To modernize the system for classified information. The bill is sponsored by senator moran and senator wyden and wood offers director of National Intelligence to set policies. This runs one hour 35 minutes. The hearing will come to order. This afternoon wicklund welcome gregory koch were having trouble getting linked in but hopefully we will resolve that here at w some point. Windows whatever third vote that is pending as well. Former rep john tierney from the Public Interest declaration declassification board will discuss declassification policy and in particular we will discuss striking vows in protecting our nation class i been to and ensuring Historical Documents can safely get their moment in the sun. I am prepared to do for my Opening Statement for the following reasons. Senator moran as the chair hearing at 330 thymic and has to vote. If its okayte with both of you because if i give my time to senator moran so we s can open with some comments since he joined a circuit of the station that what he can, doesnt have to miss about and can cheer is important here at 330 thymic. Help with your webex is hearing. Can i results in special favor from jerry. Was absolutely. You should take them for everything gets got in that bag. Senator moran come to a to say or comets . So you plan attend vote not mr. Hank . Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Its a privilege to testify. I hold the Intel Committee in high regard and recognize its Important Role in securing the security of our citizens and i appreciate the consideration that you and senator warner provided in the timing. Members of the committee thank you very much for the opportunity to advocate for declassification reform and for having this open setting, mr. Chairman. As you may be aware i am a sponsor alongside with a member of this committee senator wyden, senate bill 3733, the declassification reform act. Senator wyden at i i worked on this issue for a long time. It is surprising to me the end result is so straightforward and relatively simple, but it is an attempt to begin the process of modernizing declassification i designate the director of National Intelligence as executivena agent responsible fr promoting programs, processes and systems related to declassification. Though the bill itself rests within the jurisdiction ofdi another committee this committee has considered this bill as an amendment offered by senator wyden to the intelligence authorization act. I appreciate the discussion of this bill which many of you have personally visited with me on the floor andth throughout the capital complex. It there is n that the process that guides the release of declassified information are antiquated and unable to keep up with the overwhelming flood of digital data. Congress has been told repeatedly over the years that the system is unsustainable. Last year, the director of Security Oversight Office wrote that the current framework is unsustainable and desperately requires modernization. In 2016, the Public Interest declassification port posted that the classification system is no longer able to handle the current volume of information especially given the excess information. Four years later, there is little evidence that this project is on the path to be resolved. They no longer require classification and its impacts to to taxpayers is estimated to be 18 billion per year, and it denies Public Access to information used to hold the government accountable. The board notes, the overwhelm system hurts the policymakers. The senator approached me in late 2018, and asked me to join him in an effort to craft legislation to begin to solve the problem. While i indicate my great regard for members of this committee, i am not one of them. There might be a question of why this is an interest to me. The ability to save taxpayer dollars is of interest. To be more transparent to the American Public is of interest of to me. And for policymakers to have necessary Information Available to us, that is important to me. Protecting taxpayers to the tune of billions spent on classification and ensuring transparency from the federal toernment, and the ability do it without jeopardizing National Security, that is a priority. We have consulted with experts from the declassification board, oversight office, and national or National Archives, and other experts, and officials from our intelligence agencies, as well as staff from this intelligence committee. Technical solutions such as Machine Learning exists to facilitate bringing our learning into the 20 century. We know agencies are taking steps with some technology to address the issue, the effort that implement best practices is required. The final product adopts the key recognition from the latest report issued in may by the declassification board. Senator wyden and i are not under the pressure the impression that naming an agent will resolve every question of declassified information, but we authorityone with the being appointed is a good first step. Know there are other ideas to facilitate reform. I am pleased todays hearing will have ideas to address this problem of this magnitude. Research resources will be necessary to implement this. An ally inider me this endeavor. I have been pleased to join in this effort and im eager to work with members of this committee in achieving declassification reform long overdue and yet protects american citizens. I thank you for having this open hearing and i thank you and the Committee Members for their time and opportunity to be here today. Sen. Rubio thank you for being here. I will condense my Opening Statement in the interest of time. Congress established the Public Interest declassification board to advise the executive branch on identification of the view in relief of release of records. They released a report on reforming the process and recommended sweeping changes to the way we declassify records. We will look at our witness to explain these. The Intelligence Community agrees that reform is needed. The backlog of Historical Documents is large. The system is completely outdated and the standards are sometimes inconsistent throughout the National Security establishment. I am concerned they do not align with the current role, given that they have neither the authority or expertise to serve as the leader of declassification enterprise for for the entire government. They are not it should not be in a position to set declassification rules for the department of defense war plans, for nuclear programs, for example. Tolook forward to talking witnesses about the declassification process, including the prospects of achievable reform within the context of the limits of authority. I think the subject of this hearing allows us to emphasize a related point, the difference between a process of responsible deed classification declassification of seekers that do not need to be secret, and selfish and irresponsible leaks. You do not declassify things to keep things for people. Because you reveal how you learn about those things and the people in the entities you are correcting on we realized you have access to information and cut you off for more Important Information in the future. This is a reason why things are kept secret. That is balanced with the default position of transparency in government. We needed to have accountability that our system of government requires. There has to be balance between these equities, protecting the security of the American People through our ability to learn valuable information about potential adversaries with the need of the American People for transparency in everything the government does. I am very proud of this committee, that by and large, has been very responsible with the information we come across. It is fair to say this committee has never been a source of these sorts of things. But there are those who casually dismiss the responsibility of holding classified information. Have never sat through briefing or have been read into billiondollar programs that would leave our nation blind and deaf to the threats we face. They never met and heard about the brave men and women who risk their lives every day to prevent or next terrorist attack steal the plans for a deadly new weapons system. These are secrets that i iran and russia and others receive and they use that information to do us harm. These secrets need to stay secret but not forever. To ensure that those secrets can , doneen their day responsibly, it would build trust between the American People and their government. The colleagues make sure that happens in the Intelligence Community. Some unfortunately who have put their lives on the line have seen their secrets splash across the new york times, the washington post, just because a politician wanted to score cheap political points for their own benefit. Our people deserve better than that. They