The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) is seeking public comments on a series of draft papers offering recommendations on reforming the classification system. President Obama called for the recommendations for "more fundamental transformation" in tandem with his 2009 executive order on classification.

The board's eight papers outline proposals intended to improve public access to formerly classified information and to better manage the transition from paper-based to electronic records. In addition, the board invited public submissions of recommendations, which the board has organized into categories and will release the week of May 16. The board will also host a public forum on May 26 in Washington, DC, to discuss the proposals.

PIDB is an advisory committee appointed by the president and Congress and staffed by the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). Congress created PIDB through the Public Interest Declassification Act of 2000.

According to one of the board's papers, the "staggering volume" of classified material requires rethinking the current practices of classification and declassification. However, "the initial recommendations of the Board stop well short of anything that we would call transformation," wrote Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. There is broad agreement among government officials and experts that overclassification is a widespread problem. But according to Aftergood, "the Board does not propose any reductions in the scope of what is classified."

Instead, the PIDB proposals focus on technological and administrative reforms intended to ease the process of reviewing material for declassification. The board's first paper proposes creating software to assist the review process. The software would use rules and Bayesian inference to pre-screen material, allowing human reviewers "to focus exclusively on evaluating those pieces of information identified by the system" as requiring particular attention.

Another proposal would require classified digital information to bear standardized metadata. Such metadata could improve information management and identify relevant agencies, facilitating the declassification process.

The PIDB also proposes to develop standard procedures for handling congressional records for potential declassification. Classified legislative records are not subject to the same provisions as executive branch records; however, they may contain information that originated in the executive branch. In a comment on the paper, NARA's David Mengel notes that a pilot project is now underway to review classified Senate records at NARA's National Declassification Center (NDC).

One of the papers does address the prospect of reducing the amount of information that is classified. It also encourages broader use of discretionary declassification, paralleling Obama administration efforts to increase proactive and discretionary releases of information. However, in a comment on the paper, The Constitution Project's Sharon Bradford Franklin and Alison Roach argue that the proposal "lacks specific and concrete steps that agencies should take in order to meet those goals."

An additional paper proposes ending the concept of agency "ownership" of classified information. The current concept requires that a record be referred to each agency that contributed information before being declassified, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Instead, the paper suggests allowing either the agency that primarily authored the document to make declassification decisions, or making all declassification decisions centrally through the NDC.

Other papers propose reforming the handling of electronic classified information, prioritizing and streamlining the declassification of information of historical interest, and making a special category of information related to nuclear weapons subject to the general procedures of classified information.

The board's proposals have provoked a robust discussion in the comments. Those debates will likely continue with the response to the public submissions and at the public event scheduled later in May. There is no doubt that the current declassification system is failing; the various proposals deserve careful and open-minded consideration by the administration and Congress.