Computers, Internet Destroy Top-Secret Classification

By John J. Duncan Jr.

duncanj@knoxfocus.com

The U.S. has far too many intelligence agencies with far too many employees and is classifying far too much material.

There are now 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. The two largest are the C.I.A. with 21,575 employees, and the Defense Intelligence Agency with 16,500 employees.

Elizabeth Goitein, a national security lawyer with the Brennan Justice Center, wrote an article in 2016 entitled "The Government Is Classifying Too Many Documents."

She wrote that there is "massive 'overclassification,' a phenomenon noted by experts and blue-ribbon commissions for decades. Current and former government officials have estimated that 50 – 90 percent of classified documents could safely be released."

All this is interesting in light of the case our very political "Justice" Department is pursuing against former President Trump.

What is perhaps just as interesting is what Ms. Goitein wrote in the same article about Hillary Clinton, especially considering that the Brennan Justice Center goes 100% down the liberal left-wing line on all major issues.

Also, Ms. Goitein is a graduate of the very liberal Yale Law School as were Hillary and Bill Clinton.

With her left-wing education and her employment with a far left organization, it would be surprising if Ms. Goitein did not vote for Hillary Clinton for president.

Yet she noted that Ms. Clinton had 113 emails on her servers which were classified "in some cases at the highest level (Top Secret)."

Ms. Goitein wrote: "If Clinton sent and received emails that were classified as 'Top Secret' on her personal servers...it would seem to follow that Clinton put our national security at grave risk. Viewed in this light, the decision not to recommend prosecution based on insufficient evidence of bad faith is at best unsatisfying, and at worst smacks of a whitewash."

As I pointed out in an earlier column, there are clearly two standards of justice in this country today.

Democrats seemingly can get away with almost anything short of murder. Republicans are being prosecuted simply for supporting President Trump.

One woman, a respected medical doctor, had the horrifying experience of 20 FBI agents showing up to arrest her when one or two could easily have done the job.

She had to serve time in federal prison because she made the mistake of walking into the Capitol on Jan. 6th as seven or eight million do every year.

When I was in Congress, we had many supposedly top secret, classified briefings. We would go into a supposedly secure room after first surrendering our cell phones. Then, a few minutes after the "top secret" briefing, I would turn on the television in my office and hear just about everything we had been told.

Most people today almost worship or are addicted to their computers, iPods, iPhones, and the internet. A lot of good has come from that, and some bad – including doing away with any real privacy or security.

I realize people feel more important if they are working with material that is classified as top secret. I think they are kidding themselves if they think that the Chinese or Middle-Eastern hackers don't know almost everything in our supposedly top secret files.

As long ago as the year 2000, a 15-year-old computer hacker caused a 21-day shutdown of NASA computers that supported the International Space Station and invaded a Pentagon weapons computer system to intercept 3,300 emails, steal passwords, and act as an employee.

With so many thousands having access to "top secret" material, I am certain that many tell their wives or husbands what they are working on.

One of Trump's former lawyers, Ty Cobb, said it is "highly likely" that the former president will be indicted and that some of what he has done is criminal.

I think it is, or should be, unethical for a lawyer to make statements like that about a former client, statements made probably because he was let go.

But the Justice Department should be forced to prove that the case is not based on political hatred and should be made to do so in a city other than Washington, D.C., where Donald Trump could never get a fair trial.

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