http://www.thetranscript.com/headlines/ci_5433943Reams of gov't paper removed from public view
By Frank Bass and Randy Herschaft, Associated Press
Article Launched: 03/14/2007 11:22:12 AM EDT
More than 1 million pages of historical government documents — a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol — have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old.
In some cases, entire file boxes were removed without significant review because the government's central record-keeping agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, did not have time for a more thorough audit.
"We just felt we couldn't take the time and didn't always have the expertise," said Steve Tilley, who oversaw the program. Archives officials are still screening records, but the number of files pulled recently has declined dramatically, he said.
The records administration began removing materials under its "records of concern" program, launched in November 2001 after the Justice Department instructed agencies to be more guarded in releasing government papers. The agency has removed about 1.1 million pages, according to partially redacted monthly progress reports reviewed by the AP. The reports were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The pulled records include the presumably dangerous, such as nearly half an enormous database from the Federal Emergency Management Agency with information about all federal facilities. But they also include the presumably useless, such as part of a collection about the Lower Colorado River Authority that includes 114-year-old papers.
About 80 cubic feet of naval facility plans and blueprints — on microfilm, about 200,000 pages — were withdrawn since the agency said it didn't have time to go through each individual document.
In all, archivists identified as many as 625 million pages that could have been affected under the security program. In their haste to remove potentially harmful documents from view, archives officials acknowledged many records were withdrawn that should be available.
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