NARA.google.com
That's not the real url, but, through a partnership with google, NARA has made accessible 101 historic digitized videos. NARA selected films on three topics that bring in high numbers of questions from researchers and the public. The videos include:
- 60 World War II Newsreels (1942-1946)
- 23 National and state parks features (1933-circa 1970)
- 17 Space flight history films by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1962-1981)
Google Video product manager Peter Chane said the company is working in stages to put as many as possible of the National Archives' 114,000 film reels and 37,000 videos online. "This is a tremendous resource of history and knowledge, and we want to expose that to viewers worldwide," Chane said. The digitization of long-unseen archival footage has been under way for years, but Google's nonexclusive deal with the National Archives will likely provide a vast, new swath of material for history buffs, educators and filmmakers. All of the material is in the public domain, Chane said. That means it can be used or shown elsewhere without paying copyright holders.Continue reading
mmmm, historical statistics!
A Book for People Who Love Numbers, Sam Roberts, NY Times, February 22, 2006. The Historical Statistics of the United States, Millenial edition is due out this spring. I guess I'm that certain personality type because I just wish that I had $825 to plunk down on this 5 volume set -- $5000+ if you want perpetual digital access! This is an invaluable resource for any reference collection. I wonder though, why the Census Bureau authorized the privatized edition to be published by Cambridge University Press? In addition, call me naive, but I wonder why Richard Sutch and Susan Carter, the editors in chief from UC Riverside, would need to spend more than 1/2 their time over the last 11 years in fund-raising for the project? Thoughts? Continue reading
ABA and OMB Watch on “Sensitive but Unclassified” Information
OMB Watch has information covering a recent American Bar Association (ABA) report on information that governments deem "sensitive but unclassified."
- Report [to] The House Of Delegates, Eleanor D. Kinney Chair, [ABA] Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, February 2006.
- Sensitive But Unclassified Info: You Can't Have It. Why? Because They Say So, OMB Watch, 02/22/2006.
The explosion in the use by federal agencies of Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) designations to withhold information since the 9/11 terrorist attacks has resulted in uneven policies across agencies and unnecessary restrictions on public access to information, according to a recent American Bar Association report."OMB Watch also has a paper, Background on Sensitive But Unclassified Information. Update (2/26/2006): Press Release, February 22, 2006, The National Archives Responds to Reclassification of Documents NARA, "in response to complaints and recommendations received from a group of historians and researchers regarding agency classification activity which has resulted in a number of historical documents being withdrawn from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration" has initiated several actions. Continue reading
Secret reclassification of US documents
As part of a secret operation in place for over seven years, over 55,000 documents have been removed from the National Archives by various intelligence agencies. Historians are baffled as to why some of these documents would be reclassified. Others, for sure, are meant to expunge embarrassing moments. Here's a sampling of removed documents from an article in the New York Times, "U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review" :
* a memorandum on a C.I.A. scheme to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain and drop propaganda leaflets. It was reclassified in 2001 even though it had been published by the State Department in 1996. * a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program. * the C.I.A.'s assessment on Oct. 12, 1950, that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was "not probable in 1950." Just two weeks later, on Oct. 27, some 300,000 Chinese troops crossed into Korea.All of this raises the question, What's a clandestinely inclined government to do when rogue reclassified documents reside in privately held collections? Let's see - eighteen such documents, from the collection of intelligence historian Matthew Aid, are now up on the website of the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University. Continue reading
Using FOIA to locate UFOs
One of the more unusual uses of the Federal Freedom Information Act that I have run across is the Coalition for Freedom of Information's (CFI) effort to obtain UFO related records from NASA and the Air Force. Despite being related to UFOs, the page linked above has fairly rational sounding FOIA requests and gives details of NASA responses. While I haven't verified their claims, their back and forth with NASA illustrates the difficulties of using FOIA to obtain material on obscure government activities. CFI isn't your typical tin-foil basement UFO group either. According to items I've run across they have links to former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta and the SciFi Channel. Free Government Information takes no stand on UFOs, but supports the efforts of the public to find out how the government has investigated this phenomena. Continue reading