Senators from both parties are pushing a package of bills that could overhaul how the federal government manages classified information following the alleged leak of intelligence documents by a 21-year-old National Guard airman.
The package of legislation announced Wednesday aims to improve the security classification system, prevent mishandling of classified information, promote better use of intelligence and enhance public trust, according to a group of Republicans and Democrats backing the bills.
“The government systematically overclassifies too much information,” said Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat, who co-sponsored the legislation with a range of other lawmakers, including Sens. John Cornyn and Jerry Moran, Republicans from Texas and Kansas, respectively, and Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat.
“At the same time, we too often fail to protect the nation’s most important secrets,” Mr. Warner said in a press release, adding that “it is clear that our security classification system is badly in need of change.”
The proposed legislation comes after the arrest in Massachusetts last month of National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in connection with a massive leak of highly classified documents that rocked the U.S. national security community and triggered unease among American allies cited in some of the documents.
The case, which has been embarrassing for the U.S. government, was apparently sparked when the airman first class began posting top-secret internal Pentagon and intelligence material to an internet chatroom for war gamers he managed on a social media app.
It took months for the leaks to be noticed. However, by early April the materials created repercussions worldwide, including on the frontlines of Ukraine and in U.S. embassies across Europe and Asia.
While Mr. Warner’s press release did not explicitly mention those developments, the legislation is widely understood to be a reaction to the leak case.
“Given the explosion in digital records, the status quo is no longer tenable. We’ve got too many people with access to a system that is devoid of accountability and has grown increasingly byzantine, bureaucratic and outmoded,” said Mr. Warner. “We need to protect our national security secrets and then declassify those secrets when protections are no longer necessary. It’s time for Congress to take action and establish accountability.”
Mr. Cornyn added that the proposed pair of bills “would modernize the process for classification, ensure the safety and security of what should be classified, and make the declassification process more efficient as we seek to strike the delicate balance between transparency and secrecy.”
One of the bills is the Classification Reform Act of 2023, which would set a maximum period for classification at 25 years, letting only agency heads or the president extend classification protections beyond that duration. In addition to Sens. Warner, Cornyn, Wyden and Moran, the legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Angus King, Maine independent; Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican; Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Democrat; Michael Bennet, Colorado Democrat; and Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat.
The other bill — the Sensible Classification Act of 2023 — aims to streamline the processes for declassification, dedicate additional resources to the issue of declassification, invest in new technology to assist with classification reviews, and undertake an evaluation of existing security clearances and their justifications. In addition to the other senators mentioned, the bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican.
