NARA Unveils New Safeguards

Unclassified items removed secretly by CIA, USAF after 9/11

By Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 06/01/2006

It looks like government intelligence and security agencies have been a little too eager to remove declassified documents from public access areas. Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein says an audit found that at least 25,315 publicly available records were removed and only 64 percent of sampled records “met the standards for continued classification.”

The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Information Oversight Office audit also determined that NARA entered into ad hoc agreements with the CIA and U.S. Air Force after the 9/11 attacks to remove secretly unclassified items. Both NARA and the government agencies involved demonstrated insufficient “quality control and oversight” and NARA “acquiesced too readily to the withdrawal of records.”

Government agencies have agreed to a temporary halt to the document removal and will join a pilot effort to develop a more reliable declassification program. Weinstein will appoint a team to undertake a longer-term analysis of how NARA processes classified documents.