Classification and declassification

J. William Leonard has written this very informative piece for Just Security on Attorney General William Barr's unusual grant of declassification authority. Consider this paragraph:

In one regard, subjecting classification decisions made by executive branch agencies to independent review often demonstrates how agencies have kept information secret for reasons other than safeguarding the national security. For example, in 1995 President Bill Clinton established (and since then every successor president has continued) the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which is delegated presidential authority to decide on appeals by persons who have filed challenges to agency classification decisions. Since the ISCAP’s initial decision in 1996 through the end of FY17 (the most recent year for which data is available), agency decisions to retain the classified status of requested information have been overridden by the panel, either in whole or in part, 75% of the time. Only once has an ISCAP decision to declassify specific information been appealed directly to the president by an agency head. In that case, President [Barack] Obama directed the declassification and release of portions of a President’s Daily Brief over the objections of the CIA.