The main problem is that our current approach is designed for conditions that largely no longer exist. Unless we adopt a different approach, we could find ourselves continuing to fail to protect secrets effectively. Or we could find our military, intelligence, and technical communities hog-tied by overly draconian measures for protecting information. The New Challenge of Keeping Secrets To be fair to those officials responsible for protecting secrets, the problem has changed. It is harder to protect information today.
Technology evolves faster and national security issues change more often.
As a result, the information we need to protect changes more rapidly too. Meanwhile, on the political front, coalitions shift more often. The ally you share intelligence with today may be your adversary a few years from now. At the same time, intelligence organizations and military services depend more on the commercial sector than ever before. This is partly a by-product of the information revolution.