instances of mishandling of classified or 

protected information. I go into more detail in my written testimony, but POGO thinks that, if an intent is considered in high-profile cases involving senior officials, it should also be considered, as 

well as other factors, in whistleblower cases. 

Secret law. POGO has voiced many concerns about the executive 

branch use of secret law. How we come to conclusions and striking 

the right balance between our security and our rights is imperative, and the legal interpretations cannot be cloaked in secrecy. Secret law poses a serious harm to our democracy. 

POGO’s written recommendations are in our written testimony, 

but I think there is one issue and point that the 9/11 Commission 

made that is important about nurturing—that the current system 

nurtures overclassification. There are no punishments for not sharing information. Agencies uphold a need-to-know culture of information, protecting rather than promoting a need-to-share culture of 

integration. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify. I look forward to working 

with the committee and further exploring how to legitimately protect classified information and reducing government secrecy and 

cost. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Amey follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate all of the opening 

statements. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. 

Walberg, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. It is something that probably many of us have 

surmised was going on. It certainly goes to a frustrating level, and 

I appreciate the fact that, in this report that you pointed out, Mr. 

Chairman, ‘‘Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste,’’ done by two reporters, one of which certainly has established credentials for doing investigative reporting, and we 

ought to take this seriously. But I think when I read this, the frustrating thing was the number of assertions that lawmakers don’t 

want to do anything about this because of the impact in their districts. And certainly there is evidence to show that, but I think this 

committee has lawmakers better than that. I hope this is a real 

start. 

Mr. Amey, according to that article in the Washington Post, the 

Department of Defense first commissioned and then hid—hid—the 

unflattering results, and did it aggressively, hid that, with retribution, offered threats, you name it, of the waste and efficiencies. Are 

you familiar with the report? 

Mr. AMEY. Yes. 

Mr. WALBERG. I would expect so. In your view, what reasons 

could the DOD have had to keep the results of the report from the 

public? 

Mr. AMEY. Oh, boy, you are putting me on the spot. I’m trying 

to predict what the Department of Defense was thinking. I don’t 

know. It is very difficult because the report is actually on the Internet. We found it yesterday when the story came out. It has been 

on the Internet since that time. The Defense Business commission 

actually had a slide presentation, a summary of the report, on its 

Web site, and so we are trying to actually figure out, and we actually reached out to the reporters to try to figure out where the secrecy was coming in and what was taking place. But I would imagine it is public embarrassment. I mean, at the end of the day, we 

are talking about the Department of Defense trying to protect $125 

billion and the fact that they can’t pass an audit and there is other 

scrutiny on top of them, that I think this was just an issue of ‘‘we 

didn’t want this to get out and so let’s try to keep it under wraps.’’ 

Mr. WALBERG. And I am sure $125 billion doesn’t sound unreasonable to you? 

Mr. AMEY. Oh, no, sir. I mean, we have been saying it for years 

that, between when you look at goods and services—most of my 

work is on contract oversight, and when you look at Department 

of Defense goods and services, we factored that, yeah, we are probably in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of waste. 

Mr. WALBERG. As I read that, it just goes back to simple truth 

that a bureaucracy will protect itself. And a bureaucracy does not 

want to be downsized in any way, shape, or form. But in a time 

of sequestration, at a time when our warfighters and their families, 

et cetera, are suffering reductions, for this type of dollar amount 

to be held over and attempted at least to be hid from us is unconscionable. To think that this could, as I have read, cover the cost, 


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the operational costs, of 50 Army brigades—that is pretty significant—or 3,000 F–35 strike forces or 10 strike forces of carriers, 

that is just unconscionable that this would have been disregarded 

and hidden. 

What can Congress do to ensure that agencies engage in this 

type of self-analysis but then also use results to improve existing 

operations? 

Mr. AMEY. It is a wonderful question because that is exactly 

what the point is, is, at the end of the-day, we have asked for inventories of contracts, of inventories of what we are buying, how 

many services are being provided. Unfortunately, there was actually a chart out a few years ago that said that the government 

doesn’t often know how much the government is spending and 

what it is being used for, and so that is where we need to get to 

the audits, but specific audits—just not check the box, did people 

do X, Y, and Z?— we need specific audits of specific spending. GAO 

does a fairly good job. DCAA is involved in the process. But that 

is where I think we need to go a lot deeper into these specific programs and then get to the heart of why we see so many overruns 

on some of these programs. I mean, there is a lot of waste out 

there, and we just have to identify and then come to the solution 

on how to remedy it from the beginning. I mean, let’s stop trying 

to put the milk back in the bottle after the fact. Let’s do it at the 

start of the process before billions is wasted. 

Mr. WALBERG. Well, I trust that, because of this hearing and others, I would assume that we can do that, plus starting new, afresh 

on January 20 as well, that this lesson will not be lost because, 

frankly, this is the number one responsibility of our Federal Government, to make sure that we have the resources available to do 

what is necessary to protect and defend our positions and not just 

protect a bureaucracy. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. HICE. [presiding.] I thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Aftergood, I and many other Americans have serious concerns with reports of hacking and other actions by the Russian 

Government to interfere with the 2016 Presidential election. The 

intelligence community has confirmed that the Russian Government or its associated entities hacked the email accounts of individuals and political organizations before the Presidential election. 

The Director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael 

Rogers, said, and I quote: ‘‘There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s minds. This was not something that was done casually. This 

was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target 

that was selected purely arbitrarily. This was a conscious effort by 

a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect,’’ end of quote. 

Do you believe this is an important issue for our country? And 

I notice that, in your testimony, you talked about classification, and 

you talked about the state that we find ourselves in overall today, 

and I am just curious. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Yeah. It is a crucial issue. The integrity of the 

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ible, authoritative elections, the foundation of our political system 

is washed away. So, yes, it is an extremely serious question. I 

think the blanket of classification that has been spread over it 

needs to be reevaluated. Even before that happens, Congress needs 

to understand exactly what did happen. There are actually several 

questions here. What kind of attack occurred? What are our 

vulnerabilities? And what steps can be taken to prevent future attacks of this kind? And I think all of those questions are wide open. 

I would also say, though, that it is important that this not be 

construed as a sort of left-handed attack or attempt to undermine 

the incoming administration because that would only aggravate 

whatever damage has already been done, at least in my opinion. 

So I would hope that this be undertaken, as you said, on a bipartisan basis to say: Look, we have got a problem. We need to deal 

with it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I agree with you. I think it is definitely a bipartisan issue. The FBI has refused to disclose any information about 

its investigation of these hacks. This is the opposite approach from 

the one the FBI took in the Clinton email investigation. I wrote to 

our chairman on November 17, 2016, to request that our committee 

conduct a bipartisan investigation into Russia’s role in interfering 

with and influencing the Presidential election, again, not to take 

anything away from President-elect Trump, but just the idea of it, 

just should bother every single American. Even Republican Lindsey 

Graham, Senator Graham, called for an investigation into it. Outside experts have also called for Congress to act. A group of 158 

scholars from colleges and universities around the country sent 

Congress a letter calling for a congressional investigation. A group 

of experts on cybersecurity defense and fair elections wrote, and I 

quote: ‘‘This evidence made available in an investigation might 

show that foreign powers have played an important role. It might 

show that such a role was negligible. At this juncture, we can only 

say that existing reports are plausible enough and publicly expressed enough to warrant Congress’ full attention and swift action,’’ end of quote. 

Mr. Blanton, do you believe there is a role for Congress in investigating these allegations? 

Mr. BLANTON. Yes, sir. To me, one of the great headlines of the 

whole election season appeared in the Washington Post on November 1 when the FBI was trying to explain why it didn’t sign on to 

that statement from the Director of National Intelligence and the 

Homeland Security. And the headline read: ‘‘Comey was concerned 

publicly blaming Russia for hacks of Democrats could appear too 

political in runup to elections.’’ That is the Washington Post headline. It is an interesting reticence as you point out. Congress should 

get your classified briefing, Congress should understand the hacking. There is a huge problem. We are constructing at the National 

Security Archive Web site at George Washington University a 

whole cyber vault, trying to get declassified much of the 

cybersecurity policy documents because, as former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said, one of the problems of 

cybersecurity is it was born classified. It grew up in this hothouse 

where it was all shielded by compartments, but what we really 

need in our society is a robust debate that involves academics, civil 


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libertarians, the tech companies, and this committee and this Congress. We have got to open it up. That cyber vault is beginning to 

get populated, but it needs more. It needs this Congress to get into 

this. It needs to press the intelligence community and Homeland 

Security to release the basis of their attributions. How do they figure that? That is the hardest part, as you well know, Mr. 

Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. One last thing, Mr. Chairman. I have said it, and 

I guess, at 65, I look back and I am not so much worried about my 

life. I am worried about future generations. The idea, I mean, I just 

see, I am very concerned about our democracy. Mr. Aftergood, I appreciate your comments because it seems as if you can just chop 

away and chip away, and the next thing you know, you won’t have 

a democracy. Do you all have similar concerns, any of you? 

Mr. Leonard? 

Mr. LEONARD. Yes, Mr. Cummings. You know, I think, obviously, 

my insights are only based upon what I have seen in open-source 

material and whatever, but I do know from being, based on my 

past experiences, this is something straight out of the Russian 

playbook. We have seen it repeatedly happen in Europe, especially 

in Eastern Europe and things along those lines. In fact, it is 

straight out of the KGB playbook during the cold war. It was 

known as special measures back then and the use of disinformation 

and things along those lines. So, clearly, it does go at the very fabric. And, again, this is an example of what I made reference to in 

my opening comment in terms of the impact that denying information to the Congress can have in terms of the Congress’ own ability 

then to carry out its Article I constitutional authorities, which essentially is oversight. 

Mr. BLANTON. If I could just make one more comment on that 

issue, I think we have got to look at this question of hacking and 

attribution and roles with an eye to, what is the long-term fix? If 

you look at what the Obama administration achieved with China, 

the price of a state visit for the head of state of China was that 

China had to stop its hacking. And that whole arm of the People’s 

Liberation Army kind of went on hold. And the question—one of 

the first documents we published in the cyber vault was the directive that authorized our National Security Agency to do offensive 

cyber operations, and that was in 1997. That was in 1997. I think 

one of the things that Congress has got to look at when it is trying 

to figure out who is hacking us and why and what is the damage 

is, what is the fix? I think we are going to have to end up with 

new international norms governing cyber war because our country 

is the most vulnerable in the cybersphere. It is in our national security interest to impose rules on other folks and to cut the deals, 

like President Obama did with President Xi, to restrain us. To restrain them, it will also restrain us, but that is in our interest. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the ranking member, and I would ask our panelists to help us keep within our 5 minutes. We have got a number 

of people who want to ask questions, so if we can work both ways. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Farenthold for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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Mr. Amey, you mentioned that there is no penalty for overclassification. What would you suggest that we do? Obviously, you would 

want some penalty for self-serving classification. What other areas, 

what would you suggest as a potential punishment, or do you just 

make it illegal with no punishment? 

Mr. AMEY. Oh, I think there has to be some punishment. We can 

debate what the punishment will be, but there has to be some kind 

of civil, criminal, or administrative punishment that happens. I 

mean, currently, you know, things are marked, and at least with 

classification, there is at least a better process. A lot of what we 

have also been concerned with is this—in the old days, it was the 

FOUO—with the Controlled Unclassified Information, the CUI out 

there, is that anybody that thinks something can stamped ‘‘CUI,’’ 

they put a stamp on it. And then, all of a sudden, that has a dissemination control on it. It can’t be shared, and then there’s questions on, well, wait a second, if people can’t learn about it, how can 

we FOIA it? But I think you are absolutely right. We have to figure 

out what the punishment will be, and it may be something purely 

administrative. And I am sure the other panelists have some ideas 

on it as well, but I think there has to be something. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. So let’s talk a little bit. This committee has had pretty good success with the IG community where, 

within each agency, there is an independent inspector general that 

does investigations. We have had success with the chief information and chief technology officers under FITARA. Is there a model 

in which we create within all agencies a classification office? Or are 

we better off setting up something outside the agency, certainly on 

longer term, you know, move something within in the National Archives, where there is a method for declassification? 

We will start with you, Mr. Blanton, and let anybody else weigh 

in. 

Mr. BLANTON. Excellent question. All I can do is point back to 

some of the lessons of history, which are the times when we have 

had real success in forcing unneeded secrets out of the system was 

when Congress took action with the Nazi War Crimes records bill, 

with the JFK Assassination Records bill. It set up blue-ribbon panels outside and inside—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, part of our problem here in Congress is 

we can do a lot of things. We need your suggestions on what specifically to do. I understand that that is probably more indepth we 

can get into in the 2–1/2 minutes that I have left. Let me let anybody else. 

Mr. Leonard, do you want to weigh in? 

Mr. LEONARD. Yes, sir. I am a big advocate of the IG’s involvement in these types of issues. Having been external to agencies 

when I was at ISOO—I was part of the Federal Government but 

yet an outsider—I was very much limited to what I could do when 

dealing with CIA or even the Department of Defense or what have 

you. IGs don’t experience those limitations to the same extent. Plus 

they also have the dual reporting responsibilities in both the executive and legislative branch. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So your suggestion might be expand the responsibility of the IGs? 


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Mr. LEONARD. Absolutely. There was the 2010 Reducing Overclassification Act, which assigned specific responsibilities to the IG. 

I believe those types of things can be greatly expanded, and given 

the proper training, IGs can very effective in this area. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Yes, Mr. Aftergood. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. One hopeful sign in current classification policy 

is the growth in classification challenges from within the system. 

The current executive order allows people who have access to classified information to challenge its classification status and to say: 

Wait a minute; this shouldn’t be classified. 

In the most recent year, the number of internal classification 

challenges reached a record high of more than 900. And of those 

challenges, more than 40 percent were granted. That is a trend 

that I think could be built on. If the system can be made more and 

more self-correcting where people inside the system themselves are 

finding errors and helping to adjust them—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. One final question before I am completely out 

of time. This committee and other committees often get classified 

information in response to our requests for information as part of 

our oversight responsibilities. Do you think it would be appropriate 

to create a mechanism for Congress once we have read that and 

said, ‘‘This is crazy, this doesn’t need to be classified,’’ do you think 

Congress should have the ability to declassify material? Does anybody think we shouldn’t? 

Mr. LEONARD. I believe Congress should. In fact, some committees by virtue of rules have empowered themselves with that option 

yet, to my knowledge, have never been acknowledged. It is a dicey 

issue, but two coequal branches of government and each have 

the—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Amey, you look like you wanted to weigh 

in. 

Mr. AMEY. Well, in the final CUI rule that is one of the things 

that we fought for. Originally, there was only allowed to be a challenge internally, and we fought that it could beinternally or externally. So, yeah, I would think that the same process should be applied to classified information as well. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you. I see my time is expired. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes Mrs. Watson Coleman for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to each of you for raising what I think is a very 

important, complex list of issues, actually. And I recognize that we 

need to be talking about security first. We need balance. We need 

accountability. And we need fairness. And so this is a huge area 

with so many people interacting. In many cases, there is a disagreement among agencies and within agencies. And a lot has to 

be done here. 

I wanted to ask a series of questions, and so I hope that you will 

answer them as sort of succinctly as possible, recognizing that you 

are only going to give me sort of the top lines. 

I want to start with you, Mr. Blanton, because you testified 

about the recommendations of the Moynihan Commission more 

than 20 years ago, and I just want to have a reaction from you as 


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to why you think Congress has not moved to fix this classification 

system. 

Mr. BLANTON. I am no expert on Congress, and I assume that 

you could give a far more sophisticated answer to that than I could. 

I think Steve Aftergood, I think, testified at one of the congressional hearings back in 1998, and that was when Senator Moynihan was alive and Senator Helms was alive. They were in powerful positions, and even they didn’t push through their recommendations. My own sense is there wasn’t enough of a notion of crisis, 

and we have got a crisis today I think in the classification system. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I think that you are quite accurate on 

that, that we may be in a situation right now where we are in an 

unprecedented environment. 

Mr. Aftergood, would you like to comment to that? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. You know, the Moynihan Commission report 

itself included an appendix of previous studies from previous decades that had also not solved the problem, and here we are 20 

years later looking back at the Moynihan Commission. I think it 

may be that the recommendation didn’t quite capture the issue 

properly, and it seems to me that a law on secrecy is a means to 

an end. It is not the end. I would think about what is the end that 

you really want and then go for that. And the end that you really 

want is greater congressional control over what is or is not classified. Focus on that. Go for that. If there are particular areas, particular topical areas that need classification, declassification, mandate their declassification. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So probably the end result should be the 

kinds of things that I sort of mentioned when I opened up, the 

issue of security and balance and fairness and accountability, and 

how we get there. 

Mr. Blanton, again, you talked about a possible reform that could 

be made by statute. One of those would be to implement a life cycle 

of secrets. Would you talk to me a little bit about what that is? 

