Handbook·Federal government

How government classification works, and is abused

Explainer·Verified 2026-07-10

The answer

Classification is not one government-wide decision. It is millions of individual calls made by thousands of separate officials. Roughly 4.2 million people are eligible to access classified information at some level, with about 1.2 million cleared for Top Secret, though the government has not published a full updated count since 2019.1 The folk model is that classification protects real secrets. The documented reality, confirmed by at least eight bipartisan commissions including the 9/11 Commission, is that a large share of it does not: insiders and outside experts estimate 50 to 90 percent of classified material could be released without harming national security, a figure supported by the fact that roughly 90 percent of documents the public formally challenges through Mandatory Declassification Review come back fully or partially released.2

How it actually works

An "original classification authority," a specific position designated by executive order (roughly agency heads and select senior officials), decides a piece of information meets the standard for Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret harm to national security if disclosed, and marks it accordingly. Far more common is "derivative classification": any cleared employee who incorporates already-classified information into a new document must apply the same marking, without making an independent judgment. This is the mechanism by which classification multiplies fast, since one original decision can generate thousands of derivative copies across memos, briefings, and reports.3

Executive Order 13526 sets automatic declassification review at 25, 50, and 75 years, and the Information Security Oversight Office, housed in the National Archives, tracks classification volume and cost government-wide.3 But ISOO cannot force disclosure of cost or volume data that intelligence agencies such as the CIA, NSA, DIA, ODNI, NGA, and NRO themselves classify, and ISOO suspended some statistics collection outright in past years, so even the oversight office's own numbers are incomplete.4

The gap between over-marking and actual harm plays out concretely in Mandatory Declassification Review, the formal process by which any person can ask an agency to review a specific classified document: roughly 9 in 10 of those challenges result in release of some or all of the material, meaning the original classification was, in the great majority of cases, broader than necessary.2

Who holds the power

Classification authority sits entirely within the executive branch. No court or independent body classifies information, and Congress has no routine mechanism to review classification decisions, only ad hoc oversight through committee requests. The Public Interest Declassification Board, created by Congress as an advisory body, can recommend changes but has no binding authority.

Overclassification is a bipartisan, structural complaint, not a partisan one: the 9/11 Commission, the Brennan Center, and multiple executive-branch declassification reviews across different administrations have all reached the same conclusion independently.

Where you come in

Any individual can file a Mandatory Declassification Review request for a specific document, a legal right distinct from a Freedom of Information Act request, and given the roughly 90 percent release rate on challenged documents, it is one of the few citizen-accessible tools that reliably surfaces over-classified material. For the related but distinct FOIA process, see how to file a FOIA request.

Sources

  1. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, "Security clearance population reporting," 2022. source ↩

  2. Elizabeth Goitein (Brennan Center), "Testimony before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on modernizing the classification system," 2023. source ↩ ↩2

  3. Executive Order 13526, "Classified National Security Information," 2009. source ↩ ↩2

  4. Information Security Oversight Office, "Annual Reports to the President," 2025. source ↩