pay taxes so the government can provide for their common defense. You can make 10 times their salary working on something else. These people work for years to gain access to the secrets that make us safe from a terrorist attack. And oligarchs plans to steal an election. Decides they are above that mission and that scoring palooka points is a better mission, that trust is destroyed and the dollars would dissolve and it is no overstatement to say that people die. From Edward Snowden to a politician who wants to be the first to break news, we suffer for their selfish acts and who benefits . Maybe the politicians snag a few headlines for an interview on cable news but the real winner ultimately is our adversaries. I want to take a minute to thank professionals, on whose shoulders the declassification decisions rest. People whol group of have been a vital partner for this committee. We worked with the Intelligence Community to ensure we were doing no harm. All five volumes of the russian report passed through his shop for declassification review. We greatly appreciate his in their efforts to protect secrets and make sure the American People were able to see our work. I want to thank the senator for his perspective as an historian aremaking sure they protecting our investment in our Intelligence Community. Moran, who is here today, and senator wyden, who has been perhaps the leader on trying to reform the declassification process. Take you, senator moran, for being here. And we will let everyone know about the first expense with webex. We will do the best we can as we work through technical glitches. So, thank you to the vice chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Friends for my taking on the issue. I think it is extraordinarily timely. I hope we get to hear from the congressman. We have a number of questions for them. I know that declassification is a bit more technical than some issues that we grapple with but it is fitting we should have an open session to discuss it. We should all agree that the declassification system of today is broken, outdated, slow, bulky, and hopelessly inadequate for the digital age. Agencies are using a fragmented and paperbased system that lacks the resources and technology to keep pace with the exploding volume of digital records. It leads to errors and puts classified records at risk. A quarter of a century ago, the Commission Led by a late senator patrick moynihan, a former member of this committee, found while secrecy is important for security operations, policy discussions, and weapons systems, he also found that excessive secrecy has significant negative consequence is. When the public cannot be engaged in an informed debate, extort nearly timely now in terms of election security, when policymakers are not fully informed, and government cannot be held accountable for the actions. Zapssive classification that truly must be kept. I agree with the chairman. Those critical secrets must be a greateronored in way. My fear is in todays digital age. The new solution seems much worse. The ease with which tens of millions of new got new documents are classified every year. I am anxious to hear from our witnesses on how the declassification system is functioning. I would like the chairman to recognize the important work of senator wyden, who, without his assistance, i am not sure we would be at this point. Fore the balance of my time opening comments. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank my cosponsor, senator moran, out the door, and chairman rubio, open hearings are rare and i appreciate him doing this. Let me start by saying that when our countrys safety is at stake , there is a need to classify documents essential to protecting american lives. What there is no need for is a dilapidated, outofcontrol classification system that costs taxpayers more than 18 billion a year. Colleagues, cannot even distinguish between what should and should not be kept secret. When it comes time to declassify a document, the agencies have to even havend do not the ability to communicate about it securely online. Heres what happened. Intelligence officials have to print out the documents. They put them in a bag and drive around from agency to agency. Traffic,et stuck in they better bring a bag lunch. It means intelligence officials. Arch around it might make a funny saturday night live skit but it is an. Bsurd waste of taxpayer money documents are piling up in the secret databases. The system is choking on itself and it gets worse each year as a flood of new information gets classified visually. As the chairman said, there is widespread consensus, there is a serious problem here. Widespread consensus that modernizing the declassification system is the only solution. There are a lot of Good Solutions ideas on how to do it. The only thing missing is for somebody to take responsibility to get it done. And is what the senator are doing. Bipartisan legislation that would implement the recommendations and the director of National Intelligence to take the leadership role. They are already already responsible for the protection of methods. We are already responsible for andloping uniform policies solutions to the longstanding problem are at hand. Chairman rubio, i would like to impart this to you because i think you raise a central concern that i have heard about the department of defense. Urging doese are not put dni in charge of secrets aret dod declassified. It is about modernizing systems for declassifying information that the department of defense and other agencies have already longerned are no declassified. Thank you again for your courtesy and the opportunity to be here. Thank you. Welcome. We open it up for you for any Opening Statement you might have. You, members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you on this panel for perspective on classification reform. I am grateful to discuss it, one of the most often overlooked and misunderstood areas of the program. I hope to give you a better understanding of the landscape and perspective on proposed. Overnmentwide reform the committee is likely aware that u. S. Government declassification review processes require significant the resource for the classification is a daunting requests,ocessing which some estimates exceed 4 million alone. The federal agencies need and support classification reform. Must occur to meet demand, more transparency for the public while transparent i recognize the critical importance should be transparent with the American People. We worked diligently to support declassification for National Intelligence information, not only from the public, but also from congressional committees, including but not limited to argentinian human rights abuses. Information about the use of surveillance. Five volumes of this committees report. In afacilitated a review wide range of topics, including materials of the 50th anniversary. I see elements continue to , mandatoryusands declassification review each year. These effortsth because they are important to the understanding of challenges facing our nation. While while we continue to and systems,sses larger investments in people and technology are required to seek change. In this review of the Legislation Service come multiple concerns. Any proposed reform must be consistent with the application from unauthorized disclosure. Department of defense and energy, which has significant the legislation informed requires more to understand and account for all equity. I look forward to more discussion on the price tag of a kabul shrink the objectives. Concern is the recommendation to make the government wide recommendation for declassification, responsible for all policies and processes of the u. S. Government. We believe such an approach takes it well beyond its intended role. The dni is delegated authority from the president , as are other agencies in accordance with second order 1, 2, 5, 6. The declassification responsibilitys and competencies apply to intelligence and intelligencerelated information. We authority generally does not extend beyond this. The role for declassification is not only resource intensive but also supposes one is responsible for declassification and all is treated the same. The assumption is false and will likely lead to unintended consequence. Many agencies have delegated classification authorities specific to holdings. Created, classified, and held by the entire government. Charging with this broader mandate would have negative consequences and distract from our core mission of activities. The expanded role is also in conflict with and contrary to the constitution is a small body, rather than a large operational organization. The proposed legislation describes the proposed legislation to reform. Suggest thosemust who have individual experience and authority over the classified