Mr. BLANTON. In the most straightforward version, it was in the 

Freedom of Information amendment, like a 25-year sunset for deliberative process. The reality of our classification system, one of 

the reasons it is entering crisis is we have got a tsunami of electronic records. The volume is—we are talking petabytes of information. We are not going to be able to do page-by-page review, which 

is what our declass system currently consists of. We are going to 

have to build in automatic releases for entire categories of records 

without review. 

Mr. BLANTON. And that, I think, is going to be the only way to 

deal with those electronic records. So life cycle is just a kind of 

summary term to say you’ve got to put sunsets on the secrets, 

you’ve got to have better decisions on the front end that build in 

the sunsets, and then automatic release. Otherwise we’re sunk. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I believe it was your testimony that I 

read where you said within this age of technology we can take care 

of those things that are sensitive in nature, personal information 

that could be deleted automatically if it’s programmed to do so. 

Mr. BLANTON. Yes, ma’am. That’s the big holdup right now in releasing the State Department cables. They say they’ve got to look 

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ber or personal phone number in there. Well, I can’t think of something that is more easily automated than searching and removing 

a Social Security number. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So help me to understand this, because 

I am a relatively new member. And I want to ask two questions 

here. 

Number one is, is it currently a situation where each agency is 

responsible for classifying its information even though that information might be shared with other agencies and involve other 

agencies? 

And, lastly, and anybody can respond to this, is there a proposal 

where this sort of classification consideration would go into a sort 

of multidisciplined entity where those things could be vetted under 

standards and circumstances and then sort of move in a way that 

agencies can sort of agree on the ground levels and would reduce 

the amount of classification? 

Mr. BLANTON. That entity exists. It was recommended by Moynihan. The Congress and the Presidents put it—it’s called the National Declassification Center. But the reality is it doesn’t have the 

power, maybe the will, to override those agencies. So you get a constant equity referral where the agencies all get a bite at the apple. 

And one of the recommendations in my testimony is empower that 

center. Make the decisions. Do a sunset. If something’s older than 

25 years, that center should be able to review it. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So does that empowerment require our 

legislative—my last—I’m sorry—does that require our legislative 

action to reconfigure this and empower in a different way? 

Mr. BLANTON. Yes, ma’am. 

Mr. LEONARD. Absolutely. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentlelady. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. DeSantis for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate the testimony and the invitation for Congress to be 

involved in this. But I want to just start at the beginning and just 

ask everybody, does everyone agree that at some level the executive does have inherent authority under Article II as part of the executive power to maintain secrecy of information related to the national security? 

Mr. Leonard. 

Mr. LEONARD. Absolutely. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Yes. 

Mr. BLANTON. Yes, but. Because there’s an Article I that says 

Congress makes the rules to govern the military, Armed Forces, 

and national security. So it’s both. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, it’s both, but I think Hamilton when he 

talked—because there was a debate whether you should even have 

a single executive. They had revolted against George III. Some proposed a council. And one of Hamilton’s main arguments for why 

you needed a single executive was for secrecy, particularly with regards to national security. 


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So there’s got to be—I mean, is there anyplace, I guess, that Congress can’t go into that? Or could Congress basically legislate as far 

as it wants, in your judgment? 

Mr. BLANTON. It can legislate as far as it wants. Congress has 

the power of the purse. That is the key. And I think the Founders 

said separate the power of the purse from the power of the sword. 

That’s key. Takes money to run a—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, I think that’s—I think—absolutely. So the 

Congress could abolish the CIA if they wanted to. There’s no requirement you have that. But we do have intelligence agencies. We 

do that. Could Congress just pass a statue saying declassify as 

much sensitive stuff as we want? Would there be any constitutional 

concern with doing that? 

Mr. BLANTON. None. And Congress has already done so with the 

Nazi war crimes, which exposed the files of Nazis that the CIA recruited and brought to the United States. So Congress has already 

done that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But when did they do that, though? 

Mr. BLANTON. In 1998 and 1999. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Yeah, well, but I guess my point is, if Congress 

wanted to start declassifying things that were germane and ripe 

right now with how our government’s conducting sensitive operations, you say that would still be okay even though it could jeopardize lives? 

Mr. BLANTON. It would still be okay because my bet is that this 

Congress and this committee would act pretty judiciously on that. 

You’re not going to willy-nilly, you’re not Julian Assange. 

Mr. DESANTIS. No, I get it. But what I’m trying to figure out is 

if there’s a—— 

Mr. BLANTON. I have a lot of confidence in your judgment. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, but there’s certain constitutional prerogatives. We obviously have the power to legislate, of course the purse. 

The executive has certain—or, I mean, the executive power means 

something. I mean, there’s certain things. 

And so what I’m trying to figure out is are there certain places— 

because I think we all agree some of this stuff is ridiculous. And 

there’s an incentive to just simply take on more—some of this stuff 

isn’t even classified that’s being protected. 

But at the same time I just think it’s important to recognize that 

there is a legitimate reason to do it, because I think when you 

overclassify, I think that actually undermines the core reason of 

why you want to do it. 

But let me just get you, Mr. Amey, down on the end. 

Mr. AMEY. I totally agree. I do believe that there’s a constitutional protection for secrecy. But at the same time, as Tom said in 

his statement, I think you have to get to his point number three, 

and that is don’t trust it. I mean, eventually we’re going to have 

to get down to a point where, whether it’s through the challenge 

process or through briefings that Congress gets, on questioning 

what the executive branch is doing. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So you look at some of these things, some of these 

agencies, the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, the 

Bureau of Prisons has somebody who’s an original classification authority. 


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Mr. Leonard, how did it get to be that point? Is that really necessary in those instances? 

Mr. LEONARD. It’s an example, perhaps, of—when I was in my 

position at ISOO one of the things I had to do was to deal with 

requests for agencies to get original classification authority. And, 

quite frankly, one of the issues that I had to contend with is it was 

one of convenience more than anything else. 

And there were a number of instances where there were agencies 

or even small activities looking for original classification authority 

that had to push back because they were looking to really accomplish something that probably could have and should have been accomplished through legislation if there was really a legitimate reason to withhold information from public disclosure. 

Mr. DESANTIS. How do you analyze? Because some of this stuff, 

it’s just the agencies are embarrassed, they don’t want to do it, and 

it’s clearly just—it’s not credible. But sometimes when you’re trying 

to get information from FOIA or Congress, I mean, you are diverting the executive from kind of their core mission, actually do good. 

I mean, we’re the first ones to criticize the government when they 

screw up or when they’re not competent. 

And so how do you do this in a way that’s not going to impose 

too many costs? I mean, for example, if we’re going to always review every 10 years some of this stuff, that is going to create some 

costs. So how would you recommend we strike that balance? Is that 

a valid concern? 

Mr. LEONARD. It very much so is. And one way would be to, as 

Mr. Blanton referred to, was to consolidate authority and responsibility and not spread it so far and wide within the government. 

I’ll give you a perfect example. When I was in the Department 

of Defense, I could write a memo and use CIA information. The 

CIA trusted me to properly classify the information. They didn’t 

want to look at it and whatever. 

If I came back 20 years later and wanted to work at the National 

Declassification Center and looked at my same memo, they 

wouldn’t allow me to declassify it because I didn’t get a paycheck 

from CIA. 

That type of redundancy can be beaten out of the system and it 

would result in significant cost savings. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Great. I yield back. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes Ms. Kelly for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for holding today’s hearing on this important topic. 

I believe that secrecy is a serious problem that is widespread in 

the Federal Government and that it goes beyond classified information. For instance, there’s a category of pseudoclassification that 

has exploded over the last 15 years called controlled unclassified 

information. I understand there may be as many as 100 different 

designations in use, but the label ‘‘sensitive but unclassified’’ is one 

of the worst of offenders. 

First, I want to get a sense of the extent of this problem. The 

Information Security Oversight Office annually reports how many 

classification decisions agencies make. However, there is not a corVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:50 Jul 21, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26177.TXT APRIL

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responding section on how many decisions were made to designate 

materials as controlled unclassified information. 

Mr. Leonard, you previously served as the director of ISOO. Are 

agencies required to track how many materials they designate as 

controlled unclassified information? 

Mr. LEONARD. Quite frankly, I’ll defer to one of my copanelists 

because I’ve been away from ISOO since they assumed that responsibility and have not followed it that closely. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. I would say that there has been significant 

progress compared to where we were 10 years ago. It used to be 

that anybody could mark any document anything. You could say 

this is for official use only and that would restrict its access. 

Now, under the executive order on controlled unclassified information, there is what’s called a CUI registry, and only those markings that have been approved and validated can be used. And there 

are many things, of course, we want to protect. We want to protect 

tax returns. We want to protect privacy information. All those 

kinds of things have been validated, and only those markings that 

are on the CUI registry are supposed to be used. 

