NPR

The U.S. has an overclassification problem, says one former special counsel

The discovery of classified documents at President Biden's home and former office has put new scrutiny on how the government classifies documents.
The U.S. government classifies some 50 million documents every year, but doesn't declassify documents at nearly that rate.

For months, classified documents have been turning up in places where they're not supposed to.

First, there was the discovery of hundreds of classified documents inappropriately stored at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Then, in recent weeks, the discovery of classified documents at President Biden's home and private office.

While these cases are different in scope and circumstance, both demonstrate mishandling of sensitive information – and they have renewed the scrutiny on how the government classifies its documents.

"There's somewhere in the order of over 50 million documents classified every year. We don't know the exact number because even the government can't keep track of it all," Oona Hathaway,

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