information. Consistent with concerns outlined, we believe the dni is not wellsuited to Share Committee for government declassification efforts. While we would welcome further discussion on executive committee on declassification, we recommend the Committee Also engage with other federal agencies with longstanding declassification programs proposals for declassification reform. In the mist of governments reforms, we must not changed the way it is changing fundamentally. It is growing exponentially as agencies produce more and more information. With a flood of information, we agree that investments in i. T. Will be required for the growing digital age, along with many years worth of analog and digital holdings. There are opportunities to apply advanced technologies such as Machine Learning to augment and incorporating new technology would produce laborintensive steps. It is important to note that human expertise, routinely validating, will always be necessary. Coordination on declassification efforts throughout the u. S. Government would be something extremely difficult to do, even in the much smaller group. Get all declassification stakeholders on the same net same platform so coordination can be smooth and secure. Most can have their own systems. Has been a together similar goalsk throughout the u. S. Government. For thediligently review process. Asked ending that without the instructor to support it would not work. Challenges to reform are immense but we agree that the need for reform cannot be ignored. We provide the obstacles for making declassification, we look forward to working with the committee on ways in which we can contribute to meaningful reforms. Thank you and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Congressman . There we go. Is that better . Thank you, senator rubio, and chairman. I want to thank you to be able to testify on what is usually neglected issue, modernizing the declassification system. I would like to thank staff for their assistance and to be able to appear by video. I speak to you as a member of the public declassification board. Provided previously more detailed statements. We recognize the role we can centers should play cosponsored introducing declassification reform act of 2020. The recent report to the president was entitled modernization of declassification in the declassification system. To modernize the declassification systems. We have written five report to the president in the past 12 years. Each recommends new policies to address them. Of thezation declassification system is imperative. It is a necessity for National Security and our democracy to operate effectively in the digital age. Our first report into thousand eight, since then, the government has made little progress. We purposefully designed our most recent to share a roadmap to overcome individual agency in action. And to have them be a governmentwide solution. We stress critical importance of sustained leadership and driving change by having an executive agent oversee reforms. Without the integrated systems allowch approach would for effective use of advanced technologies and lead to declassifying volumes and data. Recommendations align with the information modernization intelligence strategies. And to improve and form performance and reduce cost. The recommendation to reform the United States government structure and operations in cyberspace. There is widespread agreement that these cannot effectively handle the volume of digital data generated every day. Cannot handle the volume of declassification review. The processes remain much the same as what they were developed in the Truman Administration in an era where secret was on paper and secured in safes. Without reform, it will be far worst worse in the future. In 2012, one intelligent it Intelligence Agency estimated approximate one terabyte of data every 18 months classified. This is the equivalent of approximately one trillion pieces of paper. The agency estimated that using current manual declassification, it would take 2 million employees one year to review this much information. This is one agency eight years ago. The problem has grown exponentially since 2012. Declassification system is about to collapse, security operation. The president posited nominee to lead this testified that over classification was making it more difficult to support classification not only affects it can lead to limited innovation, diminished private sector and reduce private and dollar private technologies. Agencies let us reevaluate the needs of customers. Consolidated the security classification guide classification decisions insured decisions aligned with customer needs. Use are critical to the security of the nation. They can and must be used they are only focused on filling their own information. It leads to added costs and reduce deficiencies. Agentommend an executive to oversee reform. First, the executive agent has the right to oversee two processes across the agencies, including precise declassification guidance and standards that can be used across agencies. Has canve agent advanced technology solution, and coordinate technological acquisition. We overcame roadblocks. It is a proven leader in developing and managing Technological Solutions and acquisitions to support operations across agencies and lead to the development of the employment of intelligence. Ommunity and technology it manages to join worldwide. It is a leader in overseeing and , artificialearch intelligence, and other Machine Learning technologies. The national, central agency, and . Other private sector partners. 2019 intelligence strategy recognize the leadership role in getting the government to do things differently by increasing coordination, and increasing transparency. We thought it was the clear choice. Leadership in establishing a provide can also opportunities to gain efficiencies. Increased cost savings by expanding infrastructure and Data Strategy already in place to improve classification and declassification. The declassification system can no longer keep pace with what was submitted 25 years ago and the exponential growth will cause us to collapse without radical change. The impact of a failure to will be felt widely. Recommendations and possible solutions but they have not yet led to an effort to radically rethink what declassification means in the digital age. Out impact National Security and democracy. Our board remains hopeful that change is coming. Senatesident signed the bill last year that requires the department of defense to report to declassification processes and what it is doing to reduce declassification backlogs. This system will not work in the digital age. I appreciate the statement that the system is outdated, recognizing that there is a problem is a step forward. We support the senators reasoning for last night passes declassification and are grateful for the committee to hold a hearing on the issue. These are important steps forward. There are important steps that lead to reform. We are reforming acquisitions and policies and practices for reduced cost. Integrating the use of advanced technologies across agencies to address mission imperatives. Our Mission Report in the executive branch or through legislation are the next steps. This will bring needed experience and expertise and will facilitate the development of a of an approach across agencies, facilitate advanced Information Technology into a new classification and declassification processes. Let me express my appreciation to the committee again for this incredible for this critically important topic. It is important for transparency and democracy. The time for action is now. We must move beyond saying it is too costly or that it is something another agency should be responsible for. The opportunities for reform, it offers possible solutions for the governments to engage stakeholders in address this challenge and identify solutions and implement them. Thank you for your interest and support. I look forward to answer your questions and continuing the discussion. Thank you both for being here. The vicechairman went to vote. Im going to go as soon as he comes back. Senator feinstein is still getting ready so senator blunt, you are next. Are s you ready . I am. Thanks for letting me go. I have a couple of questions. Clearly, as my former colleague congressman tierney mentioned in his remarks, congress has asked the odni to come back with the plan on classification. We all believe that we over classify now. I think thats more likely than not the default position. If you dont have a lot of time to think about the things youre classifying and decide there may be something in there that possibly should be classified at a higher level, it goes there, and it goes there for a long time. I dont know how much of that we need to establish here. We need to get back to where the classification is as open as possible and available in the future as quickly as possible. I would say, a question for mr. Koch. The pentagon leaders themselves have been pressing pretty aggressively for this. The secretary of the air force, general hyten, vice chair of the joint chiefs of staff have pointed out how hard it is to make the case publicly without access to information that is widely available now, particularly the overhead architecture information. So much of it is virtually available at the commercial level, if not absolutely available at the commercial level. And to make the case for Space Command, or to make the case, senator moran and i both serve on the defense appropriating committee. His challenge is there are things that that committee needs to know that truly are not at the intel level but are at a level to where members of congress should have more access to them than they have now. So i guess the question, mr. Koch, is what kinds of things would make it easier to explain the needs of Space Command and other defensive needs if they were classified at a level beyond the likely current classification level . Thank you for the question. I dont think i can speak intelligently about what Space Command, space force is doing. Thats a dod equity. I could speak for the ic but if youre concerned about how agencies over classify things, i sure that concern with you. You have to understand we are collectively working on updating our secure declassification guides to be more tailored for very specific information. [inaudible] we are preparing better training for our workforce, and i have the utmost confidence that we will get to a point where overclassification will not be an issue Going Forward. Well, i hope so. And i guess again part of my question was that there is so much thats available at the commercial level now, and we wind up classifying government documents that are widely available at almost the level we have them in other ways but i think people are reluctant if it is auc classified document to ue it and often dont have the time to go somewhere else to find it. So a lot of people, during the covid period, really figured out theres lots of unclassified material that they can access from home. Some agencies that are prepared than others to work in that unclassified space. But given your declassification background what have you done to assist the various ic agencies as to how they could use more unclassified documents during the time that they were working remotely . I think that also would be a question, turcotte, for you. Mr. Koch, for you. To be honest ive not been personally involved with that. As you know the ic works of the classified level for the vast majority of the time, so not only during covid but precovid its currently typical for any officer in the ic to work in an unclassified setting when they deal with classified material. Even if i had been involved with that so if you didnt have people working from home in an unclassified setting turn the time the headquarters was man down . No. We had that people working from home, but we cant have been working in any kind of declassification initiatives or requests. I guess maybe im not making the case. But the case is that a lot of people have found a way to use declassified commercially available material that allowed them to do most of what they were doing withh the classified material. And i guess your answer is you have given no advice in that. John tierney, on the move toward more declassification from your oversight, you are looking at that. What are you seeing that your mostar encouraged about and what have you seen that are most concerned about as we tried to get our hands around this whole issue of over classifying . Congressman . Im sorry. This will work better. Senator, what weve seen is a lack of ability to work across the agencies and find standards that can apply for everybody on that. I think that goes back to the lack of leadership. We are not asking that the odni actually go in and tell people what theyre going to classify or not classified, but we need something to make sure everybody is working on o updating those, and to the extent any of them sure thatform making they are. I think what is probably theres no activity going on in that realm are kept but he juicing its too expensive or is too much for us to do when, in fact, somebody has got to do it. It is incredibly expensive did not have it done, as the center indicated come some 18 18 bin a year being spent and were not really on top of the issues here. T i think we need the leadership and we need a set of standards that will take care of as much as can be done while still leading the entity, individual agency the ability to take care of their own equities. Thank you, congressman. [inaudible] thank you, senator. As chairman rubio indicated were going to do fiveminute rounds. I will go and then senator cornyn is going next. I understand were doing this by seniority so you would be right after senator cornyn. [inaudible] okay. I would defer to senator feinstein. Im still taking my time. Well, if it is your time i will take it back. [laughing] i would yield time. Warner, cornyn, feinstein next. If i could just come theres lot of detail here but if i i could sort of pull us back to a 30,000foot level or above. Im really exactly sure theres a common understanding about the problem with trying to solve, both to the classification system and the declassification system. I start fromol the premise that Public Information should be available and less there is a good reason not to make it available. Im told that are about 4 Million People with security clearances in the United States, to me that not only do we over classify, that theres such so burdensome to come up withdo a method of declassification that it just simply, we need to sort of think over again what is the goal here . We all understand being consumers of classified information the importance of protecting things like sources and methods, but dislike under the freedom of information act, its too easy for government officials to hide their mistakes, to prevent public scrutiny and accountability for their actions our behalf of the taxpayer. And i wonder, and i could start with you, mr. Tierney. Just would like to get a little bit of yourti perspective and feedback about how we should conceptualizee the problem were trying to solve your and how do we reconcile that another important law, which is the freedom of information act and the presumption of openness along with pretty clear criteria that are applied to keep it secret, or keep it in the hands of the government rather than to make it available. Think thats a fair sort of contrast to make, and should be all be focused, should both systems the focus on the same goal . Thats a tough question. I appreciate you through doingn my ballpark. I said the same frustrations was on the Oversight Committee with National Security, that youre never quite sure s that people e applying the proper standards to anything there classifying, and sometimes you do get the notion that they. Might be classifying something for reasons of and 40 investment or just because theyre not sure whether it should be or not on the item have a magic bullet at a dont think anyone does either accept to say it to something that has to be done across agencies and it needs some leadership. Somebody has to take charge of saying this is a problem and were going tod get a working group together which is one reason we have had the Executie Committee working with executive agent and our recommendations to deal with this problem. Identifying what is over classifying things and what to setting standards that allow people to apply them readily set we dont get into that situation. I think will be a decision that the communities make working together about the congress will have to assess and make sure they think they are the executive on the we dont have the magic bullet on that another classified when i when i do not classified another within the equities of each individual agency but nobody seems to be doing it yet and nobody seems to be pushing down on the pedal to make sure that they do thats where the lack of leadership comes in on that and thats whats so essential somebody read the project. Thank you for your answer. As a former member of congress do youou see this as a legislate branch responsibility for identifying what information is classified or not or exclusively executive Branch Decision . I think our process and oversight role to play. Initially, particularly within the Intelligence Community is an executive situation, they have to be responsive for a period i think obsessing oversight to make sure itur is overly broad d it serves the underlying purpose of making sure there is transparency in the public does get as a default mechanism those things which should absolutely be classified. While the executive can take a lot of leeway on that and be active in making sure this moves forward, i dont think congress can advocate its responsibility to make sure it is being done properly and that classification does not overbroad application. And again, mr. Tierney, have you seen a construct or reform in this area with regard to classification system that you think is useful or something ought to or that gets it right, or is it simply an absence of proposals that would help us get our arms around that . With respect to the classification versus items that shouldnt be classified i dont think ive seen a construct of that. I would check with the other board members. Ik think theres a construct of havent leadership and agency that make sure people are moving toward that goal and beating benchmarks and then working together to make sure theres much standard applications possible. Thatss odni itself working amongst the 17th agency in the Intelligence Community and some of that of course reaches outside the Intelligence Community where people of access to some of information on and need to know. In that since there is a good example of how you can provide the leadership and work across agencies and even outside the Intelligence Community that is in odni, the actual construct of classification versus dont classify something, i have not seen that. Thank you veryy much. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. There are five minutes left on the vote if youre not voted on the last one. Mr. Tierney, let me start with you and maybe get both you and mr. Koch on this one. This committee has wrestled for two or three years of what i think is an analogous problem, and that is security clearance reform and work closely with the administration, took the backlog on clearances down from over 700,000 to about 200,000, still waiting for trusted workforce 2. 0. But i guess im interested in both the witnesses, one, is that a good, are the Lessons Learned from security clearance reform, you may notle be as familiar, le treasure, there. And then what does a classification system look like in a digital era . I think we obviously i think we all agree we still kind of paper. I the what of the witnesses. I guess i will start with mr. Tierney. Well, on the declassification digital age, it looks like again the need for there to be technologies that are identified in Machine Learning, put together to work on that and again thats what it takes somebody with experience in doing that, odni fits that bill in terms of this idea. And i think its going to be very important. Remind me of the first part of your question. First part of my question was, but you may not be as familiar with this part, but we worked closely with the administration on a security clearance reform process. Its taken us three years. When i went to work on this board, they started the process and thats what, three years ago and proud to say last week they finished it. So if theres reform, its certainly how much of that reform playing out mr. Koch, did you have any questions, either analogy to security clearance reform and what should a declassification system in the digital age . Sure, first im not an expert at all on security classification reform. But you know, the issues and the processes for security clearance are uniform. When you talk about the classification system theyre not. Oca through the department and agencies each agency develops their own chascation guide. So thats not the same as dealing with security e acha issues. On the digital front, i know that there are multiple working groups at the National Level, interagency level that are already dealing with these issues and have been over the past few years. And weve we are continuing to do that hopefully after covid finishes we can get back to finishing that business, but i will point out that the director of the has the authorities that suggest the dni take over for declassification. Specifically the sisu is for classification and declassification marking principles and they should be the ones, in our view that should continue doing those things in this area and not just shift those responsibilities to another agency. Isnt, when were talking about a digital era, isnt there almost an immediate bias towards overclassification when youve got so much volumous Digital Product at this point . Is there any kind of guide post youd give us on how you could stop that proclivity . Youve got so much data at this point its easier to declassify or easier to classify than to try to sort through . Well, senator, thats a hard question to answer. Its just so much out there. When you have humans making their own decisions on whether something should be classified or not, theyre basing this on their own experience and following specific classification guidance on what should and should not be classified. However, i do agree that we do we should get automation in this area, which would definitely cut down the the overclassification. And i know there is some kind of program that could help after typing that is immediately recognized as classified or not and therefore, mark a document for you so you dont have to do it yourself. I dont think that were there yet, but were definitely made some progress in that area. I think that ai will be an important tool. When senator rubio was making his opening comments he singled out senator wyden and one of our newer members as the philosopher scholars, so maybe senator sass has got the answer, hes up next. Its unfortunate that you begin with an insult, but thank you vicechairman for chairing today, and thank you senator wyden and moran for your previously statements. And for the folks thanks for your work, it sounds like a niche topic, but i think its incredibly important. I want to associate myself with comments from members on both sides of the aisle today about the risks of overclassification because it fosters public distrust for all of us, all 15 of us who serve on this committee appreciate the hard working men and women who often labor in the shadows and their families dont know what theyre going through and sacrifices that they do. We obviously value the classified product that we get on a regular basis, but i would push back a tiny little bit, mr. Koch, against your last answer when you said people are making decisions about classification based on their individual histories and assessments. I think in addition they make decisions based on structural incentives in the system where if you overclassify something theres no way you get in trouble. If you underclassify, you can get in trouble. So the easy move, not to say that the people doing this work is lazy, theyre risk averse because all humans are, the easy move is to overclassify when you cant decide what to do. One of the things, mr. Tierney, your group has done so much important work on is providing simple ways for us to get our hands around for for the broader public to understand what were dealing with. One piece of your report talks about how we spend about 18 billion a year on these classifications declassification systems from the Reagan Administration and not just as a consumer, but historian to get the information. And wrestling through the divide line what should and should not be classified, i think mr. Tierney what your report showed was that millions of pages of documents from the Reagan Administration that should have already been declassified have not been simply because they require manual review. I think the bias for these older documents should be toward an inertia of motion past, towards declassification, if its manual they dont get declassified and incentives to overclassified and historians and scholars cant get scrutiny and fosters distrust. Mr. Tierney, thank you for all of your hard work in this space, but as you arrived at the recommendation to make the odni, the dni for classification, can you walk through how you landed there, what alternatives you considered and how you decided the dni is the best or least bad agent to be responsible here . That was directed the a congressman tierney. Thank you very much, senator. Look, the prioritization on declassification, the last report we made we recommended that the National Declassification Center and agencies and public discuss which would be reviewed sooner than others, essentially insight into what the agencies want to see and by default those records that have no interest in seeing, little interest in seeing and that prioritization would allow for a coordinated government approach of declassification based on records most sought and historical significance for the public. Those things are important and for the records in particular, the advanced technology would be able to in that declassification effort. It is possibly whats going on now, some 18 1 2 billion dollars are already being spent on annual basis on that and it is more than there are 46 million pages in 2017. There were declassified, and each cost 2. 