These are crazy times, American talk show host Jimmy Fallon mocked on his show.

These days, the deodorant would be in a locked cupboard in the drugstore “while secret documents are lying around everywhere” like fashion catalogues.

It was the day on which, for the third time in a year, it was revealed that classified information had been found on a high-ranking American politician – at home.

After former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Trump's Vice President Mike Pence has now also been hit.

And the question hangs in the air: is the system to blame?

Sofia Dreisbach

North American political correspondent based in Washington.

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There are three levels of security for important government documents in the United States: confidential, secret, and top secret.

All classified information may only be viewed by persons with the appropriate clearance.

In theory, the classification is based on how dangerous it would be for national security if the documents were made public.

In practice, this approach blurs, especially at the lower end of the scale.

If a new document is drawn up, the author must take into account which documents he used for a possible classification as classified information.

Was one of them "secret"?

Then the label is usually passed on - even if this sometimes does not apply to the passages that have been taken over.

Former government officials reported in the American media that if too much was classified, then there would be no problems.

However, there are serious consequences if a potentially dangerous document is not classified.

It will be noted in the file, in the worst case it will affect the security clearance.

That should make the decision easy for many.

It is not possible to put an exact figure on how many documents are classified as classified information in America each year.

Estimates are in the tens of millions.

"Tsunami of Secret Documents"

The most recent annual report from the Information Security Inspectorate - based at the National Archives and responsible for monitoring operations - from 2022 states that counting has stopped.

Especially with the pandemic, one is being overwhelmed by the "tsunami of electronically classified secret documents".

The regular checking of files for approval, on the other hand, has almost come to a standstill.

So are the rules no longer up-to-date?

The supervisory service has been calling for a fundamental reform for several years.

For example, the lowest level of secrecy is to be abolished.

America must modernize its “outdated systems”;

this will be a "mammoth task".

In Congress, members of both parties have expressed similar views over three file affairs.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, spoke of a "systemic problem".

After all, it's about two governments from two different parties, in which senior officials "kept documents in places where they don't belong".

New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also advocated looking at the issue of ratings and clearances "whole."

But even if the timing seems right, a fundamental reform of the system should be impossible under President Biden, at least as long as the special counsel is still working on his case.

Many experts familiar with such processes are saying these days that classified information is accidentally taken away again and again.

For example, because they got into a stack of normal documents.

"It happens a lot more often than you might think," J. William Leonard, director of the National Archives' Oversight Service from 2002 to 2008, recently told Time magazine.

The hectic everyday work and the "tons of paper" that you deal with every day are to blame.

Classified information may not be taken home and may only be moved under special conditions.

Actually, they should either be stored in a safe - and locked there again for every trip to eat or to the toilet.

Or work is done in specially secured rooms that have an alarm system and can be locked when the person leaves the room.

In the highest secrecy level there are also different security clearances.

The American President, of course, has to deal with classified information almost every day, most of which is managed by his employees.

In the case of Biden, it is not yet known what type of classified documents were found from his time as Vice President in the Obama administration.

According to the broadcaster CNN, Pence is among other things documents that prepared him for trips as Vice President – ​​and got caught between old travel documents.

They are therefore classified as “lower level”.

Trump's files affair stands out in that he was the only one of the three who refused to hand over the classified documents to the National Archives.

Such behavior, said former Oversight Director Leonard, is highly unusual for all the errors that have happened.

In August, the FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

103 classified documents were found there – including 18 with the highest level of secrecy.