“Another corrupt federal entity!
In the US, we have one of the worst sensitive document protection systems in the world even though we have the most. The White House and its staff are obligated to return all government records covered under the Presidential Records Act, which includes all classified documents. For the majority of classified documents, there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure they get returned. It essentially boils down to an honor system. Only the most highly sensitive documents operate under a check-out, check-in system, and that represents only a small percentage of all classified documents.
The most sensitive classified documents are serialized, for example, whereas less-sensitive files are not. There are some documents so sensitive they cannot leave the room in which they are presented. But it is important to note that the majority of classified government documents are not tracked item by item.
It is possible that thousands of government employees have the ability to search, print, and download classified documents from the government system. While government systems are able to track what an individual is downloading or printing, experts say that would be flagged only if it seems unusual for that employee to request such documents.
And that would be almost completely arbitrary. So if it isn’t a compartmental document, and require a scif outside of the archives, then is it enough document to be tracked? In both the cases of Biden and Trump, records with classification markings were determined by the committee to not be properly handled or secured and were discovered after both left office.
But even that statement is insignificant as again, unless they reach a level of security only with very high sensitivity, they are not even tracked. So saying they were marked is not anything as even the lowest level of determination is marked sensitive. And as horrible as it sounds, a copy of anything that is less than top/top can be used for the bottom of the bird cage and the government wouldn’t know or care enough to find out. (Unless it is a snipe hunt)
wy69
When I was a graduate student, my husband and I visited the LOC in Washington DC often for our scholarly research.
Most of the books there are not accessible to the public -- one has to submit a slip of paper, a 'request' for a specific book on the Lib of Congress shelves somewhere in the bowels of the Library. The library "staff" had to go fetch it for us......
Most of the time, the response we got back was NOS" -- meaning "Not On Shelf."
This could mean anything, from:
(1) another person had checked it out (or it was on interlibrary loan)
(2)the staffer was too effing lazy to go find it (so they put 'NOS' on the slip of paper)
or, increasingly -
(3) the book had been stolen by the "staff" and was being sold on Ebay or Amazon as a used book.
We'd purchased books on Amazon and we noticed many books had various "Public Library" stamps and markings. Books we wanted wer often available for purchase online, and had library markings -- some greedy "public servant" at the LOC was selling public property for a few bucks.....
My husband, who was a nerdy redneck & badass, would find a way to sneak into the stacks sometimes, and would actually "find" the book we wanted to see. LOL, there it was - N-NOS (NOT "not on shelf").
"NOS" became a running joke at our place all during grad school.😂😂😂😂😂😂