Now, is that system working perfectly? Are people bending the 

rules? I don’t know the answer to that question. It just went into 

force very recently, and we’re still waiting to see how it’s working. 

But I think the policy has improved substantially over the past 

decade. 

Ms. KELLY. Would you estimate that more information is designated as CUI than is classified? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. AMEY. I don’t think we know the answer to it. Agencies are 

going to be required to report how much information is marked. 

They did boil the over 100 categories down to 20. However, there 

are 80 subcategories. And so at that point you still end up with a 

real patchwork of designations and markings that can be placed on 

documentation. 

The big thing with it also is there’s going to be better training. 

ISOO is doing a very good job, and I have to applaud them, because they actually reached out to our community and worked with 

us on the rules. As it went through the process, they really did 

work with the agencies to try to get it. But they didn’t—I don’t 

think they realized how big that this had expanded within agencies. And there was a lot of foot dragging by Federal agencies as 

well. 

So as Mr. Aftergood said, it was only in effect, I think, as of midNovember, something like that. And so at that point we’re going to 

have to wait and see. And full implementation of the CUI regulation isn’t expected to be completed until 2017, ’18, ’19. So at that 

point it’s going to take a very long time to probably get some answers on it. But it needs the proper oversight from this committee. 

Ms. KELLY. I know you called it a gray area, because I was going 

to ask you what do you think the potential for abuse is. 

Mr. AMEY. We’ve already seen some abuses. In my written testimony I provide two examples, and one was even an IG report in 

which there were examples involving the TSA. Also, the bizarre 

case of Robert MacLean in which something was marked SBU. It 

was actually the original CUI. And so at that point something was 


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marked SBU I think 4 years after he released it, even though it 

didn’t have any marking or designation, but they retroactively 

marked that information as SBU. So there are problems in the system and it is prone to abuse and so we do have to watch it. 

Now, the nice thing with the CUI rule is that there is a misuse 

provision, and so that may be something that can be borrowed 

upon for the classification system that we should look at since it’s 

already in regulation. And also the challenge procedure. But, again, 

challenges go back to the agency, and then I think you have a right 

to dispute resolution. So it’s a little murky due to the fact that 

you’re, in essence, going back to the fox guarding the henhouse 

that may have originally marked it. So there are some concerns 

with that. 

Ms. KELLY. Mr. Blanton, you keep shaking your head. So I want 

to give you opportunity for comment. 

Mr. BLANTON. I agree. 

Ms. KELLY. Okay. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentlelady. 

The chair is now going to recognize himself for 5 minutes. 

I want to go back to something that came up a little while ago, 

and that is the number of classifications. Over the last 5 years 

some 400 million, and yet only a little over 2,300 in the same 5- 

year period have been challenged. And those numbers can be debated a little bit here and there. But whatever it is, 2,300 out of 

400 million is virtually no challenges whatsoever. 

Just real quickly, just a sentence or two, why so few challenges? 

Mr. Leonard, I’ll start with you. 

Mr. LEONARD. Mostly one of culture. When I was in the Pentagon, when I had reports in my inbox, if I had an unclassified report and a top secret report, which one would I read first? The top 

secret one, even though the unclassified one may be more substantive. So sometimes it’s just as simple as just sheer culture, People get inured to it and just expect nothing else. 

Mr. HICE. Mr. Aftergood. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. In many cases, employees are not aware of the 

challenge provision that enables them to make this challenge. And 

that’s one simple step that can be taken to say, look, as soon as 

you sign your nondisclosure agreement, you also sign, ‘‘I’m aware 

that I can challenge a classification marking that I believe is improper.’’ 

I would also mention that I think your hundreds of millions figure is including original and derivative classifications. The number 

of original classifications or entirely new secrets has been on a 

steady downward trajectory. 

Mr. HICE. I don’t want to get into a number right now. 

Mr. Blanton, why so few challenges? 

Mr. BLANTON. It’s easier just to classify. And much classification 

just occurs reflexively. And most of those derivative classifications 

it’s just keep it going. Because there’s not a thought process on the 

front end of the first decision. What’s the cost benefit? What’s the 

real risk? What’s the vulnerability? What’s that? And you’ve got to 

educate them at the nondisclosure agreement point, but I would 

argue you’ve got to put it in a statute. 

Mr. HICE. All right. 


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Mr. Amey. 

Mr. AMEY. And just quickly, it could be career suicide. I mean, 

at this point we have insider threat investigations that could take 

place, and also whistleblower retaliation. So a lot of the times, as 

Mr. Blanton just said, it’s a lot easier just to go along with the 

process than to question it. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So it’s not a matter of red tape. Perhaps poor 

advertisement, people don’t know, perhaps a culture, or whatever. 

But red tape is not the problem, is that correct, all of you would 

agree with that? 

Mr. LEONARD. Oh, absolutely. And, again, a lack of accountability 

is key too. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Now, when it comes to—obviously we know there’s been a lot of 

threats to our country, and I’m concerned about the lack of information sharing within our Federal Government. 

A scale of 1 to 10, how serious of a problem is this, to each of 

you? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. I think it was 10 around the time of 9/11. It’s 

5 now. In other words, there has been significant progress. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. The rest of you? 

Mr. Leonard. 

Mr. LEONARD. I would tend to agree, but my sense is that there’s 

also been a rollback with respect to some of the recent rather significant wholesale compromises that have occurred as well too. 

Mr. HICE. All right. Mr. Aftergood, how serious of a problem? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. It’s a serious challenge. When you classify, you 

restrict dissemination. And so they’re the flip side of each other. 

It’s an ongoing problem. 

Mr. HICE. Mr. Amey. 

Mr. AMEY. Agreed. 

Mr. HICE. All right. So across the board we still have a serious 

problem. There may be some improvements. But we still have a serious problem with sharing information, even when potential 

threats are hanging in the balance of our country. And in the mix 

of all of that, also came up earlier is the ability of Congress to do 

our job. 

How serious is the issue or is it at all an issue where agencies 

are overclassifying to either complicate or obstruct congressional 

oversight? I’d like to hear from each of you quickly. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Honestly, you’re probably in a better position to 

answer that. I think it’s the exception, not the rule. 

Mr. BLANTON. I think it varies by agency. And I think the intelligence community has the, in a sense, the worst cultural problem. 

You’ve got to go into that SCIF. You can’t bring out notes. You 

can’t have staff. How are you going to have a serious consideration 

of real oversight over some of the most important and sensitive and 

deadly operations of our entire government? 

Mr. HICE. All right. Real quickly. 

Mr. LEONARD. It inevitably occurs, whether intention or not. And, 

again, the lack of accountability makes it ripe for abuse. 

Mr. AMEY. And it’s why in any oversight or any new commission 

that is going to be paneled here to take a look at classification and 

the status and secrecy issues, is why you have to get out of just 


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the check-the-box kind of audit on are people following procedures, 

but take a look at some specifics where challenges have been raised 

and why those things were allowed to be overclassified. 

Mr. HICE. And when we do get stuff, it’s so redacted it’s virtually 

worthless much of the time. So a serious problem. 

I again want to thank the panelists. My time has expired. 

The chair will now recognize Mrs. Maloney for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. 

Mr. Blanton, earlier you mentioned the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. That happened to have been a bill that I authored. It took 

about 4 years to pass it because the CIA was objecting. It opened 

up the files of Nazi Germany and Japan 50 years after the war. 

Now, every other country had opened their files, but we were refusing to, and it took Congress to pass a bill to open up these files. 

It’s been turned into books. It’s been turned into all kinds of helpful information that’s helped our defense strategies and how to operate in an environment as they did. 

But I want to ask you about another way of classifying, which 

is retroactively classifying. And I join you in saying there was no 

reason why we shouldn’t have declassified that information. But on 

September 8 of this year, State Department Under Secretary for 

Management Patrick Kennedy, testified before this committee 

about a unique process in the State Department used to retroactively classify 2,000 of Secretary Clinton’s emails that she turned 

over to the State Department. 

In other words, they were not classified at the time they were 

sent or received by her, but then they were reclassified after the 

fact by staff in the Department of the FOIA office. And Patrick 

Kennedy testified that 1,400 of these documents, or 70 percent, 

were retroactively classified because they contained what is known 

as foreign government information. 

So my question is, it seems to me that this is a confusing process. 

Foreign government information is not treated like classified information until it’s reviewed for public release, and then all of a sudden it’s classified. It seems to me we should have one standard. 

Why have one retroactively? It makes no sense. And how are State 

Department employees supposed to know when to treat information as classified and when not to if the designation might change 

without warning? 

