Testimony of Scott Amey, General Counsel Project On Government Oversight (POGO) before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform “Examining the Costs of Overclassification on Transparency and Security” December 7, 2016.
“…Thank you for inviting me to testify today about the state of the federal government’s classification system. I am Scott Amey, General Counsel with the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan public interest group. Founded in 1981, POGO investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government. I am pleased to testify before you on how best to reduce overclassification and to improve openness…The government’s total security classification cost for fiscal year 2015 was $16.2 billion, and contractors and other nongovernmental entities spent an additional $1.3 billion according to ISOO’s report. Overclassification adds to those costs and no doubt adds to other budget line items that cost agencies additional time and resources. If the 50 percent of overturned classifications statistics provides a rough estimate of the level of the problem throughout the process, then there are potentially billions to be saved by solving our overclassification problem…”