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Inside the Pentagon
Reposted With Permission
December 6, 2004

Report: Army, Navy Could Miss Declassification Deadline

By John Liang

Dec. 6, 2004 -- The Army and Navy may be unable to meet a December 2006 deadline for the automatic declassification of secret documents that are more than 25 years old, according to a report released last week by the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office.

As of Dec. 31, 2003, the ISOO estimated that 260 million pages of documents need to be declassified, exempted or referred to other agencies by December 2006. That number is above and beyond the 982 million pages declassified during the previous eight years in which automatic declassification has been in effect. It was put into place via the landmark executive order 12958, signed by President Clinton in 1995.

ISOO found that "for the most part . . . the executive branch is progressing toward fulfilling its responsibilities for these records by the initial deadline, although a significant number of agencies remain at risk of not meeting it."

While the ISOO found that the Army's and Navy's declassification programs were "strong," they will "require additional resources to guarantee that they meet" the December 2006, deadline. Four other agencies -- the Commerce, Energy and Treasury departments, as well as NASA -- run a "significant risk" of missing the deadline, according to the report.

Fifteen agencies -- including the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department's nine combatant commands -- did not provide enough information for ISOO to make a determination, the report states.

In a March 23, 2003 amendment to Clinton's executive order, President Bush "called for a renewed commitment by the executive branch to the orderly declassification of historically valuable permanent classified records that are 25 years old or older," ISOO Director J. William Leonard writes in the cover letter attached to the report.

One of the challenges for officials seeking to declassify those 260 million pages of documents is that many contain information "of interest to other agencies," the report found. "This means that the original agency must not only review the classified information for declassification, but it must then refer the document to any other agency that has an interest in the classified information."

While agencies have figured out ways to reduce the cost and time required, document referral remains one of the most expensive and lengthy components of the declassification review process. "This is one reason why the recent amendment to the Order allowed agencies to delay the automatic declassification of classified records referred to them by other agencies for an additional three years," the report states.

While agencies are required to refer those documents of interest to other agencies by the original deadline, those files will not be automatically declassified until Dec. 31, 2009. ISOO estimates that the page count for documents requiring referral and action by other agencies by that date to be 65 million pages, or 25 percent of the total.

"We will continue to monitor the situation closely," the report reads.

Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, says the report contains both good news and bad news. "The bad news is that the president's declassification program is not on track, but the good news is that ISOO is confronting the problem two years ahead of schedule," he told InsideDefense.com. "And that creates the possibility that the timetable will be preserved."

Aftergood, who disclosed the ISOO report in his Secrecy News, was encouraged by the fact that ISOO published a report at all. "What they didn’t do is they didn’t wait until December [2006] and say, 'Well, gosh, we missed the deadline,'” he said. “They said, . . . 'We're facing some obstacles,' and so I think there's reason for hope in the performance of ISOO." -- John Liang

Copyright 2004 Inside Washington Publishers