Classified Solution.
Ok, so Caveat #1 applies here: I'm thinking this out as I go along. It's not perfect, it's not finished, it's just offered for your consideration. The US gov't has a number of competing information-classification systems, one for each telephone extension. We all know the easy ones like Secret, Top Secret, and Unknowable by Mere Mortals. And the classification czar is supposed to oversee the coherent classification and DE-classification of every piece of info. Said czar has little to do in the DE- part these days, mainly he oversees the occultation of ever more of the info of our gov't. Hey, we paid for that info! We the people have a right to ALL the info* of our gov't. It is an imperative, and should be inevitable. (*information, in this sentence, should be used in the broadest sense of the word, encompassing all counter-entropic results of all gov't activities.) So here's my thought experiment. We legislate a “classification budget” into all branches and offices. Every stinkin' piece of info that's got to be classified needs to have a cost and an AUTOMATIC expiration date. I propose something like this: The number of people who “need to know” times the number of years (to a maximum of, say, 50 or 100) is the classification-cost. So a really really secret thing—where only the five of us in this room—that needs to stay buried for as long as possible, should cost as much as an instruction-manual known to every corporal. REVISION 1: this formula is too lenient. We need to make the numbers grow faster. I propose an alternate: The unit is the “classified man-year.” (cmy) CMY=the number of years times (the potential audience-the permitted audience). For right now, the potential audience=total staff of that branch of government, defined at the cabinet-level, as published in the Congressional Record. So let’s go back to something really secret: 5 people at the state department only, and secret for 5 years. So 5x(100,000-5)=499975CMY for that one document. Compare that to an Army First Aid manual: 20*(1,000,000-1,000,000)=zero CMY. Then we give every branch a budget: X classification-man-years to dole out that year. We even make them expend CMY's on keeping that table secret!! When something reaches its “sunset date”, it can only be extended ONCE, and for 50% fewer CMY's than before. Since the various military branches hate each other (oh don't even TRY to prove otherwise) we'll let them each have idiosyncratic nomenclatures. The nomenclature, however, must be made public every year or so, to let us know where the CMY's are being concentrated. A population-distribution would be nice too. Once in place, I then propose we put INFLATION to work. It should become gradually harder to keep old secrets longer. So imagine an old piece of info is classed at the max (retroactively) and then reclassed at the 50% of the original max as permitted herein. I propose that the reclass should cost at least as much as the original, perhaps more, in real dollars. Oh, yeah, did I mention the money? This should all be to the end of simply quantifying the costs of classification. Total budget=10^10 CMY's, for let's say $10^9. Or some equally catchy little way. Now the people in the know are going to strike back by classifying my tax records at 1 CMY, guaranteeing they're available to the Wall St. Journal in about 7 minutes. Not so fast there, Conservative Buckaroo. My information is MINE, I may've submitted it to you (who are bound to the CMY accounting for EVERYTHING) but I am NOT. My information—all of it—is private for my life. I can bequeath it's privacy to ONE generation and it is assumed from the outset that that inheritance is given by default. (Anyone wishing to see two-generation-old info must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no 2nd generation to exercise the right to privacy.) Ok, this last part's a bit dodgy, I know. But with your help, I know we can work it out. There is a way to do this, and we need to. Guys like Aftergood are not always going to be around, and administrations like this one aren't going away. So go to your thoughtful spot and THINK about it, goddammit, we don't have all day.