Mistreatment of classified documents
When I was an Army company clerk during the Vietnam war, I had clearance to read “confidential” and occasionally a “secret” document. I never read anything remotely interesting or particularly important. These documents addressed regulations in densely written Army English.
I was more concerned about how many days till the end of my tour of duty than what these documents might mean.
After the Army I returned to graduate school, where I remember reading a research article about what kind of information was classified and for what purposes. The study took place in a think tank.
The author concluded that the reasons for classifying information were not about national security alone. Many times information was classified to keep it from being known by others in the think tank who were working on similar projects. Competition within the organization played a role in decisions about classifying particular documents. Classifying information had a bureaucratic function as well as a national security one.
That was nearly 50 years ago, and I doubt if a social scientist could conduct such a study today. Permission could be denied because of the classified nature of the materials. Or the results of the study would be classified.
Classified documents have been dragged into the political arena, as the list of top officials who have abused the treatment of such documents grows. Apparently, these officials removed documents from wherever they are supposed to be: the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian or under supervision of the “appropriate” authority. An interested reader can learn about the rules and authority for classifying documents (Executive Order 12958, as amended on March 25, 2003, by Executive Order 13292, https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/appendix/12958.html).
There are literally thousands of people who can classify information, and they are all under the authority of the president of the United States. One can only imagine the myriad reasons for classifying documents.
In his recent book “The Declassification Machine,” Matthew Connelly suggests that over the decades the sheer number of documents being classified has become overwhelming, creating a circumstance that leaves gaps in our history. Access to documents has become difficult simply because there are so many them and because of the way that they are declassified.
He writes, “so many PowerPoints, spreadsheets and text messages and video conferences” have been classified that the requirement that each page be reviewed before being declassified has created the possibility that many documents will never be declassified. As an historian, Connelly worries that a shallow and misleading version of U.S. history might result from how classified documents are managed.
Documents may be classified for reasons that reflect the operations of government bureaucracy, and may be classified for convenience. A PowerPoint may be classifying as “secret” to keep the information it contains within a particular office, or to keep it secret due to the cumbersome declassification procedures. These practices contribute to a problem that some sociologists have referred to as distorted communication.
Our laws require the public be informed about its government, even including declassification of its most sensitive documents. A vital democracy requires the free flow of information. Government should communicate transparently with its people.
However, the ways that governments and large organizations communicate differs from what we understand as “normal” communication. In everyday life, when we communicate we do so under assumptions about the situations within which we communicate. The person talking and person listening assume that each can access the information about what is being discussed. If I don’t understand, I can ask questions and expect an answer that clears up my confusion.
Social scientists such as Jurgen Habermas have studied communication between complex organizations and the public. They contend that governments and large organizations must use mass communication, which is largely one-way messaging. There are news releases, press conferences and town-hall meetings.
But because the government always knows more than it reveals, it cannot respond face-to-face with every constituent and must rely on technology. From newspapers to social media, the way it communicates lacks the instantaneous self-corrective features of everyday communications.
Classified information and other reasons for withholding “information” often makes it impossible for the public to fully understand communications from their government. All mass communication, it seems, is distorted, when compared to everyday life understandings.
We may never know the truth about why Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Mike Pence violated laws and regulations regarding classified documents, so what can we make of this news? We should suspect that some of those documents may be similar to the classified materials I read years ago: uninteresting and uninformative.
Pence and Biden may have unintentionally removed documents, or thought that their status gave them privilege to retain documents. Whatever the ongoing investigations reveal, we know that Trump’s treasure trove of documents is another example of his extravagance and hubris. He has more documents than anyone else, and he has them because he thinks he deserves them.