Thursday, December 21, 2006
Finally, the truth can be told
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.
Of course you have to love the gratuitous dig at Bush (apparently an essential component of any Times article, as specified in the NYT style guide):
Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.Uh, what scholars? Ward Churchill maybe?
Anyway, according to the article, many of the thousands of documents pertain to cold war related issues, and it certainly will be interesting to see what comes forth, but all that could be small potatoes if we finally learn the truth about Roswell!
6 Comments:
By 
K. Pablo, at
Thu Dec 21, 10:22:00 AM:
Maybe the NY Times editors need to review e.g. Wikipedia's style guidelines regarding the use of Weasel Words. Some scholars maintain the NYT is the paragon of journalistic writing.
By 
, at
Thu Dec 21, 03:54:00 PM:
Agencies still have the right to hold release of some items.
By dave in boca, at
Thu Dec 21, 09:35:00 PM:
Too bad Jimmy Carter's offer to Brezhnev's baddies like Andropov to pass on info harmful to Reagan in '83 for the '84 election might still be under wraps.
That silly dwarf lies all the time, and now we'll be able to prove it----including his ordering rubber bullets to be denied to the Shah's police, thus resulting in hundreds of deaths subsequently.
This little eff-up is still around, stealing proprietary maps and lying about tenured Emory professors. Wonder what will come out about the neutron bomb, and what he asked for in exchange.
Knowing this little fool, nothing.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Thu Dec 21, 10:22:00 PM:
There will be plenty of embarassment for everyone, but I have every confidence that this is a good thing.
I had always assumed that after release of such documents, the scales would fall from liberal eyes, but it just occurred to me this moment: the MSM still has considerable power to tell us what is a "real scandal" and what is just "politics as usual." The truth will come out, but it's still an uphill fight.
By allen, at
Fri Dec 22, 01:06:00 AM:
For a contemporary look at a breach of national security for which the passage of a quarter century will not be necessary, see:
“A close aide to the British commander of NATO in Afghanistan has been accused of passing secrets about activities there to Iran.”
The accused: Corporal Daniel James
NATO Commander: Lieutenant General David Richards
British aide in Afghanistan accused of spying for Iran
H/T Pamela at Atlas Shrugs
assistant village idiot,
If Venona couldn't provoke a great awakening, what could?
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Fri Dec 22, 10:59:00 PM:
