Washington Post - As Matthew Connelly shows in his harrowing new book, “The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets,” the document turmoil surrounding Donald Trump, President Biden and Mike Pence is a result of a government classification system that spiraled out of control almost as soon as it was established. Connelly is the lead investigator at History Lab, a team of historians and data scientists at Columbia University who have created the world’s largest database of declassified government documents. For the last eight years, the group has employed machine-learning tools to decipher what the U.S. government wants to keep us from knowing, and why. “The Declassification Engine” builds on History Lab’s work to explore the origins and implications of America’s long-standing addiction to secrecy. The book dramatizes a hidden crisis of national understanding: While government bureaucracies inundate themselves with classified information, the citizens they serve are left powerless to understand what goes on in their name.
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