For 35 years I worked in the realm of classified documents. I have also been in conversation with the National Archives, as to what you can take in, etc..
If Berger signed out documents at the Archives, how in the hell did they let him leave withoug signing them back in?
Just more government workers? Do they take this stuff seriously? I saw engineers lose their careers for being a lot less cavalier about security.
Most innocent possible explanation: Hes had beenthe boss, and lowly employs were afraid to confront him. They did, however, report it to their supervisor, who politely asked Berger to return the stuff.
When he returned stuff they didn't even know he had, they started keeping track. He coulda got away with it if he hadn't been desperate to get some particular item.
I currently work with classified and I can tell you that a lot of the documentation rules are no longer followed. According to DoD regs (my realm), every classified document above TS//CODEWORD must have it's destruction classified (when you shred it, write down what it was). Nowadays, with Intelink and everything primarily on softcopy this isn't really done anymore (unless it's a special access program). But we still have an amazingly low number of security incidences, with most being something as simple as accidentally butting a secret document in UNCLAS take-home paperwork or accidentally moving top secret data down to a secret only system. But if somebody were to smuggle out documents in their socks, MULTIPLE TIMES, they'd be toast.