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NARA Releases Document Reclassification AuditAccording to an audit conducted by the National Archives and Records Administration, more than one-third of some 25,000 documents withdrawn from public availability by U.S. intelligence and security agencies since 1999 did not contain any classified information affecting national security.U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein and Information Oversight Office Director J. William Leonard announced the audit results April 26. The study revealed that although 64% of the records sampled did meet the standards for continued classification, in many instances “insufficient judgment was applied to the decision to withdraw the record” and withdrawal “did little to mitigate the potential damage to national security, especially if the record had been published elsewhere.” Calling the discovery of the covert effort to reclassify the documents a “turning-point moment,” Weinstein announced a new effort to set consistent standards for declassifying documents and require agencies to inform the public when records are withdrawn from public access at the National Archives. He also lifted the moratorium he had placed in March on all reclassification efforts after the secret project was discovered. “We’re in the access business, not the classification business,” Weinstein said in the April 27 New York Times. The audit uncovered one instance where the Central Intelligence Agency had withdrawn a number of clearly unclassified records “in order to obfuscate the classified equity that the agency was intent on protecting.” Posted April 28, 2006. |
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