US to Unearth Latin America Files

[Joanne98]

US to Unearth Latin America Files

Washington, 27 (Prensa Latina) US agencies will declassify thousands of documents related to Washington s political incursions in Latin America during the last 25 years.


However, spokespeople of the National Security Archive and George Washington University noted that the public will not have access to those files until Dec 31, and many of them will be destroyed by intelligence experts.



People will learn about the Iran-Contra scandal, the administration of former president Ronald Reagan and events of the Mexican politics in the 60s.



This is the first time that secret documents of the US government come to light after 25 years in accordance with an executive clause issued by then-president William Clinton a decade ago.

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={C24C9357-1FD3-47CC-B7EF-3BE3AE1059F5}&language=EN

If this story is real it's RED ALERT time. Has anyone seen this anywhere else?

[evlbstrd]

1. It was in the New York Times.

NY Times | SCOTT SHANE | Posted December 21, 2006 09:25 AM

snip

It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of American government.

At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government's first automatic declassification of records.

[Joanne98]

3. OMG! I hadn't heard. I wonder who'd getting them?

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Not gonna happen.

No way the shrub is going to release ANY information on Iran/Contra, the secret wars in central America, the Reagan administration (his daddy's administration).

If this is supposed to happen, the shredders are working overtime today.

[Joanne98]

4. Isn't anyone trying to stop that?

[Joanne98]

5. They need to put them on the internet so we can all look at them

Several hundred million pages will be declassified at midnight on Dec. 31, including 270 million pages at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has lagged most agencies in reviews.

J. William Leonard, who oversees declassification as chief of the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives, said the threat that secret files might be made public without a security review had sent a useful chill through the bureaucracy.

What surprises await in the documents is impossible to predict.

"It is going to take a generation for scholars to go through the material declassified under this process," said Steven Aftergood, who runs a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

"It represents the classified history of a momentous period, the Cold War," Aftergood said. "Almost every current headline has an echo in the declassified past, whether it's coping with nuclear weapons, understanding the Middle East or dictatorship and democracy in Latin America."

[Joanne98]

6. Here's one of the Historians who might be getting first look

http://www.american.edu/cas/hist/faculty/nelson.htm

Anna Kasten Nelson
Distinguished Historian in Residence
PhD, George Washington University
Battelle 121
[e-mail]
202- 885-2404
Office Hours: Mon./Thu. 9:45-11am
Curriculum Vitae


Course Syllabus
HIS 380/680 The U.S. Discovers the Middle-East

Fields of Interest
Nineteenth century diplomatic history, twentieth century U.S. foreign relations

Professor Nelson’s many articles and essays have appeared in the Journal of American History, Diplomatic History, Journal of Military History, Cuban Studies Political Science Quarterly, and a number of books. She has also published Secret Agents: Polk and the Pursuit of Peace with Mexico. She has been a member of the State Department Historical Advisory Committee and received a presidential appointment to the John F. Kennedy Records Review Board. She is currently a member of the Council of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. Her current research is concerned with the national security process since its creation in 1947.

http://www.american.edu/cas/hist/faculty/nelson.htm

[Barrett808]

7. "Many of them will be destroyed by intelligence experts"

Whose "experts"?

:wtf:

[saigon68]

8. Experts of the AWOL CHIMPANZEE

[Joanne98]

9. The CIA has a database named CREST

CIA Records Search Tool (CREST) is the name of the CIA database of declassified intelligence documents. The database, searchable by title, data, and text content, includes Directorate of Operations reports on the role of intelligence in the post WW-II period; material on the creation, organization, and role of the CIA within the U.S. Government; a collection of foreign scientific articles, ground photographs and associated reference materials; and the CIA's first release of motion picture film. This database is available in the library in Room 3000.

http://www.archives.gov/research/alic/tools/online-databases.html

It's doesn't say if there going to put the new docs in this...

[Joanne98]

10. Here's a guy going after them...

Steven Aftergood is a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists. He directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, which works to reduce the scope of government secrecy, to accelerate the declassification of cold war documents, and to promote reform of official secrecy practices.

He writes and edits the email newsletter Secrecy News, which is read by more than 10,000 self-selected subscribers in media, government and among the general public.

In 1997, Mr. Aftergood was the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency which successfully led to the declassification and publication of the total intelligence budget ($26.6 billion in 1997) for the first time in fifty years.

Mr. Aftergood is an electrical engineer by training (B.Sc., UCLA, 1977) and has published research in solid state physics. He joined the FAS staff in 1989.

He has authored or co-authored papers and essays in Scientific American, Science, New Scientist, Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, and Issues in Science and Technology, on topics including space nuclear power, atmospheric effects of launch vehicles, and government information policy. From 1992-1998, he served on the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Research Council.

The Federation of American Scientists, founded in 1945 by Manhattan Project scientists, is a non-profit national organization of scientists and engineers concerned with issues of science and national security policy.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/aftergood.html

[Joanne98]

11. He has a newsletter... "Secrey News"

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html