U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review
20 February, 2006
From an article on the New York Times site:
In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.
The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton. It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to archives records.
I heard a similar story on CBC radio while driving home today… scary stuff! And the records in question include such mundane things as agricultural forecasts for Guatamala in 1951, and some diplomat’s travel plans in Africa from 1953, things that only had low-level security ratings even back then. How exactly can they justify calling those things highly classified?!? The mind, she is boggled.
I don’t get it either. I mean, some of these things have already been copied and circulated. It just doesn’t make any sense.