28-05-11 CIA official calls for reform of secrecy system

The federal government needs to scrap the way it classifies information as secret and start anew with "a clean sheet of paper," a CIA official said Thursday."Our system was developed with typewriters and carbon paper," said Harry Cooper Jr.,CIA chief of classification management."Change is needed and we must start now." Cooper spoke before about 100 people at a forum hosted by the Public Interest Declassification Board,a government advisory body based at the National Archives and Records Administration.The existing framework,with its boundaries between "confidential," "secret" and "top secret" information,dates back to the 1940s and has evolved only modestly since,Cooper said.To adapt to an age of electronic networks and skyrocketing volumes of data,the government needs to change the way it classifies information,stores such information,and decides how much access individuals should have,Cooper said.Without an overhaul,he added,"government business itself as well as public access will be impossible." "Only with a clean sheet of paper can we design a classification system that will work in today's environment." Cooper,who acknowledged that some might consider his views "insane," was one of seven speakers at the forum to offer ideas for revamping the classification system,which cost more than $10 billion last year and is seen by critics as increasingly unmanageable.President Obama has asked the Public Interest Declassification Board to come up with a fundamental transformation of the classification system;the panels findings will go to the White House National Security Council.