WASHINGTON (AP) — In response to a series of intelligence breaches over the past year, senators introduced legislation Wednesday that would require the National Archives to examine documents leaving the White House for classified material .
Classified material was found in the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. And a 21-year-old Air National Guard member is accused of leaking hundreds of Pentagon assessments in an online chat room.
Under two bills introduced Wednesday, any time a president seeks to classify a mix of official and unofficial documents as personal records, the archivist would first have to conduct a security review to make sure nothing is classified. In the cases of Biden, Trump and Pence, classified material was found mixed with personal records.
“The idea that the archivist there was no vetting process for this to become a formal step rather than a ‘nice to do,’ I think, is very important,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The legislation would require the 18 agencies of the US intelligence community to develop an insider threat program and monitor user activity on all classified networks for possible signs of a breach. The person accused of leaking Pentagon assessments is alleged to have printed some of the documents and folded them to smuggle them out of authorized areas.
Also included are several requirements to push US intelligence to declassify more information and restrict how secrets are widely shared. They include an effective “tax” on agencies based on how many records they generate and increase funding for the US Public Interest Declassification Board, a panel of experts that advises the White House on classification matters.
“We have a lot of classified information, and we’re not putting enough resources against records management, against determining what’s classified and what’s not classified,” said Ezra Cohen, former board chairman and current member. “Lack of funding leads to lax control.”
Long a priority for many on the intelligence committee, some senators pitched the declassification review they discussed Wednesday as a long-term way to limit breaches and protect the U.S.’s most important secrets.
An estimated 4 million people have security clearances. And many US officials have long acknowledged that spy agencies classify too much information and declassify too little, using outdated systems and too few people to review what can be released.
“It is an expensive system that we have. It’s outdated,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. “We’re a better country than the system allows us to be.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., noted that Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, wrote in a January 2022 letter that “deficiencies in the current classification system undermine our national security as well as critical democratic goals.”
“My view is that protecting sources and methods and declassification reform go hand in hand,” Wyden said. “That’s because it’s much easier to protect important secrets when you’re not acting like everything is a secret.”
The National Archives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