Mr. BLANTON. I read Mr. Kennedy’s testimony with great interest because he asked this committee to create an exemption under 

the Freedom of Information Act for foreign government information, which I think is a terrible idea, for three reasons. One, it puts 

Tajikistan standards into our freedom of information law. No, 

thank you. The lowest secrecy abroad. 

I think second reason is if there’s harm from release of that foreign government information, it’s protected already under our executive order. You can classify it. 

And I think the third reason is that’s the easy way out. Instead 

of our diplomats actually thinking about how you protect stuff that 

actually would get us into trouble, they don’t want to think about 

it. 

And I’d just remind you of the Weatherhead case went all the 

way to the Supreme Court over foreign government information. 


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Finally it got booted out. It turned out the document at issue had 

already been handed over to the plaintiff and the government had 

no idea. And it wasn’t going to damage our relationship with Great 

Britain, which is where the document came from. So skepticism is 

in order. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, I agree with you, and I truly understand 

the need to protect truly sensitive diplomatic discussions from public release. But using the classification label to do that makes the 

classification system even more confusing and, I would argue, less 

effective. And we need to find a better solution. 

So with that statement, I’d just like to ask all of the panelists 

in my remaining time, do you have any recommendations of how 

to improve this process? And we could start with you, Mr. Leonard, 

and just go right down the line. 

Mr. LEONARD. The consistent theme this morning, and I agree 

with it wholeheartedly, is providing legislative backing to the very 

system in order to ensure uniformity, consistency, and most of all 

accountability. And also to facilitate the Congress to be able to fulfill their Article I constitutional authorities as well. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. The government requires a degree of flexibility, 

and so I would be cautious about strict provisions that remove such 

flexibility. Information that is provided in confidence needs to be 

protected somehow if one wants to maintain that working relationship. Classification seems like a heavy-handed way to do it, but if 

the alternative is a blanket FOIA exemption, then that might not 

be better. So I don’t have a good solution for you offhand. 

Mr. AMEY. When it comes to retroactive classification, I think we 

need a study. I’m not aware of anything in depth or comprehensive 

in taking a look at the issue on the whos, whys, wheres, whens. 

And so I think that would be in order. 

Mr. BLANTON. The fundamental phenomenon on retroactive is 

being driven by agencies like what Mr. Leonard said, CIA asserting 

control and no longer allowing the Defense Department or State to 

declassify their own information. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentlelady. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Massie for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m so glad we’re having 

this hearing today. I’ve been looking for the opportunity to talk 

about something that’s very important to me, and I’ll be very careful not to disclose anything that’s classified. 

About a month ago I went back down to one of those SCIFs that 

Mr. Blanton was talking about. You can’t take notes out. And what 

I did is a reread the 28 pages, but I brought the redacted version 

with me so that I could see in what manner it was redacted. By 

the way, I want to ask you guys a question later so you can get 

ready with an answer. 

But one of things that I would think would help is to know the 

reason for the redaction. There’s certain reasons that might be legitimate, and maybe a law that says when you redact large swaths 

or even small portions, that you have to give the reason. If the reason is to avoid embarrassment or to protect a source or to protect 

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close it, and then the crime or the infraction could be that you lied 

about the reason. 

Because that’s what I want to get to with these 28 pages and the 

reason for those redactions. And I think I can disclose my perceived 

reason for some of these redactions without disclosing anything 

classified. 

Twenty percent of the redactions, I would say, were to protect 

specific and confidential sources. I would say another 20 percent 

were to withhold the names of individuals whose reputations would 

be irrevocably ruined, whether they were guilty or not. 

But 60 percent of those redactions fall into a very troubling category for me. They changed the very nature of the document and 

the way it’s perceived by the public and the impact that it should 

have had. 

Some of those are probably to prevent embarrassment. 

Mr. MASSIE. But I feel like—after reading that—10, 20, 40 years 

from now, when it’s all released, this is going to be a textbook case 

of how the government overclassified something in an effort to control the narrative. In fact, before these pages came out, there was 

an op-ed in the USA Today by two of the chairmen on the commission that said these are raw, unvetted sources. Right? So the 

redactions, in my opinion, were made to support that presumption 

that these were raw, unvetted sources, because if you removed the 

redactions, you would say: No. Those might be credible sources, in 

fact. And they might, in fact, be vetted. 

So that’s my concern is that, you know, 20 years from now, we’ll 

look back at this, and you’ll see that key words and acronyms and 

sentences were removed and with the effect—with the effect—of diminishing the impression that you get from reading the unredacted 

pages, which is that Saudi Arabia—and I can say that name now 

because it’s in the redacted pages—has some kind of civil liability 

or criminal culpability either—and not because of their citizens but 

because of their government acted either in, I would say, acts of 

omission or commission. Either one makes them somewhat culpable. And I’m afraid that has been diminished by those redactions 

and it’s been overclassified, and this is a prime example. 

So one of the questions I want to ask is, do you think it’s a good 

idea if we required them to give the reason for the redaction? 

Mr. LEONARD. Absolutely, sir. The order does require original 

classifiers to be able to identify and describe the damage to national security. But to my formal statement I attached an actual 

email that had been used as count one for a felony indictment of 

Mr. Drake, who was eventually not prosecuted. But the government claimed it was classified. And in preparing for the trial, the 

NSA was required to say—state specifically why they considered 

that email to be classified. Their explanation looked entirely rational when you read it, but if you compared what they said to the actual document, it was factually incorrect. 

Mr. MASSIE. Right. So that supports the notion that they should 

be required to disclose it, and there should be some punitive ramification for misleading about the reason. 

Mr. Aftergood? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. I would like it to—to make the point that the 

classification system is permissive. It says that information may be 


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classified if it meets certain conditions. And what that means is the 

decision to classify is actually a subjective one. Somebody thinks 

that classification is the right move. And because it’s subjective, 

you or I may disagree and say: You know, that’s a mistake. You’re 

wrong. 

And so providing the reason, I think, would be helpful. But it 

wouldn’t necessarily resolve the disagreement. I just disagree with 

that reason. Instead, I would suggest that, in cases of significant 

interest, like the 28 pages, like many other cases, there needs to 

be a procedure where you take the decision away from the original 

classifier. Don’t try to make the original classifier admit he was 

wrong. Take the decision away. Take it to a third party. There’s a 

public interest declassification board. There may need to be a new 

body and say: Does this make sense? I want you to evaluate it as 

a third party and come back to us with a recommendation. 

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, I appeal to let the other two answer 

the question. 

Mr. HICE. You can answer. 

Mr. BLANTON. Just very briefly, exactly this mechanism exists for 

mandatory review requests, this interagency security classification 

appeals panel. And it’s ruled in favor of openness over 70 percent 

of the time. Just a third party. The simple maneuver of taking the 

document away from the original agency and putting it in a panel 

that includes the original agency, you get a completely different result. 

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Amey. 

Mr. AMEY. And this is also a process with the Freedom of Information Act. There is a process there where just only a few years 

ago did they add where they had to list the reasons. In the old 

days, we used to just get a letter back with tons of blackened-out 

markings. And then, in the intro, they would say: We redacted 

things for, you know, B3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And you had to kind of guess 

what applied to one specific redaction. Now they’re required to go 

through documents subject to the Freedom of Information Act and 

list right next to each redaction what the redaction—what exemption was being cited to justify the reason for that. And also then 

you also have an administrative appeal that we hope—we always 

hope—that it goes to a different entity inside of the department 

rather than the person that made that marking. And then now 

there’s also a process through ISOO to challenge those determinations and go to an, in essence, an arbitration. And so it’s funny that 

we have a better procedure just for that Freedom of Information 

Act process than we do for the classification process. 

Mr. MASSIE. And I’ve seen those documents with those markings. 

And they’re somewhat helpful because they classify the stuff they 

even send to us, they try to not even disclose. So but I haven’t seen 

that on the 28 pages. I’ve just seen op-eds that say: Oh, there’s 

nothing to see here. 

And by the way, it was released the day before Trump named his 

Vice President, which is another thing. But at least it was released 

in part. 

Thank you. 

Mr. HICE. Thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Connolly for 5 minutes. 


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Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for participating. I guess I’d like to explore a 

little bit what happens when two agencies disagree about something being classified at all. And this is not a hypothetical? In a 

recent investigation of emails, we had multiple examples where the 

State Department said one thing and the intelligence community 

said another. Specific example, really quite, I think, quite striking: 

A 2011 email sent by a State Department employee about the late 

Ambassador Chris Stevens of Libya was marked clearly ‘‘sensitive 

but unclassified.’’ The Under Secretary for Management, Mr. Patrick Kennedy, confirmed in testimony before the committee that 

the State Department considered the email unclassified and that 

anyone reading the email would assume it was not classified. But 

after the email was sent, the intelligence community nonetheless 

claimed it was classified. 

