You're a brave soul, asking for more clarification from me! I've yapped an awful lot already (can't you tell I've been feeding photos into a scanner, LOL, rather than running up to the Library, sitting in meetings, etc. My weeks at work do vary a lot. ;-) There are a number of reasons to restrict Federal records, beyond national security classification under E.O. 12958, as amended. Copy available at Here are the restriction codes we applied at the Nixon Project: Source http://nixon.archives.gov/laws/restrictions.html Restriction Codes The following eight restriction classifications are criteria under which the National Archives will withdraw material from public availability. A – Release would violate a Federal statute or agency policy B – National security classified information C – Pending or approved claim that release would violate an individual's rights D – Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy or a libel of a living person E – Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or financial information F – Release would disclose investigatory information compiled for law enforcement purposes G – Withdrawn and returned private and personal material H – Withdrawn non-historical material [END EXTRACT FROM NARA website] Two of those categoraies, G and H, are unusual. They apply because Nixon's White House records were seized in place. It would be like the government sealing and seizing your records when you left your job. You would hope that they would give back to you any medical and purely personal family stuff that had gotten mixed in among your job related records. This problem does not occur with most government records, which come in to NARA through a well ordered process of records scheduling and records management. An aside on the issue of "personal returnable" information in the Nixon tapes and documents. The tricky part for us at the Nixon Project came from the efforts by Nixon and his lawyers to expand what could be returned to him as personal. The most publicly known instance occurred when Nixon blocked the release of some 42,000 documents in the White House Special Files in 1987. (NARA has been curiously silent about later disagreements with Nixon or his estate.) He claimed most of the documents were personal or privileged. Not so. Of the items Nixon’s agents sought to remove from government custody for return to Nixon in 1987, the National Archives retained 33,199 documents and returned to the Nixon estate 8,992 documents. Of the retained documents, NARA opened to the public 28,035 documents. These included comments about Watergate and the Vietnam War -- governmental matters, not related to Nixon's personal life. (I tned to think his lawyers in some cases deliberately tried to conflate confidentiallity with personal privacy.) But look at the other reasons for restriction on the list above. There actually are good statutory reasons for restricting some non-national security information. For example, what if you submitted a Federal form to the government and it had your Social Security Number on it? If it somehow was found in a permanent record that was transferred to NARA, you would during your lifetime expect protection against unwarranted disclosure, identify theft, etc. Hence the need for archivists to screen Federal records carefully before making them available to the public. What if you wrote to a President or to a Federal agency and mentioned private matters, such as family problems, medical issues, job problems, etc.? If your letter makes it to a Presidential Library or to NARA's College Park facility, you have the right to have some of that shielded from public view, also. And of course companies have the right to have certain commercial information protected from disclosure. And some law enforcement information has to be protected. And grand jury information is secret, etc. All in all, much of what NARA holds about governmental actions warrants disclosure to historians and genealogists, but archivists do need to protect certain categories of information, at least for a period of time. Again, the process must be handled with great care and integrity, least it become suspect. Maarja A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org. For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>