National Archives Pledges to END Secret Agreements

[kpete]

Archives Pledges to End Secret Agreements

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 18, 2006; Page A04

The National Archives will no longer enter into secret agreements with federal agencies that want to withdraw records from public access on Archives shelves and will do more to disclose when documents are removed for national security reasons.

The new policy cannot guarantee full disclosure, however, because in some cases federal regulations limit the Archives' ability to reveal which agency is reviewing records and why, said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Archives.

"What we're striving for is transparency here on our part," Cooper said. "We can't control the agencies."

Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the United States, announced the policy change yesterday after the release of a second secret classified memorandum, this one between the CIA and the Archives. In it Archives officials agreed in 2001 to conceal official CIA efforts to withdraw thousands of historical documents from the Archives, even though the records had been declassified.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/17/AR2006041701295.html

[electropop]

1. A tiny crack in the wall of secrecy.

I guess the archivists are a lot like librarians; they aren't big fans of secrecy and censorship. :-)