[Infowarrior] - Archives: 1 in 3 Records Wrongly Resealed

[Richard Forno]

Archives: 1 in 3 Records Wrongly Resealed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5782554,00.html

Wednesday April 26, 2006 11:16 PM

By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government improperly sealed hundreds of previously
public CIA, Pentagon and other records by reclassifying them as secret on
questionable grounds, an internal review said Wednesday.

The National Archives' audit of thousands of records withdrawn from public
view since 1995 contends that one of every three was resealed without
justification.

The investigation covered historical records held by the National Archives.
But it comes amid broader debate on classifying records on national security
grounds, which critics say is often done based on political expediency.

The Associated Press reported earlier this month that the National Archives
agreed to seal previously public records - many of them more than 50 years
old - despite concerns about whether it was justified.

On the other hand, Democrats have decried the timing of President Bush's
2003 decision to declassify sensitive intelligence and authorize its
disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics. In recent weeks, the CIA has fired an
employee accused of sharing classified information with news media.

``The ability and authority to classify national security information is a
critical tool at the disposal of the government and its leaders,'' said
William Leonard, head of the Archives' information security oversight
office, in a briefing with reporters.

Such a system, Leonard said, is only effective if the 3 million federal
workers who decide whether to seal records on national security grounds each
day follow clear standards and are kept honest.

While the audit found numerous instances of improper reclassification, the
National Archives declined to release details of what those documents
contained, saying it was still working with the agencies to make them public
again.

According to the audit:

-At least 32,315 publicly available records were reclassified since 1995,
primarily by the U.S. Air Force (17,702), CIA (3,147) and Energy Department
(2,164). Based on a sampling of 1,353 of those documents, 24 percent were
resealed on clearly inappropriate grounds, while another 12 percent were
questionable.

-Poor oversight by the agencies and the National Archives was to blame,
primarily due to a lack of clear standards and protocol for
reclassification.

-In many cases where a previously public document was resealed on national
security grounds, the decision didn't make sense because the material had
been published elsewhere.

National Archivist Allen Weinstein said at the news briefing that he was
implementing new procedures to curtail abuses and ensure that resealing of
documents is rare. The procedures require that the public be informed on a
regular basis when records are withdrawn from public access.

The archives also will boost training, seek more federal funding to speed
declassification and launch a longer-term study of how it handles materials
that are deemed classified.

The archives' secret agreements with government agencies were made public
earlier this month in response to a 3-year-old Freedom of Information Act
request by The Associated Press. They provided new details on the efforts of
the nation's chief historical repository to hide the fact that U.S.
intelligence was secretly trying to reclassify approximately 55,500 pages of
previously public documents.

The revelation drew widespread anger on Capitol Hill, and the agreement was
even disowned by a former head of the archives. John Carlin, a former Kansas
governor who served as chief archivist from 1995 to 2004, said the agreement
was kept secret even from him.

``I was shocked by the content, particularly the language that it was in the
best interest of the National Archives to keep the public in the dark,'' he
said in a statement last week. ``I spent most of my tenure stating that NARA
is a public trust - this (agreement) undermines that trust.''

Archives officials have been criticized for keeping the agreements secret.
But internal NARA reports obtained by the AP under the Freedom of
Information Act show archivists were concerned about the reclassification
scheme as early as January 2003. As boxes of documents were pulled from
shelves, historians and other researchers who regularly use archival
materials were beginning to notice their absence.

``Researchers continue to question why records, some of which have been open
for years, are not readily available for research in 2003,'' archivists said
in a January 2003 report. ``The exceptional efforts of the (staff) ... have
worked to placate most of the impacted researchers, and complaints are
amazingly few in number.''

Two years later, NARA officials appeared frustrated by the reclassification
effort.

``The amount of disruption to timely reference service wreaked by ...
declassification (sic!) teams is growing,'' a NARA official said in an April
2005 report. ``The Air Force team seems particularly bent on expanding their
mandate to series of records well beyond recognized rationality considering
the sort of information they are allegedly seeking to identify.''

---

AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft in New York and AP Writer Frank
Bass in Washington contributed to this report.

On the Net:

National Archives: http://www.archives.gov

Federation of American Scientists government secrecy project:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html

National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchive
Advertiser links
$145,000 mortgage for $484/mo

Mortgage rates are still low. Compare rates - Refinance and...
lowermybills.com
Comcast High-Speed Internet

Faster than DSL - $19.99/month special, $75 cash back and...
comcastoffers.com
2.75% Fixed Student Loan Consolidation

70% lower student loan payments - fixed rate, no fees,...
nextstudent.com