See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR200608170135
2.html
(registration required)  or "The Archives Sleuth Had a Secret," about Matthew 
Aid, who helped blow the whistle on the secret Air Force classification 
review at the National Archives.  Since not all of you have access to the Post, and 
this story has some interesting wrinkles, I'll post some excerpts:

The article reveals of Mr. Aid that "Twenty-one years ago, while serving as a 
staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force in England, Aid was court-martialed for 
unauthorized possession of classified information and impersonating an 
officer, according to Air Force documents."  Asked about the incident, Mr. Aid said 
that while he had been authorized to handle the records, he took them home to 
work on.

Having recently asked NARA ISOO chief Bill Leonard at SAA why people 
mishandle classified records, I'm not about to defend anyone who takes classified 
stuff home.  There's no excuse for it.  However, the way the incident with Aid 
came to light caught my eye.  (As you all know, I testified in 1992 in a Nixon 
records case which resulted in a fair amount of mud slinging by some of the 
lawyers and spokespersons.  In the Nixon case, the mud slinging distracted from 
the issues under review in the litigation.)  At any rate, I'm naturally 
interested in how all sorts of people view and handle disputes involving agenies' 
actions, etc. In this case, a Federal retiree had a role in the revelation.   
"Aaron Lerner of Silver Spring, a Post reader whose wife, Rona, remembered hearing 
of the court-martial while working at the National Security Agency in the 
mid-1980s, recently obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act 
request and provided copies to The Post last week."

Further, "[The since retired] Rona Lerner said she was "annoyed" to read that 
Aid, who had shown disregard for the rules of classification in the Air 
Force, was being celebrated for exposing intelligence agencies' attempts to 
inappropriately pull back declassified documents. "It was an irony that I was just 
taken by," she said.  

So her husband put in a FOIA request for the court-martial record and sent 
the report to The Post."

The Post notes that "Last year Aid was the first to figure out that for years 
the CIA and the Air Force had been withdrawing thousands of records from the 
public shelves -- and that Archives officials helped cover up their efforts. 
The ensuing scandal triggered a temporary suspension of the program this spring 
and a pledge from Archives officials that the public would be notified when 
withdrawals occur.

Aid said he suspects the release of his court-martial record is retribution 
for exposing the Air Force's role. "It's a typical case of selective usage of 
archival material to beat down somebody that you are not happy with," he said. 
"That's the way business is done in Washington."

At any rate, for a number of reasons, it's an interesting wrinkle in the case.

Maarja

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