I have wrestled with the concept of 'classified' many times. The question is always how you balance democracy's need for information with the real need to keep some things away from adversaries. I think the only answer is to vigorously enforce automatic declassification AND dissemination but also ensure that this happens within the useful lifetimes of those involved. This last part is especially important for accountability. Laws need to apply, without a statute of limitation, to abuse of classification and for that to happen this stuff needs to come out while those involved can still be held accountable. Additionally, if abuse is found while something is still classified there should be an immediate evaluation if the public interest in understanding the abuse outweighs the danger of releasing the information with an explicit understanding that the public has already received real harm compared to a theoretical harm of release.

Another aspect is that we need to lower the bar for declassification in general. The reality of classified information is that it is almost universally boring and time limited in its value. Also, so many people have access to it that it leaks out slowly anyway. Just look at how much of the US military and contractors have or have had secret and higher clearances. [1] When multiple percentage points of Americans (and other governments) have access currently or have had access in the past to supposedly 'top secret' information then hiding it from the rest of the population just sounds silly. It is time to start re-asserting the public's requirement to be informed even if that has some potential risks or even actual harms associated with it.

[1] https://news.clearancejobs.com/2022/08/16/how-many-people-ha...