Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2006

Keywords

Secrecy, public records, National Archives and Records Administration, government documents

Abstract

In a New York Times article published in February 2006 journalist Scott Shane drew attention to a little-known document “reclassification" project then underway at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). While the reclassification program conducted by a number of military and civilian intelligence agencies began during the closing year of the Clinton administration, the program, like so many other changes in access to government information, had grown dramatically since 9/11. Responding the public and congressional pressure resulting from the news story Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, temporarily halted the program and called for a review of the various reclassifications. This piece, prepared as a column for the Government Document Roundtable of the American Library Association, examines the report and some of the issues surrounding the reclassification program.

Publication Citation

34 DttP: Documents to the People 37 (2006).

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

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