And so, in September of last year, the State Department sent a 

letter to Senator Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explaining that the intelligence community was 

wrong. The letter from the State Department stated that the suggestion that the email should have been treated as classified was, 

and I quote, ‘‘Surprising, and in the Department’s view, incorrect,’’ 

unquote. So what’s a poor boy to do? Is it classified, or isn’t it? 

Mr. LEONARD. As has been mentioned, sir, there are appeals 

processes in the system, but they’re admittedly rather cumbersome 

and time-consuming. But Tom Blanton referred to the Interagency 

Security Classification Appeals Panel. I used to serve as the executive director of that. Interestingly enough, last year for the year 

that the full last numbers are available, for appeals that came to 

that panel, which consists of executive branch representatives from 

various agencies, 95 percent of the time the determination made by 

the agency that owned the information was overridden at least in 

part or in whole—95 percent of the time, since 1995—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, but in this case, Mr. Leonard, the originating agency didn’t want it to be classified. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. I think the short answer to your question is 

that each agency has classification authority over its own information. And in the dispute you’re referring to, I think the intelligence 

community considered that the information at issue was its information, even though it was in the State Department document—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And the State Department—— 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. The State Department said: No, it isn’t. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. That’s right. The State Department took direct 

issue with that saying: We understand that’s what you think, but 

that’s not how we got the information. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Yeah. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And then we could even add another layer. So 

let’s hypothetically say we invite the FBI, a nonpolitical organization, to come and look to see if there were violations of our secrecy 

laws. Well, how is it supposed to determine whether a violation occurred when the two major agencies or entities looking at classification have unalterably different views about the nature of the 

document, the sourcing of document, and what it should be classified as? 


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Mr. BLANTON. Part of the problem for the Federal Bureau of Investigation is it’s part of the intelligence community, so it leans one 

way on that question. And the real answer to your question, is it 

classified or is it unclassified, the answer is both. And that’s the 

reality of our classification system. I showed you documents here 

that are both classified and unclassified simultaneously because 

different people or different agencies or sometimes the same reviewer came to a different conclusion. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I know. But there’s a certain, Mr. Blanton, 

Kafkaesque quality to this. I mean, I was a staffer on the Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee a long time ago. Right? And we were 

very careful about classified material and how it was stored and 

make sure it was never on your desk, and as are executive branch 

employees. Well, if I got one agency saying that’s—you know, ‘‘Give 

it to your grandmother; I mean, it’s unclassified,’’ and the other one 

saying, ‘‘Don’t you dare; it’s classified,’’ what’s my liability as an 

employee? I’m trying to be diligent. What is it? And am I exposing 

myself by leaving it on my desk, for example? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. The executive order on classification includes 

provisions for resolving disputes about implementation of the order. 

Ultimately, those disputes can be directed to the Attorney General 

and, you know—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yeah, but, Mr. Aftergood, that’s not how it works 

practically. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. It’s not. No. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Somebody goes around—listen, I was in the private sector and I was the OODEP. I was the head of all of this for 

a private sector entity. We went around checking to make sure nobody was sloppy. And that’s not going to go to the Attorney General. You’ve got a ding on your mark, Mr. Blanton, because I saw 

that document on your desk. Well, in good faith, you were counting 

on the State Department judgment it was not classified. There was 

no issue. And I’m deciding as, you know, the security chief that I 

don’t care; the intelligence community is what I listen to, and they 

said it is. I mean, it puts people at risk. And, frankly, I’m glad it 

could be arbitrated at some point, and I’m certainly glad the Attorney General can ultimately adjudicate. But if we’re talking about, 

you know, thousands of documents, thousands of judgment calls, I 

think you mentioned it was subjective, but disputes between agencies are a real dilemma for people trying in good faith to comply 

with the law. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. You are absolutely correct. And the arbitration 

is really a technicality. The reality is that these kinds of disputes 

drive the issue to the lowest common denominator. They result— 

when there’s doubt, they end up adopting the view that it’s classified. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. BLANTON. And the executive order says, when there’s doubt, 

it should not be classified. And exactly the opposite happens. So my 

answer to your question: Send it to your grandmother. Send it to 

your grandmother. 

I have an opinion from Mr. Leonard when he was the head of the 

Information Security Oversight Office, he said: If the National Security Archive got a version of this document under legal authority, 


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declassified with somebody with the power to do that, you can take 

it to the bank. You can keep it on your Web site. Even if somebody 

else at the Energy Department or Defense says, ‘‘Sorry, Mr. 

Blanton, that’s classified,’’ no, wrong. Send it to your grandmother. 

Mr. HICE. Thank the gentleman. 

Now recognize Mr. Grothman for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Sure. First question I have, and this is really for 

anybody that wants to answer it. In the stuff that we have here, 

we’re told the government spends $16 billion on classification activities and $100 billion over 10 years, which is a stunning amount 

of money. And if it’s $100 billion over 10 years, it must be going 

up like a rocket. And I assume that means like $5 million 10 years 

ago and $16 million today. Does anyone care to comment on, is that 

a good investment of funds? And how do you wind up spending 

that amount of money? I mean, it just seems like a phenomenal 

amount of money. Do you think it’s accurate? 

Mr. LEONARD. That’s a difficult thing to evaluate. Let’s put it 

this way. I spent many a year in the Defense Department. And I 

had to deal with the consequences of major failures, major compromises in espionage cases and things along those lines. And what 

the challenge is, is that, whether rightfully or not, the mentality 

is, is zero tolerance for those types of things. How many espionage 

cases are you willing to endure? How many major leaks or releases 

of—unauthorized releases are you ready to endure? The mindset is 

zero tolerance. And as a result, there tends to be a lack of risk 

management. And when you have a lack of risk management, you 

end up paying premium dollars then. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Even though those numbers are accurate though: $16 billion bucks—— 

Mr. LEONARD. Those numbers are at least accurate from the 

point of view that they show, I think, consistent trends from year 

to year. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. We have a new ISOO director, Mark 

Bradley. Does anyone want to give us their opinion? Do you think 

that’s a good pick? And what goes into making a good pick? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. You know, it was never going to be an openness 

advocate who led the ISOO. But I think Mr. Bradley is a good pick 

because he has a broad understanding of the problems of secrecy. 

He was an aide to the late Senator Moynihan and is well attuned 

to an understanding of the problems that the secrecy system suffers from. He also, as a former intelligence officer and a DOJ national security lawyer, has a degree of credibility with the national 

security agencies that others might have trouble matching. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Go ahead. 

Mr. BLANTON. Just the proof’s in the pudding. We look forward 

to meeting with Mr. Bradley as soon as he’s on the job. You can 

look at the Information Security Oversight Office’s previous Directors like Steve Garfinkel and Bill Leonard and Jay Bosanko, and 

you can see those folks made some real differences in the security 

system in a more rational direction. I can hope for that trend to 

continue. 

Mr. AMEY. Certainly, we hope that they reach back out to our 

community. I mean, that’s one of the nice things with all the gentlemen that Mr. Blanton just mentioned is they have been very 


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open. There’s been a dialogue back and forth, and they know that 

there is a burden on secrecy but then on openness and have, you 

know, provided the proper weight test to that. And that has been, 

I think, beneficial to the system. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. There was an inspector general report in 

2013 that said that 33 percent of DIA employees didn’t understand 

their role. And even more outrageous in that report, they said 80 

percent of the documents reviewed were misclassified. I guess, first 

of all, I should ask you how many different classifications there 

are, because it seems like you could almost throw darts at a dart 

board and do better than that. But could you comment on that and 

as to why that happens? Comment on it. Do you think things are 

better today than it was 3 years ago? That seems—or maybe it was 

a flawed report. Can you—are you familiar with the report? 

Mr. LEONARD. I would suspect it’s not a flawed report. I think, 

based on my experience for over 40 years, that’s rather typical. It’s 

a reflection of, as much as we spend tax dollars to investigate people, to establish secure IT systems and things along those lines, we 

do not spend a comparable amount of money in terms of trying to 

train people in the basics. One of my concerns is, is that, you know, 

we make a distinction between original classification and derivative 

classifications. My experience has been is that when people ostensibly are derivating classifying information, they’re actually just 

classifying information based on gut instinct, more than anything 

else. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Any other comments? By the way, unless I’m 

doing the arithmetic wrong—and I did it twice—on the cost of this 

thing, for that, you could hire 200,000 people at 80 grand compensation a year. That’s how much we’re spending on classification—200,000 people. Now, I realize some of it’s for things, not people, and maybe some people are making more than 80 grand a 

year, but my goodness. My time is—— 

Mr. HICE. Thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes Mr. Lynch for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I want to thank the panel for helping us think about 

this and how we might approach the problem. I had the pleasure 

of working with Mr. Massie and also Walter Jones on the 28 pages. 

