http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0704/072604c1.htm
Chris Strohm
The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks determined last week what open government advocates have long argued: Federal agencies are overclassifying information.
According to the commission, poor information-sharing among federal agencies was a primary problem that contributed to the attacks. The panel's final report, issued last week, recommends that the overall budget of the intelligence community should be declassified, and information sharing should be stressed over information hoarding. Indeed, Chairman Thomas Kean told reporters after the report was released that half of all the classified documents he reviewed did not need to be classified.
"The culture of agencies feeling they own the information they gathered at taxpayer expense must be replaced by a culture in which the agencies instead feel they have a duty to the information—to repay the taxpayers' investment by making the information available," the report concluded. "Current security requirements nurture overclassification and excessive compartmentalization of information among agencies."
