Archivist Urges U.S. to Reopen Classified Files”
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: March 3, 2006
This is an update of a story previously posted on FGI about reclassification of govt documents. Allen Weinstein, the Archivist of the US, called on the intelligence agencies to stop “removing previously declassified historical documents from public access.” Matthew Aid, the historian who first blew the whistle on this reclassification program, writes an in-depth account at the National Security Archive, including links to many of the documents and various news stories and editorials surrounding the story.
Allen Weinstein, the nation’s chief archivist, announced what he called a “moratorium” on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret.
A group of historians recently found that decades-old documents that they had photocopied years ago and that appeared to have little sensitivity had disappeared from the open files. They learned that in a program operated in secrecy since 1999, intelligence and security agencies had removed more than 55,000 pages that agency officials believed had been wrongly declassified.
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