Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. government ethics and accountability watchdog organization.

CREW is a non-partisan legal watchdog group working to expose ethics violations and corruption by government officials.

Democracy (' literally "rule of the commoners"), in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament.

Democracy is sometimes referred to as "rule of the majority".

Democracy was originally conceived in Classical Greece, where political representatives were chosen by a jury from amongst the male citizens: rich and poor.

The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.

In law, damages are an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury.

The rules for damages can and frequently do vary based on the type of claim which is presented (e.g., breach of contract versus a tort claim) and the jurisdiction.

Classified information is material that a government body claims is sensitive information that requires protection of confidentiality, integrity, or availability.

Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people, and mishandling can incur criminal penalties and loss of respect.

A formal security clearance is often required to handle classified documents or access classified data.

The clearance process usually requires a satisfactory background investigation.

Documents and other information assets are typically marked with one of several (hierarchical) levels of sensitivity—e.g. restricted, confidential, secret and top secret.

The choice of level is often based on an impact assessment; governments often have their own set of rules which include the levels, rules on determining the level for an information asset, and rules on how to protect information classified at each level.

This often includes security clearances for personnel handling the information.

Although "classified information" refers to the formal categorization and marking of material by level of sensitivity, it has also developed a sense synonymous with "censored" in US English.

A distinction is often made between formal security classification and privacy markings such as "commercial in confidence".