Welcome to your new America.
Sometime in the next few years, if a memorandum signed by President Bush this month ever goes into effect, one government official talking to another about information on terrorists will have to begin by saying: "What I am about to tell you is controlled unclassified information enhanced with specified dissemination."
That would mean, according to the memo, that the information requires safeguarding because "the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure would create risk of substantial harm."
Bush’s memorandum, signed on the eve of his daughter Jenna’s wedding, introduced "Controlled Unclassified Information" as a new government category that will replace "Sensitive but Unclassified."
Such information — though it does not merit the well-known national security classifications "confidential," "secret" or "top secret" — is nonetheless "pertinent" to U.S. "national interests" or to "important interests of entities outside the federal government," the memo says.
Hmmmm.. Whatever happened to open and transparent Government? 