On December 29, 2009, President Obama created the National Declassification Center (NDC) and instructed it to review the entire 400 million page backlog of historic documents at the National Archives (NARA) for declassification by December 31, 2013. Three years later, a mere 22.6 million pages (5.8 percent of the backlog) has been made available to researchers. Despite the president’s instruction for a new type of declassification process at the NDC, the continued “declassification-as-usual” mindset is responsible for the Center’s languid pace.
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In September 2010, President Obama stood on the floor of the United Nations and challenged governments to embrace openness and transparency. One year later, the United States and Brazil launched the Open Government Partnership, a global initiative in which 46 countries have signed on to take concrete action on specific programs to become “more open and accountable to their people.”
This September, the United States presented its National Action Plan which listed eight new open government initiatives. However, unless the Obama administration can regain control of its federal bureaucracy, at least one initiate –the National Declassification Center– already looks doomed for failure.
President Obama announced the creation of the National Declassification Center on December 29, 2009. In his memorandum to each executive agency and department, the president explained –clear as day– that the 400 million page backlog of historic (25 years old or older) records mothballed at the National Archives, “shall be addressed in a manner that will permit public access to all declassified records from this backlog no later than December 31, 2013.”
The president understood that the inefficient and wasteful multiple-review system –in which any agency can claim the right to censor any document, leading to multiple unnecessary reviews– was a primary reason for this growing backlog at the Archives. He instructed, “further referrals of these records are not required except for those containing information that would clearly and demonstrably reveal [confidential human sources or key WMD design concepts].” (Emphasis added.)
Unfortunately, the president may have to sit across from the world leaders he made his pledge to and explain to them that he has failed to force the security establishment of his government to review and declassify these historic documents.
The most recent bi-annual report from the National Declassification Center shows that three years since the president ordered the creation of the Center, and two years after the Center has been up and running, only 22.6 million pages (only 5.8 percent of the backlog) have completed processing!! As Steve Aftergoood of Secrecy News points out, even a tenfold increase in productivity will be insufficient to process this backlog of historic documents by 2013.
The key reason for this slow rate of processing appears to be that the National Declassification Center –which includes declassifying personnel from various government agencies– has not followed Obama’s instructions to avoid unnecessary referrals and re-reviews of the documents. (more…)
