Biden and Pence documents reveal US crisis of ‘overclassification’, expert says

System whereby government classifies 50m documents a year threatens national security and democracy, says Jameel Jaffer

Donald Trump was caught with classified documents and Democrats were outraged. Joe Biden was caught with classified documents and Republicans were outraged. Mike Pence was caught with classified documents and it became clear that there might be a bigger problem here.

America has a crisis of “overclassification”, critics say. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington has been overzealous in defining government secrets. Politicians and officials can too easily fall foul of this secrecy-industrial complex but the biggest losers are the American people denied democratic accountability.