Peters Introduces Bill to Improve the Federal Government’s Document Classification and Declassification System
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Gary Peters (MI), Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced bipartisan legislation to streamline the government’s national security classification system and reduce the massive declassification backlog. Over-classification undermines national security by limiting important information sharing between federal agencies, limits government transparency and costs taxpayers as much as $18 billion a year to maintain. This bill would strengthen the ability of the public and Members of Congress to make declassification requests, codify and strengthen prohibitions on improper classification, and ensure taxpayer dollars support an efficient system that correctly classifies and declassifies information to improve government transparency.
“Our current classification system is not just costly, outdated, and inefficient—it’s a growing crisis that undermines both our national security and government transparency,” said Senator Peters. “We are facing an overwhelming backlog of hundreds of millions of pages awaiting declassification and experts telling us that 50 to 90 percent of classified materials could be made public without risk to our national security. This over-classification obscures truly sensitive information and erodes trust in government. My bipartisan bill will address this issue by updating the classification system to enhance our ability to safeguard critical information, while promoting the transparency that is so vital to our democracy.”
The number of classified documents in the federal government’s inventory is currently unknown, but government officials suggest it holds billions of records, and that as many at 50 million new classified records are created every year. This expansive classification system costs taxpayers as much as $18 billion to manage every year. Despite an executive order directing automatic declassification of records after 25 years, these measures often fall short in practice, resulting in a government-wide declassification backlog that is millions of pages long.
The bipartisan Classification Reform for Transparency Act would establish a Presidential task force to streamline the classification system, including by narrowing the criteria for classification and reducing exemptions from automatic declassification. The bill would require federal employees to justify classification decisions in writing, identifying a specific harm to national security reasonably expected to result from disclosure of the information. The bill would also create a “drop-dead date” of 50 years from the time of original classification, at which point the classified status of the information would expire. This legislation improves transparency by allowing the public to make declassification requests when the public interest in disclosure outweighs potential harms to national security, and improves congressional oversight by requiring agencies to respond to declassification requests from Members of Congress in a timely manner. The bill also requires agencies to ensure that employees are not routinely over-classifying information.
Last year, Peters convened a hearing on the federal government’s classification system. The hearing highlighted how the procedure for declassifying documents is outdated, restricts transparency for the American people, and also burdens taxpayers with billions in annual costs. As Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Peters has consistently worked to improve the efficiency and transparency of how the government manages federal documents. This year, the Committee passed his legislation to modernize federal records laws.
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