As Biden Faces Documents Controversy, is it Time to Ask Why So Much is Classified?

For months, classified documents have been turning up in places where they're not supposed to.

First, there was the discovery of hundreds of classified documents inappropriately stored at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Then, in recent weeks, the discovery of classified documents at President Biden's home and private office.

While these cases are different in scope and circumstance, both demonstrate mishandling of sensitive information – and they have renewed the scrutiny on how the government classifies its documents.

"There's somewhere in the order of over 50 million documents classified every year. We don't know the exact number because even the government can't keep track of it all," Oona Hathaway, a law professor at Yale University and former special counsel at the Pentagon, told NPR.

Hathaway said the rate at which the government classifies documents has created a problem that ultimately makes it harder for the public to hold the government accountable. She spoke with NPR about some of the reasons behind the issue and one of her suggestions to help.