U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25

[Sapphire Blue]

U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 21, 2006

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of American government.

At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. 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.

(snip)

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.

Continued @ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/washington/21declassify.html

[flamin lib]

1. Any idea how this will affect the presidential seal Johnson put on

the JFK files?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. From what I understand those are a special case