Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), a longtime champion in the battle to rein in overzealous and irresponsible use of secrecy, together with Democrats Carolyn Maloney (NY) and Henry Waxman (CA), led active questioning of witnesses, including Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the now-defunct 9/11 Commission.

Ben-Veniste noted that in 1998, Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act that required federal agencies to declassify documents relating to World War II war crimes. In keeping with that law, over eight million pages of previously secret documents were made public without jeopardizing national security. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds recounted how secrecy is frustrating her ability to challenge her dismissal after complaining about alleged espionage within the translator’s office. Their testimony inspired Maloney to propose the 1998 law be used as a model for new legislation requiring all agencies to declassify documents.

Before the hearing, entitled “Emerging Threats: Overclassification and Pseudo-classification,” Waxman asked for a congressional inquiry into whether agencies were using “sensitive but unclassified” restrictions to withhold key documents, noting that the federal government is keeping more secrets than ever, and citing the Secrecy Report Card study by OpenTheGovernment.org, a broad-based coalition which OMB Watch co-chairs. Waxman addressed his letter to Shays, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations of the House Government Reform Committee, which sponsored the hearing.

“We paid a terrible price on September 11 because too much information was kept secret or otherwise not shared,” Ben-Veniste noted, linking the tragic events of 9/11 directly to excessive secrecy. Now in private practice, he is a participant with other former members of the 9/11 Commission in the Public Discourse Project, an effort, in part, to declassify more information from the commission’s work. The hearing comes on the heels of bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The OPEN Government Act would make it easier for the public to obtain government documents under the Freedom of Information Act.