Government Classification
The purpose of classification is to protect information from being used to damage or endanger national security. Classification formalises what constitutes a "state secret" and accords different levels of protection based on the expected damage the information might cause in the wrong hands.
However, classified information is frequently ""leaked" to reporters by officials for political purposes. Several US presidents have leaked sensitive information to get their point across to the public.
Read more about this topic: Classified Information
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)