It took us 15 years to get that information out there, which is far 

too long. It was interesting because, as we were asking for disclosure and declassification, the administration was pushing back and 

saying: No. This is too sensitive. We had some of the agencies saying: No. It’s methods and sources. And then, finally, when it was 

eventually declassified, they flipped. They flipped and said: Well, 

there’s nothing here. And it’s—the information is not valid. And 

they took a totally different tack. 

We’re now struggling with the DEA and the FBI in regard to 

classified—excuse me, confidential informants. So we’ve learned 

from the Office of the Inspector General for the DEA that we’ve got 

18,000—they’ve got 18,000 confidential informants out there that 

are under contract being paid by the DEA, and last year, we spent 

$237 million paying confidential informants. And Congress knows 

zero about that. They don’t know about the crimes they’ve been 

committing. They don’t know the way they’re operating. The DEA 


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headquarters isn’t intimately involved. This is all being operated at 

the field level. So that’s—and that’s just the DEA. From our conversations with the FBI, I believe that the numbers are double, 

probably about $500 million that the FBI is paying the confidential 

informants. Probably double the number. Probably in the area of 

30,000 or 40,000 informants, confidential informants. That is totally out of our purview. 

So I’m wondering—you know, you’ve all hit on this, you know, 

with the interagency panel reviewing classifications—is there some 

way to supercharge that process? Because it is painstakingly slow, 

and it doesn’t work in the timeframe in which the information 

would be useful to us. 

Mr. Leonard, I know that you said that the last time somebody 

took a good swing at this was during the Clinton administration in 

your remarks, your earlier comment. Is there some way we can get 

this interagency declassification review panel resourced and 

equipped to give Congress, and I’ve seen—I’ve seen my colleagues 

across the aisle tear their hair out when they couldn’t get information, and I’ve been in the same position. Is there some way that 

we can formalize this process to get the information in a timely 

manner that should be public? 

Mr. LEONARD. One way I would suggest would be to make provisions to allow appeals directly to that panel under certain circumstances. Right now, requesters have to go to the individual 

agency. If they get turned down in whole or part, they have to appeal to that same agency. And it’s only after that process then that 

they can go to this interagency panel. And even that interagency 

panel, then, has its own coordination things which can be problematic, but which is a lot easier to address. But the individual agency 

time delays is—can be problematic. Also, for purpose of Congress, 

Congress does have the public interest declassification board that 

they can refer to. And that is another avenue that, quite frankly, 

I never believed is utilized enough. But that’s another avenue. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. To expedite it, you know, maybe we’ve just got 

to figure this out legislatively to introduce an expedited process 

where the information we believe is so critical. And I guess, you 

know, I’m just thinking, is there a way to get the judiciary involved 

here so they would review—I don’t want to create a political question that the courts can’t rule on, but we’re being stonewalled in 

wide areas of public interest. And I feel like it’s hampering Congress’ ability to do its job. 

Mr. LEONARD. Well, one of the things is the interagency panel is 

actually exercising on behalf of the President. It’s exercising his article II authority. And the Public Interest Declassification Board. 

Ultimately, they just make recommendations to the President, who 

makes the final decision. So from that point of view. 

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Amey, you got something you want to add? Or 

Mr. Blanton? 

Mr. BLANTON. Yes, sir. You mentioned sources and methods is a 

blame. And then I think this goes right to you informants problem, 

and it goes right to one of the big drivers of classification, which 

is, under the current statutory system, anything that’s a source or 

a method can be claimed to be withheld, whether or not it’s release 

would actually harm a security value or get a source killed. And 


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I think Congress can take very simple action, both in the intelligence field and the law enforcement field, to say sources and 

methods is not a burka. It should over-cover the things that would 

do damage, get somebody killed, ruin an investigation. Right now 

that identifiable harm standard, which is now in the Freedom of 

Information statute, it doesn’t apply in this informants and sources 

method. It needs to apply. Congress has to take that action. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. Mr. Amey. 

Mr. AMEY. And that recommendation was actually in the Moynihan Commission report. And it hasn’t been acted on now in almost 20 years since. And so it may be time for Congress to enter 

that world. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. I know that Attorney General Reno issued 

some guidelines, but they’re not being followed right now. I actually have legislation. I don’t even want to know who the confidential informants are. I just want to know how many are out there, 

what they’re being paid, and what crimes, if any, they have committed while they’ve been part of this government program. And 

we have had a difficult time getting that through. But thank you. 

That’s all I have, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your indulgence. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. HICE. Thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. Duncan for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and, first of 

all, I want to say that—I want to go on record as saying I agree 

with Mr. Grothman in saying that I’m astounded by the amount of 

spending that’s being done on this, this $16 billion estimate and 

over $100 billion over the last 10 years. I think we lose sight up 

here of how much a billion dollars actually is. 

But having said that, I had two other meetings, and so I didn’t— 

unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear your testimony. And I apologize 

if you’ve gone into some of this earlier. But, Mr. Blanton, in skimming over some of this testimony, I was fascinated by your report 

about the Moynihan Commission and that we went through all this 

20 years ago, basically. And also I think the thing that impressed 

me the most was, I mean, there seems to be general agreement 

here today that there is a real problem of overclassification. But I 

saw where Mr. McDaniel—who was President Reagan’s national 

security adviser said that only 10 percent of what’s being classified 

probably really needed to be classified. Is that correct? And why do 

you think—you mention there that this was a tremendously bipartisan commission. It had Jesse Helms and Daniel Patrick Moynihan and various others. And obviously you’re disappointed that 

not—or very little was done with that—those recommendations. 

Why do you think that was? And do you think we should take another look at that? What do you—just go into that a little bit for 

me. 

Mr. BLANTON. Yeah. I think in the testimony I quoted Mr. 

McDaniel, who the Moynihan Commission quoted, and said that 

based on my experience with few million pages of declassified documents, he’s right, especially about the historical materials. I think 

an estimate that’s closer to reality for current material, the material related, say, on terrorists and ISIS, that the best estimate really came from the Republican head of the 9/11 Commission, Tom 


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Kean. He said 75 percent of what I read about Al Qaeda and 

Osama bin Laden that was classified shouldn’t have been, and we’d 

have been safer as a country. So I think the ranges in there, the 

75 to 90, it’s a bureaucratic problem. Bill Leonard knows it better 

than anybody from both the inside and the outside. Steve 

Aftergood’s been studying it for, lo, these many years. POGO. 

Every incentive is to classify. There’s almost no disincentive. There 

are no penalties. There has to be—I think this is the main reason 

why Congress needs to take action. Because you all can change the 

minds of the bureaucracy and how it actually works. You can, you 

know, change the law and their hearts and minds will follow. 

Mr. LEONARD. I actually believe that the executive branch and 

general agencies in particular actually want the ambiguity because 

the ambiguity gives them almost unlimited discretion in dealing 

with issues. And, yes, it results in dumb things. But it’s the ultimate trump card to pull out, whether you’re dealing with the 

courts, whether you’re dealing congressional oversight or whatever. 

Nobody wants to be the one who compromises truly sensitive information. And so there tends to be this overdifferentiation to any sort 

of assertion. And more often than not, that’s what it is; it’s a simple assertion. It cannot be demonstrated that it truly should be 

classified. 

Mr. DUNCAN.Well, there’s so many other things I would like to 

add or comment on, but Mr. Amey, I’m assuming that you—you 

know, this committee has requested through the years a great deal 

of classified material. And do you think that agencies are 

classifying some material or a lot of material that really doesn’t 

need to be classified just to avoid or get around congressional—effective congressional oversight? 

Mr. AMEY. Yes. But it’s hard to know at what level. You know, 

I don’t know what I don’t know. And that’s—unfortunately, when 

something shows up and it’s a blackened out page and it’s marked 

‘‘classified’’ or, you know, and then some FOIA exemption attached 

to it, at that point, it’s hard to know. Sometimes we do get documents released to us. And at that point, then you can do the comparison. And so, you know, that can add and that can allow you 

to ask some questions. But, you know, unfortunately, with the 

amount of classification that we have, it’s very difficult to put your 

finger on a—you know, the experts that have taken a look at it, 

the 75 to 90 percent. But the culture, I mean, I think that’s it, is, 

even after 9/11 with the 9/11 Commission, you have a culture to— 

the default setting is err on the side of caution. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I’ve run out of time. But I will say this. We’re 

going to have to, it seems to me, to go to much more of a carrotand-stick approach on all of this and incentivize good behavior and 

penalize bad behavior in this area. 

