At Deadline: NARA Issues Reclassification Audit Report Secret Reclassification Program

Bruce Craig

On April 26, 2006, National Archives officials released an audit report of what has been characterized as a "secret" National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) sanctioned document reclassification effort by the CIA and several defense-related federal agencies. The 28-page audit report titled "Withdrawal of Records for Public Access at the National Archives and Records Administration for Classification Purposes" (<http://www.archives.gov/isoo/reports/2006-audit-report.pdf>) revealed that while the reclassification of about two-thirds of the documents pulled from NARA's public shelves was technically justified, a third—some 25,315 historical documents—were "clearly inappropriate" and did not contain sensitive information that justified classification. Another 12 percent were deemed by auditors as "questionable" candidates for reclassification. The report demonstrates that the reclassification effort was far more extensive than what had been previously disclosed.

The report also raises serious questions about NARA and ISOO oversight of rereview efforts and brings to light new concerns about overclassification, quality control, and the integrity of ongoing classification programs currently being conducted by federal agencies. The audit revealed that NARA acquiesced too readily to the withdrawal of records, partly because it has not had the resources available to keep pace with the agency rereview. But the most significant deficiency identified in the audit is, according to a NARA statement, "the absence of standards, including requisite levels of transparency governing agency rereview activity at the National Archives" a concern that Archivist Allen Weinstein through his actions has sought to aggressively address. The sheer size of the rereview effort has surprised some observers. Five different agencies were involved: CIA, Air Force, Department of Energy, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the National Archives. The audit revealed that document rereview was conducted not just at NARA's College Park facility but at the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Bush presidential libraries as well. The audit also found that in many of these instances, withdrawal did little to mitigate potential damage to national security, especially if the record had been published elsewhere, such as in a Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volume, the official compilation of State Department records that for decades has been systematically issued by the Department of State's history office.

According to NARA sources, affected agencies have agreed to interim guidelines that require the public be informed when records are withdrawn from public access. Existing memoranda of understanding between NARA and agencies involved with the withdrawal effort will be replaced with interim protocol guidelines. Agencies have agreed in principle to creation of a pilot National Declassification Initiative that will address the policies, procedures, structure, and resources needed to create a more reliable executive branch-wide declassification program. Finally, and perhaps of most concern to researchers, NARA has pledged to work with agencies to insure that documents removed improperly from open shelves "will be restored to public access as expeditiously as possible." –Bruce Craig