"There are too many secrets" and maybe too many secret-makers, said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the Government Reform Committee's national security panel. There are 3,978 officials who can stamp a document "top secret," "secret" or "confidential" under multiple sets of complex rules.
No one knows how much is classified, he said, and the system "often does not distinguish between the critically important and comically irrelevant."
"The tone is set at the top," Shays said.
"This administration believes the less known the better," added the Connecticut Republican, noting sadly he was speaking of a GOP administration. "I believe the more known the better."
The panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, noted that former President Clinton directed that in cases of doubt, the lowest or no classification be used. But in 2003, President Bush ordered officials to use the more restrictive level.
Aftergood cited the "secret" stamp on Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report of "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted on Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison.
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