And at any rate, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Mr. HICE. Thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes Ms. Lujan Grisham for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And hearing some of the comments at the tail end, add you may 

have to repeat some of that. Because representing my district— 

and, of course, New Mexico, we’re home to world-class national security, defense, operating labs and related defense, both private 


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and public sector, institutions and businesses. And I understand 

unequivocally the need for being very clear that sensitive, classified 

security aspects related to information, that we have to be very 

clear about protecting the integrity of the those systems and that 

information. Having this committee work on furthering our effort 

at transparency and recognizing that, across agencies, that we 

don’t have an effective handle about who’s determining and what 

parameters apply and what circumstances before, during, and after 

information is being shared in a variety of what I would call sort 

of post- and pre-security issues, I also worry about unintended consequences. And being a longstanding bureaucrat, I could argue either way that having ambiguity can be a protective mechanism to 

not change anything because you fear those unintended consequences and your own accountability, particularly here where national security is at stake, right? There’s no incentive, you know, 

to be a little bit—to talk about being less risk-averse when we need 

better transparency in order to inform ourselves in a way that’s 

productive so that you can do policymaking and you can increase 

the way in which we address national security issues, both in the 

Congress, both in the bureaucracy, and defend and secure the Nation. 

But I also know that it’s very frustrating not to have clear direction so that you can make recommendations and include reforms. 

It’s both. 

And so, to provide those leaders with better guidance, help me 

with some very specific ideas about balancing our efforts, the need 

for transparency and the clear issue that we have, which is also 

protecting classified secure information and the national security 

interests of this country, because my constituents are going to 

say—and they’re right—be very careful about unintended consequences here. Because once it’s out of the box, it’s out. 

Anyone? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. I think one way to understand the issue is that 

classification is treated as a security function, understandably. The 

people who are making the classification decisions are asking about 

the security consequences of disclosure. That’s fine. That makes 

perfect sense. The problem is that security is not the only consideration because classifying has implications for oversight. It has implications for public understanding, for diplomacy, for technological 

development. It can have all kinds of other implications. And to ask 

the security officer to, you know, weigh the public interest or weigh 

the diplomatic effects is totally unrealistic, I think. So where that 

takes me is that in areas of significant interest by Congress or the 

public, there needs to be an additional venue where this original 

security classification decision can be reconsidered in the light of 

broader issues. What is the public interest? What is the need for 

oversight? What are the undesirable unintended consequences of 

continuing to classify? Don’t ask the poor security officer to make 

this complicated assessment. Take it somewhere else and reevaluate it in light of the big picture. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Anyone else? That is in and of itself sort 

of a balance and a chance for a re-review, as a lawyer and what 

I would fashion as sort of an appellate aspect. But, again, making 

those decisions and then creating the parameters for asking for 


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that guidance is also a set of reforms that can also have unintended consequences. Are there specifics in that regard? And the 

concept, I think, is one that I think I’m very interested in, but getting to the concept, are there ways to include the agencies in terms 

of their recommendations about what those parameters would look 

like, without having them sort of protect their own interests, because that’s the other problem, in a way that doesn’t get you then 

to that appellate level, which gets us right back where we started? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Right. You know, we really need more experimentation in this area than what we have had. I think one model 

is this ISCAP model, this interagency panel that has been discussed. There may be others. You would want the voice of security 

represented, of course, but it would not be the only voice, so you 

would want diversity, diversity of opinion and perspective brought 

to bear. You would also want to define who could elevate the issue, 

a congressional committee, maybe just a Member of Congress. You 

know, who else could ask for this kind of review and under what 

circumstances? These are all questions that could be hashed out. 

I don’t think the answers are obvious. They might not become obvious until they are tried in practice. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for 

giving me this extra time, and thank you very much for weighing 

in on what I think is a really critical issue for us to deal with. So 

thank you. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentlelady. The chair now recognizes Mr. 

Amash for 5 minutes. 

Mr. AMASH. Thank you. I yield my time to the gentleman from 

Kentucky, Mr. Massie. 

Mr. MASSIE. I would like to thank the gentleman from Michigan. 

I have got tons of stuff I want to discuss. I am going to try and 

get three things in the last 5 minutes. The first two fall under the 

category of ‘‘there is good news, but.’’ Okay. There is good news in 

terms of the intelligence budget, right, because the 9/11 Commission recommended that at least the aggregate number be disclosed. 

And so it is disclosed. And the executive branch actually in this 

case does a better job than the legislative branch. They disclose 

their request for the budget. 

But the situation we had last week is you had 435 Members of 

Congress, probably less than 80 knew what was in the budget, but 

they all voted for it. And they can find what is in it 2 years from 

now. The 2015 number I can tell you. It is on the Web site. We still 

don’t disclose the top-line number, aggregate number, for intelligence appropriations until a year after it has been voted on. So 

that is the good news, is it is disclosed. The bad news is most of 

Congress is voting on it to see what is in it. 

Now, they could gown to the SCIF, like my colleague from Michigan and I did, and see what is in it, so that is the good news. But 

some of this is just lack of attention on our part. 

Another ‘‘good news, but’’: Mr. DeSantis capably but appropriately pointed out the executive branch has to have secrets to 

conduct diplomacy, et cetera, et cetera. And then, Mr. Blanton, you 

talked about how you could use the power of the purse. Well, there 

is one department that does effectively use the power of the purse 

for oversight, and that’s the Intelligence Committee. They don’t 


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give the intelligence community a tranche of money and say: Okay, 

you have no strings attached, and we don’t want to know anything 

until next year. They’re continuously—that money is contingent 

upon certain things. And also when certain things happen, they 

have to be reported back to that committee. 

The Judiciary Committee would do well to follow that example. 

The Judiciary could fence money and say: Look, we’re going to give 

you part of it, but you are not getting the rest of it until we get 

this answer. So, to the theoretical point of can you get this information from the executive branch or can you not, based on the Constitution, and Article I versus Article II, well, the answer is what 

you provided, Mr. Blanton: The key is in the power of the purse, 

and you can always get that information. So that’s the good news, 

is that you can get the information, and the Intel Committee does 

it. The bad news is DOJ doesn’t do it. And the other bad news is 

the Intel Committee controls this information very tightly, and it 

is hard for a rank-and-file Member to access that. It is basically 20 

questions in a SCIF without staff and no notes walking out. So 

that is the bad news. 

And if I have time, I will let you all comment on that. But here 

is the third thing I want to talk about, and I think it falls within 

this committee hearing today, and this question is for Mr. 

Aftergood. The Federation of American Scientists keeps a bootleg 

copy of all the Congressional Research Service reports. Is that correct? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Not all, but many. 

Mr. MASSIE. Well, the ones that you can obtain? 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Yes. 

Mr. MASSIE. The Congressional Research Service, for those that 

don’t know about it, is this enormous, wonderful resource available 

to Congressmen. And they have got all the historical context for the 

reasons of things, and they prepare these wonderful reports, but 

they’re confidential to Congress. And the irony here is I could disclose them to a constituent, but the CRS has no clearinghouse for 

this. The greater irony is, on a weekend, I go to your Web site to 

find out what the Congressional Research Service has prepared. 

How ridiculous is that? I would like your comment on that, Mr. 

Aftergood. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. There has been a lot of talk lately about fake 

news and how it is corrupting our public discourse and so forth. To 

me, I think of CRS reports as kind of the antidote and the opposite 

of fake news. 

Mr. MASSIE. We get a lot of fake information here in Congress 

from various sources. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. We all need to be critical consumers, but I think 

the CRS products on the whole are extremely informative. They are 

balanced. They aim to educate. If you read them, you are going to 

get smarter than you are. 

Mr. MASSIE. That is not hard to do for a Congressman. 

Mr. AFTERGOOD. Well, or for a citizens. I don’t have too big a 

chip on my shoulder about doing this. I would just as soon Congress do it the right way. I think you have a product that you can 

be proud of, and you should be making it available to the public. 


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Until that happens, I hope to be able to continue doing it through 

the Federation. 

Mr. MASSIE. I hope you do too because I need access to that on 

weekends. Thank you very much. 

Mr. LEONARD. And I would only suggest: It is the end of the year; 

you might want to contribute to Steve’s Web page. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the gentleman, and I also want to extend a 

sincere thanks to each of our witnesses for appearing before us 

today. 

If there is no further business, without objection, the committee 

stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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