New Declassification Process To Open 400 Million Pages of Records

linzeal writes "The newly minted National Declassification Center has been tasked by President Obama with eliminating the backlog of more than 400 million pages of classified records that are more than 25 years old by the end of 2013. The National Archives has prepared a draft prioritization plan to guide its declassification activities, and has invited public input on the plan. A public forum on the subject will be held on June 23. This may be a bonanza for the community of historians and intelligence buffs who have been left without significant source material to work with, in some cases since WWII, especially in terms of any information on cryptography, image analysis, and espionage."

So everything about JFK & Marylin Monroe death

[ymmv]

So everything about JFK & Marylin Monroe deaths ?

Re:ya right

[MozeeToby]

Wasn't too long ago that Project Oxcart was declassified, that was pretty juicy for me. Served as the precursor to one of the coolest, most impressive planes ever built.

Re:ya right

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone on /. honest believe anything seriously juicy or even particularly interesting would *ever* be released to the public.

Cool stuff gets declassified all the time. The Los Alamos Primer [wikipedia.org] was a pretty awesome read, and it was declassified in 1965 - only 20 years after the bomb was invented.

If you'd like something more recent, how about the SR-71 Blackbird Flight Manual [sr-71.org]?

Re:ya right

[Anonymous Coward]

The Freedom of Information Act seems to be working pretty well despite resulting in mass humiliation for countless officials.

Yeah, it worked so well getting a copy of this [collateralmurder.com] ... oh wait, it didn't. Tell me, why is information like that even allowed to be classified? If my tax dollars are paying to have Beavis and Butthead murder children in the desert, I have a right to know about it.

Re:ya right

[linzeal]

They are not releasing documents that even have one word of classified information on them, to err that far on the side of caution and refuse to attempt any redaction before releasing to the public means we are likely to be waiting till the next world war to read some of the documents from the second one.

What I want declassified

[LeepII]

What I would like declassified is the Nov 1941 intercepts of the Japanese fleet. The United States had cracked the Japanese code early in 1941, and you can read transcripts of their radio messages up to July-August of 1941, then nothing. What could still be vital to national security that over 70 years later it is still classified?