The controversy surrounding the existence of the National Security Agency’s PRISM electronic surveillance program highlights some basic national security problems within our agencies.

First, I think our intelligence community has a tendency to overclassify information and capabilities in its fight against terrorism.

Terrorism has revealed itself to be a criminal activity much more than a national security issue. In other words, most terrorist information is lawenforcement sensitive, at most, and should be unclassified.

We aren’t talking about divulging nuclear secrets. We are trying to stop a criminal activity. Why all the secrecy?

Overclassification is probably one of the reasons we were not able to stop the attack in Boston. I think this tendency to overclassify is left over from the Cold War and, for some reason, it has been very difficult to overcome.

As an example, when I went to Iraq in 2007, I worked at a topsecret facility for the Defense Department as an expert on organized crime. The military had decided that insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq should be targeted and investigated like organized crime.

One of the problems I saw when I arrived was the military was overclassifying their methods and information.

For instance, I found out the military had borrowed unclassified equipment from a lawenforcement agency and was using it to target insurgents. The Army classified the equipment as top secret. This is dysfunctional, because top secret classified information is much more difficult to disseminate to people on the ground who don’t have the proper security clearance.

The same thing happened on other occasions while I was in Pakistan. I would give the Defense Intelligence Agency lawenforcement sensitive information on the Taliban and drug traffickers, and they would classify it.

When it’s classified, you can’t conveniently share it with sources and local law enforcement to further the case.

Sometimes, your window of opportunity to use the information is very small, and any delay can mean the difference between success and failure.

Of course, another reason to overclassify information is to avoid public scrutiny and hide embarrassing facts.

The PRISM program demonstrates that we rely too heavily on our technical surveillance methods at the detriment of our human intelligence collection, which has proven to be much more cost-effective.

This has been a problem since Sept. 11, 2001, and I think it will continue to be a problem as long as we have the military-industrial complex lobbying for more funds for exotic programs that fill their coffers.

They don’t make money on human intelligence programs. It cost $122,000 a year to hire the man that exposed the PRISM program, with two to three times that amount going to Booz Allen, the company that hired him for the NSA.

In comparison, there is only a reward of “up to” $5 million dollars for Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the leader and founder of the Signed-in-Blood Battalion who led the deadly attack on a gas facility in Algeria in January.

Chapo Guzman, the most notorious drug cartel leader for the past 10 years, has a $5 million dollar reward on his head. But if it takes 10 years to capture someone, it tells me the reward is too small, and your methods need to be questioned.

Most importantly, I think the real national security problem in this country is that the public has lost trust in their government.

The United States spends $75 billion dollars a year on our intelligence agencies and 200,000 people are working in the intelligence industry. The agencies would be much better served if they became more transparent and gave us the confidence that they are looking out for our best interest and not always looking over our shoulders.

We have to know that all our agencies have proper oversight, are being made to adhere to the laws, and that our rights are being protected.

The Executive Branch should open its doors wider to our representatives so they can conduct more effective oversight, and our representatives should be able to report back to us on their findings.

We shouldn’t have to continually rely on whistleblowers to point out problems in our government — especially when the problem may just be plain ignorance of the subject matter.

The PRISM program may or may not be following all the rules regarding collection of information on U.S. citizens, but perception is sometimes as important as fact.

If we find out the NSA is overstepping its bounds, shame on our representatives on the oversight committees for not revealing this.

Although I don’t condone Snowden’s actions, I think revealing the existence of PRISM will do more good than harm, because it is educating the public and forcing the government to be more transparent.

In any case, I’m pretty sure every bad guy out there assumes you can see them from the sky at any time or capture all their electronic conversations. I don’t believe this revelation will change their behavior in a significant way.

DANNY DALTON, an unenrolled candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012, is a former agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency and also worked for the FBI and U.S. State Department. He lives in Brunswick.