U.S. reclassification program
Encyclopedia
The U.S. intelligence community's secret historical document reclassification program is a project to reclassify
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...

 certain documents that have already been declassified and released to the public through the National Archives and Records Administration
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...

 (NARA).

History

The previous declassification Executive Order 12958
Executive Order 12958
Executive Order 12958 created new standards for the process of identifying and protecting classified information, and led to an unprecedented effort to declassify millions of pages from the U.S. diplomatic and national security history. In 1995, United States President William J. Clinton signed...

 signed in 1995, under the Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 administration, was resisted by officials in the Defense Department and the U.S. intelligence community.
The reclassification program was started in the fall of 1999 (Executive Order 13142).
Security concerns were heightened by the Wen Ho Lee
Wen Ho Lee
Dr. Wen Ho Lee is a Taiwan-born Taiwanese American scientist who worked for the University of California at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He created simulations of nuclear explosions for the purposes of scientific inquiry, as well as for improving the safety and reliability of the US nuclear...

 case, and "alleged" inadvertent release of nuclear secrets by the State Department.
55 boxes of material were removed to the classified storage area on the sixth floor.

It sought to be covert for as long as possible, but was revealed by the National Security Archive
National Security Archive
The National Security Archive is a 501 non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located in the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1985 by Scott Armstrong, it archives and publishes declassified U.S. government files concerning selected topics of US...

 in February 2006. By that point over 55,000 pages had already been reclassified, many dating back more than 50 years.

During the George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 administration the scope of the program widened (Executive Order 13292
Executive Order 13292
Executive Order 13292 was an executive order issued by United States President George W. Bush on March 25, 2003, entitled "Further Amendment to Executive Order 12958, as Amended, Classified National Security Information." The Executive Order modified the manner in which sensitive information was...

), and was scheduled to end in March 2007.

The program has been criticized by experts, journalists and authors for reclassifying documents, which were in the public domain, where there is no reason to keep secret anymore.
An audit indicated that more than one third withdrawn since 1999, did not contain sensitive information.

External links

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