Mike Thompson: “I appreciate the attention being given to the Government Secrecy Act, S. 712, by Senator Lott and Senator Daschle. I…”

“I appreciate the attention being given to the Government Secrecy Act, S. 712, by Senator Lott and Senator Daschle. I also wish to commend Senators Moynihan and Helms for the hard work they have put into this issue as Senate members of the Commission on Protection and Reducing Government Secrecy. To review the entire secrecy system, Congress established the Secrecy Commission in 1994. Last year, the Commission issued its final report. The Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on the Commission's recommendations when they were first issued. Among the recommendations of the Commission was establishing a statutory basis for our secrecy system. Apart from nuclear secrets, there has never been a coordinated statutory basis for establishing and maintaining government secrets. Consequently, there is little coordination among agencies on how information is determined to be secret, little accountability among classifying officials, and little Congressional oversight of the government's secrecy activities. The Commission also described how the secrecy system functions as a form of government regulation, imposing significant costs on the government and the private sector. It is time to begin reviewing these costs and identify which secrets really need to be kept and which do not. Like other areas of government regulation, we need to inject a cost/benefit analysis into the process to be sure that those secrets we do keep are worth the cost.”