23 per pagement and we are recognizing, you know, just what the expense was to the citizens, the taxpayers, and the need for prioritization and we kept coming back to the motion that there needs to be somebody driving the train. There had to be leadership here. Because everybody recognized the problem and admit right away it needs to have some technology involved in it. Different infrastructure architecturally and actions taking amongst the agents with interoperability and nobody wants to take the charge on it. We did at first look at the isu group and decided, you know, whether or not that would be a group that would be appropriate to take it. Unfortunately its only 18 people and it has a huge responsibility to do many other things that the executive orders have put on it, and i just can tell you some of them. It supports several executive orders, including executive 1356, including National Security. 1289 National Security industrial program. State and local and so on and so on. You get to see the issue with only 18 people and budget 40 Million Dollars decreased over the past five years. So we really couldnt by process of elimination to find an agency that would have the power and the respect in the community and that came to the odnis office. They command the authority to be able to say to the other agencies you need to address this problem and focus on it and get an answer. Work with us on identifying technologies, work with us on getting answers about the Machine Learning and those natures. You need somebody who has had experience doing it. We didnt have any other organization that we were able to come across and thats the kind of experience that the odi had and even with the spacial agency, the work done solved some of the problems mentioned by senators earlier on this and the process of elimination and other agencies, not having experience, not having the authority perceived by other people to do that. And those things were very important to us and saying this is what we need. Congressman, ill cut in to say thank you, were at time and i need to give the microphone back to the chairman. Im going to follow up with a letter asking how the applied at the research lab at austin and declassification process, but ill do that by letter. Excellent. Senator wyden. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. For colleagues that just joined us, i want to mention one issue that the chairman raised and i also did some research on during the break. The reform center, moran and i are urging does not put the dni in charge of deciding what dod secrets are declassified. The same principle is true of department of energy secrets, state department secrets, those agencies are going to decide what theyre going to declassify. What our bill is about is modernizing the system for declassifying information that these agencies would use and have already determined are no longer classified. So thats an important issue and i think were going to have a dialog on this. So, senator moran and i very much want to work to develop a Bipartisan Coalition in this committee to modernize the bureaucracy and we proposed an approach that we think makes some sense. So id like to start by having mr. Tierney, because hes got a chance to respond to mr. Koch, i think it would be good to have mr. Tierney paint for the committee a picture of the declassification process five, 10 years from now, if this committee cant get that Bipartisan Coalition for reform. What would be withheld from the American People simply because we didnt get a Bipartisan Coalition to modernize the bureaucracy . Congressman . Well, senator, it certainly wont be a pretty picture. I can tell you that. We dont know right now how many classified documents agencies create. And we cant tell exactly how big the problem is, but we do know that the figure continues to grow exponentially. I cited one example in my remarks and we know that the government will be unable to declassify any amount of digital data. The abilities just arent there. Here is an example of a body of reports that has or will have historical interest and the National Archives receive all the president ial record at the conclusion of each administration. And its between one and two terra bytes of diata between the george w. Bush, and the clinton administration, and the structured data. The archives received 80 terrabytes and astonishing 250 terrabytes from the obama administration, including a complex array of data. You can see how it grows in one single category and you blow it up by the agencies on that, a picture of how ugly its going to be years down the road when you dont have Machine Learning, you dont have the technology involved, you dont have some sort of coordinated effort. Now, on the question of essentially how you handle this. How important and this was very important to senator moran and i, is it that declassification reform not be stovepiped in different parts of the u. S. Government . Well, its its very important on that. How to encapsulate that is difficult. You have so many different agencies classifying and aspects or ways now that its almost impossible for people to do it. I mean, theres one example of that was mentioned earlier, when somebody declassifies a document thats involved with the equities of another agency if youre doing it, get it from one point to another and difficulty getting from one point technologically, or just come in and visit and review the documents, secure setting to do it. So, it just gets completely out of control and i think, you know, it just moves on from there. One last question, if i might, mr. Tierney. So mr. Koch basically, and this is a common refrain, said, well, lets look somewhere else to do this important job of really cleaning up declassification, and he seems to think that isu and ndc, the national center, are able to play the role to really bring about declassification reform. We were concerned that these offices dont really have the kind of bureaucratic help, the kind of bureaucratic muscle to actually get federal agencies to integrate and modernize their declassification systems. Whats your take on that . I can tell you exactly that, senator. Youre right, they can do it either way, you can say why the dni should serve as the executive agency or why, you know, the Information Security site office is not best suited, but when it comes right down to it. One is the Authority Issue you point out. For the wonderful things that people at isso do and i thank what they do and they dont carry the kind of authority and weight that odni does when it says that people should Work Together and get it done in a certain time and a certain way and its not equipped in that manner to serve and as i mentioned, a quite heavy workload or 18 staff people and a budget that is shrinking instead of growing. Things that it cant do, it doesnt have the Technical Expertise that odni has. It doesnt have advanced Technology Already in place that the Intelligence Community agencies. Unlike odni, it doesnt have the experience of developing or deploying or managing large multiagency secure cloud based enterprise systems like the system i mentioned that is run by odni. Unlike that, they dont have the they only have two of the terminals in the agency and they dont have the focus of soliciting methods something odni highlighted to us in 2018 and some reason i would think that they would want to take on the leadership role so it does have a good say in protecting sources and methods and to be able to do that and you can like dni, the director does in the have the same stature and ability as agencies i mentioned on policies and probably would be in conflict with the main Oversight Mission to boot. So weve had discussions with leaders, historians, Civil Societies and organizations and records managers and other agencies and we found that the National Archives is not the appropriate executive agency to reform classification or declassification and we have tried to have discussions with this, with the folks at the odnis office and weve not been successful to date, but were open to more discussions on them with that because all the things weve mentioned they do have, odni does have and im not aware of any other agency that does have it like the odni. And im over my time. And thank you for this opportunity. Were glad to get to it in an open setting. Senator heinrich. Thank you, chairman. Representative tierney, welcome and i want to thank not only you, but your fellow Public Interest declassification board on report on modernizing our declassification system. I really worry very much about the stakes of inaction in this field and as you mentioned, a lack of reform means that well continue to spend an outrageous amount of money, 18 billion dollars for more per year on a 50s era paper based declassification system. So representative tierney, while many say that modernization is too costly. I think there is clearly a risk of not making these kinds of investments now in a modernized system that will bring cost savings down the road. What investments do you think are needed to modernize declassification . And do you think that there is the potential for actual cost savings in the future, based on a more streamlined Technology Dependent modernized system . Well, thank you senator. Nice to see you again as well. I do believe that we do believe that the board, that there will be significant savings on this. And 18 1 2 billion dollars may actually underestimate the cost of the American Public at the present time. We need to evaluate those costs and we obviously cant afford to continue on the way were going. We need to i would say, get an Information Technology architecture thats somewhat costly. You need to have a lot more Machine Learning in the research and to do on that, there are pilot programs that senator sasse mentioned that we could learn from and those are costly, but onetime cost with minimal sort of Maintenance Cost Going Forward versus this continually growing cost and the cost of not getting the information out for use whether its the Space Command or other Government Agencies, or access to the public for their need to know and to congress for its need to know. So the cost both in dollars and inability to access information is huge, and while the outlay on these technologies and learning, Machine Learning aspects of things may be significant initially, i think over time, they will be a big cost safer on that and well get the information to the people when they need it, both inside government and out. Congressman tierney, one of the things that i find ironic is that this is a committee who really understands the utility of using Machine Learning, using artificial intelligence. The so that the same set of eyes doesnt have to go over the same product over and over and over all day long, because humans dont do well in that environment. And so weeding that down to a few documents that need to be looked at is something that i think almost in our entirety, we understand the power of that to change, to change how we evaluate intelligence product. How can we scale up those pilots that you mentioned ai, Machine Learning, and begin to take the same, i guess, zeal for utilizing those tools in declassification that you already see in terms of analysis of other intelligence product. Well, we have we have to date and sounds like a broken record. Those of those are within our Intelligence Community, in fact. So we have to acknowledge those and learn from them and build upon them, but then we have to do it in a coordinated fashion so that were not duplicating offi everything we do. Were not duplicating twice and make sure that its applicable and usable for everybody across the way and that again takes leadership and it takes and a person to be able to say this is what were going to do. In the end, this is the decision and well move in that direction. So we suggested the executive agency and the executive committee for that and i think those are important factors to get these things and not duplicating costs and energy. The new space, the new commander of Space Command recently testified that overclassification is making it more difficult for Space Command to support the war fighters. Congressman tierney, can you talk a little about how overclassification affects operations and missions, not just the publics right to know, but also very real daytoday riskladen scenarios . I can, senator. Im looking for some notes that i have on that because its not just Lieutenant General that has talked about that, but it was also general hyden, his predecessor on that and talking about the fact they were duplicating things and they shouldnt, didnt need to be doing that. It has had a serious effect on it and i think those are the two best examples that weve had and lets see if i can find it. General hyden was talking about just the overclassification of information within the defense department. And what he said, it was unbelievably ridiculous. The officials, he said like so many others are worried about classification effects on cooperation, has an effect there. Has an effect on cost, has an effect on innovation and those in the private sector. All of those things are impacted so he worries about the overclassification limits, the publics Government Programs and especially the costly ones, like the defense programs. So all of those things, not just big dollar costs, but the costs of operations and by the industry, impacting our ability to carry on as a government. Thank you. Senator king, are you on . Is he still with us . Senator king . Okay. I come at this unburdened by a great deal of knowledge, but one question, mr. Tierney, is are we swamped by declassification because were trying to declassify everything . Or what about a system that just said were just going to work on the declassification of things that people ask for . It seems to me that that cuts the universe of declassification down considerably or are we swamped even in terms of what people are asking for . Do you see where im going here . I see where youre going and agree there are certain statutes that things be declassified on timetables and that can always be adjusted and things can look at it. I think youre right on the money when youre talking about prioritization. One of the things we said, there has to be a system put in place prioritizing what we need with the Government Agencies to avoid all of those and work on innovation and all that and also when the public sees the historians, the congress, public at large and take what people want and put them at the top of the list and work down to the things least claimed for and ones that arent being sought at all. And another idea along that same line is to just say, everything is going to be declassified after five years or 10 years or whatever and that the fallback and then the burden is on the agencies to reclassify if they feel its justified. In order, it would be an automatic declassification and again, it would be the burden would be on those to did the classification in the first place to say, yeah, this is weve got to keep this classified or just let it go along with these other million pages. Well, ill lever it to my friend at odni which i think will be the obvious intelligence reaction to that with presently the lack of manpower and technology to make the review whether they should maintain the declassificatiodec. We just went through the kennedy pages and 50 years after the incident and there was a great deal of discussion with the fbi and cia, what would be released, sources and procedures, things of that nature on that and that was after that many years. So, that was a great way to do it, that would presume that they had the ability to do it and protect what needed to be protected. Well, let me in my limited time, mr. Koch, not surprisingly said, not me, i dont want to be it. If not the dni, then who . My experience in management is you need somebody who is responsibility responsible. My management principal is one throat to choke and one of the problems with this whole issue is its scattered throughout the government and theres nobody that can be held accountable for bag logs and delays, so if you dont think it should be the dni, who do you think it ought to be . Well, thank you, senator for the question. So as i mentioned professional, the president has already authorized both the isu and the ndc to coordinate across the executive branch on all declassification activities. The ndc, for example, has been given authority for the president to streamline the classification processes as well as to prioritize what should and should not be reviewed by agencies. I think they should continue that process and for your awareness, we have been working on multiple National Level and interagency groups for the past few years to specifically address that prioritization issue. So we can get down to exactly what the American People really want to know as opposed to reviewing in some ways meaningless information that no one cares about and our agency is spending so much time reviewing in the first place. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Chairman, again, i want to express my appreciation to senator wyden and senator moran for leading on this issue and thank you to you and the vice chair for holding this. You look comfortable. There are some people saying that you have a brandy and cigar. Im somewhere in the bowels of the capitol. I dont see any smoke, i defended you. Anyone else online. Im the last one. A lot of topics have been covered and i want to get to a couple of things. Congressman if i could first just briefly ask you to explain the methodology of the report . I dont believe it i didnt personally review it, but our staff looked at it last night outlining the document. Just curious, who did you interview and the data we gathered and how was that incorporated into the recommendations. It looked like a lot of work and. It was a tremendous amount of work and a lot of course was the help of our staff tremendous on that. I would be happy to respond to us in a longer list of who exactly we spoke to and try to give you a real good idea what the what im getting at because what im getting at with the question youll understand at the moment were trying to understand what the reforms would cost and ill tell you why im asking that because we shouldnt do it, but i think that from what youve heard here today i think theres broadbased support for the idea that the same we have in place now is byzantine and con federated and broken and needs to be brought into the 21st century before we utilize all the Technology Available to us. It seems to me theres not much controversy that there needs to be an executive agent, someone who has ball control on this in terms of overseeing strategy, implementing the plan, driving the investments, and where i think the debate on the topic, who is going to be that agent, that sort of runs it, and it would appear that in order to design and implement and drive the investment, you would need a pretty substantial investment above what were doing now, at least the design phase because thr a there are a lot of pieces to move in. The question i have for mr. Koch is, given the resources you have now, i think the answer is going to be an easy yes. The Resources Available now would not be enough to drive this, it would need additional resources, if in fact you were tasked with in, given the personnel you have now . Senator, yes, i would absolutely say yes, thats correct. Because, congressman, the estimate of 18. 39 billion for 2017, was that the cost for the Current System . And does it include the cost of evaluating the documents for public release . Or do you know if that number just reflected maintaining the current classified system . That is the current maintenance of the system, 18 1 2 billion dollars on that. It doesnt take into account what would be needed to get to the odni in order to do such things that were requested to have been done. Just as broadly, we had discussion with National Archive leaders, a lot of them youll see when we give you the information, historians, record managers at other agencies, and obviously, weve met with the odni office and others in the Intelligence Community and we offered to meet with them once we heard the resistance on that and we still remain willing to do that and we were able to make the comparison why isu and the National Declassification Center werent the appropriate ones for the lack of experience, for lack of resources, for the lack of authority and all of those things which the dni had and affect a meeting with them. No, again, its not because it wouldnt be money or investment worth spending, but to be clear, this is not plug and play we could use no matter who gets this assignment theyre going to need resources at the front end to implement and hopefully like anyone else, its investments and maintenance on the back end. In terms of the notion that and i guess mr. Koch, i want to accurately represent what the odnis position is on this recommendation, its not that youre against the reform or even against the notion of an executive agency. It is a level of discomfort in particular with designing a system that other agencies you dont have authorities over would have to abide by. Even if youre not making this the specific decisions, youre decision a system they would have to live by, is that an accurate assessment of some of the angst or some of the resi resistance to this recommendation of the odni being the executive agent . Yes, thats correct. I think part of the point is just simply transferring the authority to another agency, it doesnt make sense and if the issue is resources and money at both isu and idn why not give the same resources as proposed for the dni. I dont think were suggesting that an ea is needed, but were agreeing that significant reform is necessary in this area and weve been working toward that in multiple working groups across the executive branch. All right. And yes, go ahead, congressman. Thank you. I think we covered that in fairly good ground and be happy to do it again. And there are so many things that the odni has that isu and the national declassification dont have, in terms of experience and developing and deploying and managing multiagency house based enterprise systems and thats like jwics and protecting sources and methods. It doesnt have the stature and ability to corral agencies. Direct conflict with this and its not authorized by the president to do this or the National Declassification Center for those authorities. And some will have to be given this and we think it should be the one with the experience and the authority and the capabilities that have been exercised and shown to be so effective in other settings outside the Intelligence Community. And some of them worldwide. Yeah, i think what it boils down to, theres widespread agreement it needs to be reformed and someone needs to be in charge of the reform and really, the question we have to work through is who is that right entity to be responsible for designing it, implementing it and maintaining it on an ongoing basis and from an internal perspective theres jurisdictional ground because if it touches on the state department or dod, this is not probably the only to have oversight. But its a topic, i think theres strong bipartisan widespread support for pursuing and this report certainly and the bill filed certainly gives us a baseline upon which to work and i think weve fleshed out through the public hearing some remaining outstanding topics about where our options are. I want to thank both of you for being patient with us and contributing today to this hearing, its one we have been trying to get on the books for a couple of months and im glad were able to do and again, i thank you both for being willing to come online and be with us as a part of this today. Is there a [inaudible] yeah, there may be some followup questions that members might send in writing and we would ask if we have some of those if you would help get them answered. Some people may not be able to come over today. Again, i want to thank you and everyone who came and with that, our hearing is adjourned. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the house continues its summer recess. Members return for legislative work the week of september 14th. On the agenda, condemning antiasian bias created by the coronavirus pandemic. Members are also expected to work on decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level and reauthorizing u. S. Intelligence agencies. Before the end of the month the house will need to work on federal spending. Current funding expires september 30th. Members also continue to wait for an agreement between President Trump and Democratic Leaders on coronavirus economic relief. If an agreement is reached congress could return sooner. Follow the house live on cspan when members return for legislative work on monday, september 14th. Book tv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authorities every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 8 40 p. M. Eastern, carter page, former policy advise for President Trumps 2016 president ial campaign on his book abuse and power how an innocent american was framed in an attempted coup against the president. And sunday at 7 40 p. M. Eastern, cnn worldwide chief media correspondent brian stealther with his st stelter. And Sarah Huckabee sanders former press secretary for President Trump on her book speaking for myself, faith, freedom and fight for our lives inside the white house, shes interviewed by jennifer jacobs. Watch book tv on cspan2 this weekend. Youre watching cspan2, your unfiltered view of government created by americas Cable Television as a Public Service and brought to you by your provider. Later today the senate expect today hold a procedural vote on bill on economic relief. We heard more about that and the negotiations with the house and President Trump from majority leader mitch mcconnell. Anyone watching the senate yesterday saw another installment in an ongoing series thats become somewhat familiar, republicans roll out yet another effort to forge a bipartisan compromise around coronavirus relief. And democrats reply with partisan cheap shots and threats to block everything. Republicans develop a serious
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