Reply #32: Update:National Archives halts reclassification of documents [View All]

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National Archives halts reclassification of documents

RAW STORY
Published: March 2, 2006

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After complaints from historians, the National Archives on Thursday directed intelligence agencies to stop removing previously declassified historical documents from public access and urged them to return to the shelves as quickly as possible many of the records they had already pulled, the New York Times reports Friday. Excerpts (full story when RSS-free moves):
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Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announced what he called a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret.

A group of historians recently found that decades-old documents that they had photocopied years ago and that appeared to have little sensitivity had disappeared from the open files. They learned that in a program operated in secrecy since 1999, intelligence and defense agencies had removed more than 55,000 pages that agency officials believed had been wrongly declassified.
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Weinstein, who became archivist of the United States a year ago, said he knew "precious little" about the seven-year-old reclassification program before it was disclosed in The New York Times on Feb. 21.

He said he did not want to prejudge the results of the audit being conducted by the archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees classification. But he said the archives' goal is to make sure government records that can safely be released are available. The audit was ordered by J. William Leonard, head of the oversight office, after he met with historians on Jan. 27.

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http://rawstory.com/news/2006/National_Archives_halts_reclassification_of_documents_0302.html