EVERY few years, a news event demonstrates how dysfunctional, arbitrary and counterproductive the country’s system of classifying information really is. Sometimes it’s an article or book about government conduct that causes hand-wringing among intelligence officials. Sometimes it’s a prosecution under the nearly 100-year-old Espionage Act for mishandling classified information, instead of for actual spying. Now we have calls for prosecuting Hillary Clinton because, when she was secretary of state, she had documents on her private email server that have since been declared top secret.

Mrs. Clinton, along with others accused of mishandling classified information, argues that government information is “overclassified” and that it is poorly labeled, making it impossible to know what is actually top secret. They are right. This debate might prove useful if it forces the government to deal with a bigger issue: the need for a saner system for classified information.

Too much information is classified, and those restrictions last too long. Right now, there are thousands of people in the government who can classify information. Think about the reality: A person can put a “classified” stamp on a document and ensure it is kept secret, or can leave it unclassified, subject to disclosure, and later be accused of having revealed something needing protection. No one risks any real penalty for using the stamp; the only punishment comes from not using it. The result is overclassification.

One person’s decision may not be consistent with that of another. Many times, I’ve seen information in a document marked “top secret” that is easily available on the Internet. Similarly there are numerous examples where the exact same paragraph is marked “secret” in one document but left unclassified in another. Yet people have been prosecuted for disseminating such information, and at trial, the government blocks them from using the unclassified document as a defense.