Comment by danso

Yeah, America has not only had an over-classification problem, but it's been inundated with contractors with unnecessary top clearances. The Washington Post had a great investigation back in 2010 cataloguing the sheer size and complexity of America's security and intelligence system:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

Some findings:

> Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

> An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

> Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.