World News: The U.S. classifies too many documents

Tuesday, January 24

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House to mayors who are attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington, on Jan. 20, 2023. The Justice Department has searched Biden's home in Delaware and located six documents containing classification markings and also took possession of some of his notes, the president's lawyer said Saturday, Jan. 21. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) ORG XMIT: NYAB612

What if all of this angst over classified documents was over nothing?

Hello. Today we have a column that suggests way too many documents are being classified and history has shown the latest round of worry isn't needed.

Decades from now, when the government belatedly releases the Trump and Biden purloined records, Americans may well wonder what all the fuss was about.

Most are classified not to protect sources and methods – the standard intelligence community rationale – but to protect intel analysts against embarrassment or to protect government "secrets" that the public should know.

A famous example is the classification of millions of documents ostensibly tied to President John F. Kennedy's assassination: Each release of a new trove, most recently last month, has prompted questions about why most of the documents were classified in the first place. Read more.

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