The Bureaucracy of Secrecy: Is Classification Hindering Innovation?
07/19/25
By The Security Nexus
In today’s digital age, where breakthroughs in AI, data analytics, and cyber operations are redefining power, the intelligence community’s (IC) obsession with classification may be doing more harm than good. While classification remains essential to protect sources, methods, and national interests, its overuse—particularly across “need-to-know” silos—is suffocating innovation, impeding digital transformation, and limiting the cross-pollination of ideas vital to technological superiority.
A Cold War Framework in a Digital War Era
Much of today’s classification apparatus is rooted in Cold War-era logic: information should be tightly guarded, and only a few need access. This paradigm was effective when threats were slow-moving and adversaries symmetrical. But in a world where adversaries operate at the speed of silicon and exploit ungoverned digital spaces, clinging to “compartment-first” thinking has consequences.
As Daniel Sage et al. argue in their socio-material analysis, classification is not just a labeling system but a mechanism of organizational control that shapes whether innovations thrive or die. In construction innovation, for example, how something is labeled—as “radical” or merely a “block”—can determine whether it gets institutional support or buried under procedural friction . The same applies in national security: how emerging technologies are classified often determines whether they’re scaled—or sidelined.
Innovation Choked by Overclassification
Research from Gustavo Carvalho and others suggests that innovativeness within organizations is best measured across inputs, capabilities, and outputs . Yet within the IC, each of these phases is hindered: • Inputs (like R&D): Often receive limited cross-agency collaboration due to overcompartmentalization. Joint ventures between agencies or private sector partners are slowed by “classification risk assessments” that default to maximal secrecy. • Capabilities: Digital transformation strategies stall as legacy systems remain incompatible with classified networks. As noted in studies of maritime classification societies, legacy IT infrastructure combined with workforce resistance and insufficient analytics capabilities inhibit innovation despite an appetite for change . • Outputs: Classified deliverables rarely reach the broader interagency or strategic community, creating duplication and blind spots. “Overcontrolled outputs” mean that even successful AI models or data tools may be locked in vaults, unused.
The Irony of the “Need-to-Know” Doctrine
“Need-to-know” was designed to protect operations. Ironically, it now often protects bureaucracy from innovation. A study by Coccia shows that too many overlapping taxonomies and classification systems within technical domains fragment knowledge and stymie comparative understanding .
In intelligence, this means the same breakthrough—say, in quantum cryptography—might be buried under three classification schemes, each inaccessible to the others. Instead of a coordinated strategy, innovation becomes stovepiped. Worse, good ideas disappear when their champions rotate out or retire, institutional knowledge swallowed by the black hole of overclassification.
Toward a “Need-to-Share” Innovation Culture
The solution isn’t to abandon classification but to modernize it. This begins with rebalancing secrecy and operational relevance. Here are three policy prescriptions: 1. Modernize Classification Thresholds: Update Executive Order 13526 to explicitly account for technological dynamism and include sunset clauses for all classifications unless extended with cause. 2. Build Secure but Open Innovation Enclaves: Like “SCIFs for code,” enable digital collaboration spaces for trusted partners—public, private, and interagency—shielded from unauthorized access but open to vetted technologists. 3. Institutionalize Cross-Domain Challenge Problems: Incentivize collaboration through limited-access challenge frameworks where classified problems are abstracted enough to allow broader contribution without compromising sources or methods.
Conclusion: Secrecy Without Stagnation
Secrecy has its place—but when it becomes an end unto itself, it undermines the very security it’s meant to protect. In an era where innovation is the new deterrent, the intelligence community must evolve from “need-to-know” to “need-to-advance.” That means rethinking classification not as a gate but as a scaffold—one that protects, yes, but also enables progress.
Let secrecy guard the mission—not throttle it.
⸻ Sources (Chicago Author-Date Style): • Carvalho, Gustavo Dambiski Gomes de, et al. 2017. “Innovativeness Measures: A Bibliometric Review and a Classification Proposal.” International Journal of Innovation Science 9(1): 81–101. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-10-2016-0038. • Coccia, Mario. 2006. “Classifications of Innovations: Survey and Future Directions.” Ceris-CNR Working Paper, No. 2. • Sage, Daniel, Chloé Vitry, Andrew Dainty, and Sarah Barnard. 2021. “Towards a New Theory of Construction Innovation: A Socio-Material Analysis of Classification Work.” Construction Management and Economics 39(8): 637–651. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2021.1938160. • Bijaksana, Arif, et al. 2024. “Digital Transformation and Innovation Strategies in Classification Societies.” Journal of Electrical Systems 20-4s: 1042–1053.
