Sorry, That's Classified

On the Media

WNYC Studios

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If millions of Americans have access to classified documents, can we really call them secrets? On this week's On the Media, a former Pentagon official explains how America’s bloated classification system came to be. Plus, a look at the stories we tell about Baby Boomers, and how our country might change after they’re gone.

1. Oona Hathaway [@oonahathaway], professor at Yale Law School and former special counsel at the Pentagon, on the complicated nature of classified documents. Listen.

2. Noah Smith [@VildeHaya], contributing reporter for The Washington Post, on how a video game led to leaks of military documents. Listen.

3. Philip Bump [@pbump], national columnist at The Washington Post, on his latest book 'The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America.' Listen.

4. Brian Lehrer [@BrianLehrer], host of WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show, on the news events that defined generations. Listen.

Music:

Passing Time by John RenbournAtlantic City by Randy NewmanEye Surgery by Thomas NewmanYoung at Heart by Brad MehldauYour Mother Should Know by Brad MehldauWhen I'm 64 by Fred Hersch

Transcript

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0:00.0	From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
0:04.6	Ever heard the saying, three may keep a secret if two of them are dead?
0:09.2	Now multiply that by millions of people with access to classified information.
0:14.6	It ends up becoming self-defeating because we're keeping so many secrets
0:18.8	that actually really are not very good at keeping those secrets.
0:22.6	America's overclassification problem means more leaks, even in online games.
0:29.0	The tears that these documents were classified as they could have been available to someone
0:33.8	who indeed was in one of these respective militaries.
0:36.0	Plus the news events that defined our lives as seen over generations.
0:41.0	If the people who came of age when the depression was first brewing had epic life challenges,
0:47.0	so do the millennials and Gen Z today in the 2020s.
0:53.0	I think there's been nothing like it.
0:55.0	It's all coming up after this.
1:00.0	From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
1:05.0	Anyone can misplace their keys or forget that their glasses are on top of their heads.
1:11.0	Or maybe as it seems amongst presidential persons recently.
1:15.0	Every day we learn about a new batch of classified documents showing up where they shouldn't be.
1:21.0	And today is yet another day.
1:25.0	Late show host Stephen Colbert is referring to the newest member of the Brotherhood of the Meandering Manila Folder.
1:32.0	Breaking news, we have learned that classified documents have now been found in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence.
1:38.0	Mike Pence in an ABC interview two months ago.
1:41.0	Did you take any classified documents with you from the White House?
	...

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