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NARA Responds to Document Reclassification ProgramU.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein called on all intelligence and security agencies March 2 to stop removing documents from the open shelves of the National Archives and Records Administration for reclassification purposes and to return as many records as possible that they had pulled as part of a secret program in operation since 1999.The moratorium on reclassification came in response to a letter from a group of historians who complained that the CIA, the Defense Department, and the Department of Justice had withdrawn some 9,500 documents from the Korean War and early Cold War eras and reclassified them as secret. Weinstein said in the March 3 New York Times that he did not want to prejudge the results of an audit underway by NARA’s Information Security Oversight Office, but added, “The idea is to let people get on with their research and not reclassify documents unless it’s absolutely necessary.” ISOO Director J. William Leonard ordered the audit after he met with historians January 27. Archives officials planned to meet with intelligence agencies March 6 to “ensure the proper balance of agency authority to restore classification controls where appropriate and the Archivist’s obligation to ensure maximum access to archival records consistent with law, regulation, and common sense,” according to a NARA press release. Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, whose website had posted some of the reclassified documents, told the Times that Weinstein “took our concerns very positively.” Although he could not promise that reclassifications would stop completely, he assured the historians that if it continued, “it will be guided by better standards and it will be more transparent.” Posted March 3, 2006. |
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