US removing documents from public access

REUTERS ^ | 02/21/2006 | Report

[Phlap]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies have been secretly removing from public access at the National Archives thousands of historical documents that were available for years, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the CIA and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton, the Times said on its Web site.

[Phlap]

They knock Chaney off with this one. lol

[ark_girl]

Bill Clinton sloppy with national security? Surely they jest!!!

[Waco]

Well, we know Klinks objective was treason don't we? Maybe someone at the CIA had enough sense to finally figure it out also?

[arasina]

U.S. intelligence agencies have been secretly removing from public access at the National Archives thousands of historical documents that were available for years..."

You mean the ones Sandy couldn't fit in his socks and underwear?

Question: If they have been secretly removing the documents, how is it that Reuters is reporting it? Who told them?

[RedCell]

U.S. intelligence agencies have been secretly removing from public access at the National Archives thousands of historical documents

Unnamed sources have confirmed that the special agents are using file boxes to remove the files instead of their pants due to the inherent inefficiencies in the latter when dealing with large volumes of documents.

[Just A Nobody]

Goss?

[txroadkill]

Critics say it is part of a marked trend toward greater secrecy under the Bush administration

Bush and his secrets, maybe he should be more like Bill (donate to my campaign and I'll tell you how to make a Nuke) Clinton.

[RedCell]

Question: If they have been secretly removing the documents, how is it that Reuters is reporting it? Who told them?

Does it matter? This fits the pattern, don't you see? Bush Administration + secrecy = the press (left... same thing) screaming "NOT AGAIN! SEE? SEE?! They're e-v-i-l!"

I just hope and pray that hillary gets up in front of the microphones again and talks about how "this administration" isn't being very honest and forthcoming about things. BUWAHAHAHAHA! Whatever. Now sit down and shut yer pie hole, hill.

[CyberAnt]

"Goss"


I would suspect so - with the approval of GW!!

[DakotaRed]

U.S. intelligence agencies have been secretly removing from public access at the National Archives thousands of historical documents that were available for years..."

Isn't this sort of like shutting the barn door after the cow escapes? What with China getting sensitive info during Billary's co-Presidency, surely the rest of our enemies have the information by now.

This does not mean I advocate leaving documents in public that should still be classified, but just maybe, someone should deal with who allowed them all to be made public in the first place, ex-copresidents or not.

[Just A Nobody]

But of course! ;*)

[RobbyS]

Doesn't the thirty year rule still apply?

[gov_bean_ counter]

More Able Danger fall out? CIA playing CYA? Could this be an attempt to get open source documentation out of the public eye? Can't have us regular guys connecting dots or anything like that.

[piasa]

1995 : (CLASSIFIED DIAGRAM OF US W-87 NUCLEAR WARHEAD GIVEN TO PRESS; IT WAS PRINTED IN US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT : INVESTIGATION QUASHED BEFORE IT LED TO CLINTON'S ENERGY SECRETARY - HAZEL O'LEARY?) "Someone at the Department of Energy gave a classified design diagram of the W-87 nuclear warhead to U.S. News & World Report magazine which printed it in its July 31 issue that year. Representative Curt Weldon is still trying to get answers about how this leak was investigated and what was determined. He has good reason to believe the investigation was quashed because it was going to lead straight to President Clinton's Energy Secretary. "

[piasa]

1995 : (LAWRENCE LIVERMORE LABORATORY, US : See NWIP) The US's Nuclear Weapons Information Program (NWIP) was mentioned publicly in a 1995 LLNL Website press release that described it as a series of upgrades to the lab's computer systems to make it easier for scientists to coordinate and share information. Insight is told that this was like revealing that there's a stealth fighter but concealing how it is built and what secrets are aboard. "This is one of the most classified projects on Earth given what its mission is," says a well-placed source. In essence, say Insight sources, it is the single repository of all U.S. knowledge concerning every aspect of U.S. nuclear arsenals, capabilities, weaknesses, developments, strategy and new technologies. This includes even the living memories of scientists involved in the U.S. nuclear-weapons program, a sort of detailed oral history of everything anyone knows or remembers about the program.- "U.S. Nuclear Security May Be Compromised," by Martin Edwin Andersen and Paul M. Rodriguez, Insight Magazine, March 11, 2002

[piasa]

Question: If they have been secretly removing the documents, how is it that Reuters is reporting it? Who told them?

From the article:

<snip>"It came to light after intelligence historian Matthew Aid noticed dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives' open shelves, the Times said."</snip>

[piasa]

Hmm. So who is this Matthew Aid mentioned in the article?

He popped up here:

Article Raises Questions About Vietnam War
By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 31, 6:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency has been blocking the release of an article by one of its historians that says intelligence officers falsified documents about a disputed attack that was used to escalate the Vietnam War, according to a researcher who has requested the article.

Matthew Aid, who asked for the article under the Freedom of Information Act last year, said it appears that officers at the NSA made honest mistakes in translating interceptions involving the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. That was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to President Johnson's escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Rather than correct the mistakes, the 2001 article in the NSA's classified Cryptologic Quarterly says, midlevel officials decided to falsify documents to cover up the errors, according to Aid, who is working on a history of the agency and has talked to a number of current and former government officials about this chapter of American history.

Aid draws comparisons to more recent intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that overstated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

"The question becomes, why not release this?" Aid said of the article. "We have some documents that, from my perspective, I think would be very instructive to the public and the intelligence community ... on a mistake made 41 years ago that was just as bad as the WMD debacle."

The article, written by NSA Historian Robert Hanyok, and the controversy over its release were first reported in The New York Times on Monday.

In a written statement, NSA spokesman Don Weber said the agency had delayed releasing the article "in an effort to be consistent with our preferred practice of providing the public a more contextual perspective." He said the agency plans to release the article and related materials next month.

"Instead of simply releasing the author's historical account, the agency worked to declassify the associated signals intelligence ... and other classified documents used to draw his conclusions," Weber said.

Aid has been told that Hanyok's article analyzes problems found in interceptions about the events. He said the nature and extent of the mistakes remain unclear, and some senior officials at NSA who were not involved with the errors have taken issue with the journal article.

Many historians believe that Johnson would have escalated U.S. military action in the region anyway....

[quesera]

The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999.

[piasa]

That last posted article is dated Oct 31, 2005 BTW

[piasa]

The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the CIA and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton, the Times said on its Web site.
The secret program accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the September 11 attacks, according to archives records, the paper said.