SCHOOL THESIS

III.
HISTORY OF NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION
CLASSIFICATION
Since the formation of the United States, each president has wrestled with
developing information security policy against competing needs for secrecy and
transparency. The foundation of open communication originates from the First
Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press,
public assembly, and petitioning the government for redress of grievances. 74 Yet fluidity
within political climates, military operations, and foreign relations has caused
government administrations to adjust information security policy to reflect the conditions
of the day. The historical perspective provides us a glimpse of how each president
perceived the need to protect critical state secrets yet bending to the political climate of
his day.
The late nineteenth century saw an increase in the amount of economic and social
data that the government collected and circulated. During the first half of the twentieth
century, Congress resisted efforts by the executive branch to impose official secrecy on
the expanding number of federal agencies. 75 However, as the United States entered
World War I, President Wilson signed The Espionage Act of 1917, which contains two
main provisions: the unlawful procurement of military information and the unlawful
disclosure of such information to a foreign government or its agents and criminal
penalties that may be imposed as a result. 76
The onset of World War II increased concern for national security and led to more
restrictive information control. Creating the regulated security classification system, a
uniform system for classifying, safeguarding and declassifying national security
information in the executive branch, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive
Order 8381, Defining Certain Vital Military and Naval Installations and Equipment, in
74 U.S. Const., amend. I, http://constitutionus.com/
75 John Shattuck, and Muriel Morrissey Spence, “The Dangers of Information Control,” Technology
Review 91, no. 4 (1988): 64–73.
76 United States Espionage Act, 65 th Cong. (1917).
23