See
http://dwb.newsobserver.com/24hour/opinions/story/3258691p-12038464c.html
for a Scripps Howard commentary by Dale McFeatters on the NARA declassification/reclassification issue.
 
I don't agree with everything Mr. McFeatters writes.  Reviewing government records to see what can be released can get into some very complex issues.  And some records clearly need to be restricted.  So I cringed when I saw Mr. McFeatters's facetious recommendation that all the reclassified records be indiscriminately dumped out for public view. 
 
The difficulty lies in reconciling the potentially competing views of various stakeholders and doing it with integrity so as to uphold the public trust.  It makes me sad to see Mr. McFeatters write, "But it took the staid, august National Archives, guardian of our most precious records, to elevate the suitably ludicrous expression "double super secret" into government policy."  But I tend to think that this is a situation NARA could have avoided while still ensuring that restrictable information was protected.  Why the Archives' lawyers didn't protect NARA and its officials and subordinate employees more strongly, I do not know.  Of course, the NARA lawyers didn't protect me and my colleagues in 1992, at all.  From where I sat, they seemed to only have the interests of the most powerful players in mind (Nixon, DOJ, etc.), not the employees who do the work at the Archives.  Now the agency is paying the price in terms of potshots such as those by Scripps Howard.
 
I've given some thought to some of Richard Cox's comments from last week.  He mentioned that organizations other than SAA have uncovered recent problems such as the reclassification matter, implying that SAA has been too passive.  Richard mentions the National Security Archives.  Of course, the National Security Archive has a different purpose than SAA and I don't view the two as being the same.  However, given what I know about NARA from my own past experiences, and what we're now learning about this latest flap, I do think SAA probably needs to take a page from the National Security Archive's playbook and start submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to get to the bottom of some issues.  It's hard to get at the facts just by talking to NARA officials and press officers -- the extent to which they can be candid is really going to vary.  FOIA has the force of law behind it.  Unfortunately, this is Washington and to get to the bottom of some matters, that is what it sometimes takes. 
 
Maarja
 
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