#Redacted files archive
#Redacted files full

KPMG Consulting, Final Report to Department of Justice, “Support for the Department in Conducting an Analysis of Diversity in the Attorney Workforce,” June 14, 2002Ī Justice Department information official blacked out large portions of this outside consultant's report concerning problems of racial diversity within the department. Sadly, this is typical of what happens to many documents, despite repeated Obama administration pledges to improve the declassification process. The last three re-reviews of the same document are clearly superfluous and a waste of taxpayer money. In 2012, the Clinton Presidential Library released a fourth version of the document, restoring the redacted section on the first page, but deleting the final paragraph for 'national security reasons.'Ī reading of the unredacted document released in 2001 demonstrates the spuriousness of the 'national security' and 'privileged intra agency communication' redactions. He released the paragraph withdrawn in 2003, but redacted a section on the first page, expressing doubts about the size of the Rwandan death toll, as 'privileged intra agency communication' (B5). national security information.Īnother State Department official (Herman Kirby) re-reviewed the document in 2007. The paragraph in question has no identifiable U.S. The first re-review of the document took place in 2003, when the State Department (reviewer Charles Daris) released a new version of the document, omitting the final paragraph for 'national security reasons (B1)'.

#Redacted files full

Despite the notation in the document on the left that Khrushchev's message had been public, Defense Department reviewers decades later blacked out the missiles' location. The DOD release came in 2009 whereas the State Department’s FRUS series (right) published the full Khrushchev message in 1996. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev advanced the proposal to remove American missiles from Turkey at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Message from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 27, 1962 government over-zealousness in applying a figurative Magic Marker to information that was already public or should be public. Included in today’s posting is a famous precursor of the Mueller document – the outside consultant’s report from 2002 on racial discrimination within the Justice Department, which Justice’s own experts on information policy redacted in completely unjustified ways, a fact that could be confirmed only after the accidental removal of the electronic veils over deleted portions of the document.Īlso in today’s e-book are a number of classic examples of U.S. (See for instance this week’s AP story in the Washington Post and the feature on PRI's ' The World.')

The release of the redacted Mueller report today focuses new public attention on the systemic problem of over-classification and the routine overuse of exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act that are supposed to be reserved for protecting true secrets. This surprisingly common occurrence throws into relief how subjective the classification process is and how often agency declassifiers opt for the most sweeping rulings that wind up denying the public reasonable access to their government’s information. government censors blacked out documents that had already been released in full – or redacted entirely different parts of the same document at different times.

#Redacted files archive

Washington D.C., Ap– The National Security Archive has published hundreds of examples over the years of “dubious secrets” where U.S.

FOIA Advisory Committee Oversight Reports.