Every commission that has examined U.S. laws and regulations for protecting secrets has concluded that too much information is considered secret and that, by trying to protect too much information, we make it impossible to protect the most important, most sensitive information. Yet all efforts to change the system have failed. Any effort to reduce secrecy brings severe penalties if such measures lead to any compromise of information considered sensitive. There is another reason we have been unable to fix the current system for protecting secrets. Almost every previous effort has concentrated on reforming the current system instead of looking at alternatives.
Most officials take our current methods of protecting secrets for granted.
But many organizations that have requirements for protecting secrets do not use the same approach that the U.S. military and intelligence community employs. Companies often forego registering inventions, in fact, because they calculate that their ability to guard intellectual property offers more benefits than the legal protection of a patent. News organizations have an exceptional record in protecting sources. Recall that the identity of Deep Throat has remained a secret for three decades, though scores of people have tried to discover who he is. The record of the media is especially remarkable considering that many of them disseminate the information from their sources to audiences consisting of millions of people.