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http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1161.html

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Tue Jan 02 2007 03:27:55 GMT-0800.

Worldwide Caution

October 11, 2006

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1761447/posts

U.S. to Declassify Secrets Aged 25 and Older
International Herald Tribune ^ | 12/21/2006 | Scott Shane Published: December 21, 2006

Posted on 01/02/2007 1:57:11 PM PST by anymouse

At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many FBI cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government's first automatic declassification of records.

Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.

Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.

And every year from now on, millions of additional documents will be automatically declassified as they reach the 25-year limit, reversing the traditional practice of releasing just what scholars request.

(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...