This is CBS, I Am The World. I'm John Bachelors. Overclassification. In the news in the United

States these last weeks and months, reports of several administrations and several

participants in those administrations in possession of documents that are said to

be classified or that it is a regular for them to be outside the purview of the National

Archives. Question of secrecy comes immediately to bear and sometimes it involves law

enforcement. However my colleague Henry Sikolsky, the executive director of the

Non-proliferation Policy Education Center, on his website you will find that he's been conducting

meetings since April of 2020 by various groups of distinguished people from

government work, from the Congress, from classification systems, from the military.

Over many months to discuss overclassification in American life, said to weigh down upon

the ability of the government to access what it needs at the time and to be effective

for national security and elsewhere. Certainly the troubles with the previous administrations

now, the very least embarrassment.

Henry, a very good evening to you, I need to start with history. Where did this come

from? Because I assure you there was no overclassification system during the Civil War when Abraham

Lincoln, the president, would stroll over to the telegraphic office at the war department

and sit and learn of reports from the battlefield with the roomful of cluttering clerks listening

in on the reporting. So we know it wasn't there in 1863 when the nation was at risk. Where

did it come from that it now weighs on the 21st century? Good evening to you.

Good evening. Well, I am not a studied student of this, but roughly the wars first and

second exponentially increased the interest of the government and protecting information

to conduct military operations. And although there was an enormous relaxation after the

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