ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Classified Informationcircumstances, information is to be automatically declassifiedafter 10 years. Those specific circumstances includesituations in which national security would be jeopardizedby disclosure of the information, as well as instances inwhich automatic declassification could violate a legal statute.A notable example of such a statute is the PrivacyAct of 1974.Executive Order 13142, signed November 19, 1999,amended 12958 by extending the amount of time untilcertain types of information can be declassified. Specifically,the order addresses Section 3.4 in the earlier order,which provides for the declassification of informationmore than 25 years old that has been determined to havehistorical value in accordance with Title 44, U.S. Code.Whereas the earlier order had provided for declassificationwithin five years, 13142 extended this period for 18 months.As the Washington Times reported in December 1999, thischange angered the American Legion and other veterans’groups eager to search records from the Vietnam era forinformation regarding prisoners of war (POWs) and otherswho were missing in action (MIAs).A top-secret procedure manual used for instructing military officers inthe event of a nuclear missile launch rests on a desk at the Warren AirForce Base missile launch complex. ©JAMES A. SUGAR/CORBIStitled “Classified National Security Information,” wassigned on April 17, 1995. According to its opening sentence,the order “prescribes a uniform system for classifying,safeguarding, and declassifying national securityinformation.”In addition to defining “classification” and the basiclevels thereof, as well as types of information that may beclassified, the order provides that “If there is significantdoubt about the need to classify information, it shall not beclassified.” Furthermore, “If there is significant doubtabout the appropriate level of classification, it shall beclassified at the lower level.” The order prescribes the useof classification markings to distinguish varieties of classifiedinformation, and provides for “derivative classification,”or “the incorporating, paraphrasing, restating orgenerating in new form information that is already classified,and marking the newly developed material consistentwith the classification markings that apply to thesource information.”Declassification and Executive Order 13142. Particularlyimportant are the provisions of Executive Order 12958with regard to declassification, or the removal of restrictionson access to information. Declassification is not to beautomatic, “as a result of unauthorized disclosure of identicalor similar information.” However, except in specificEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and SecurityPost-12958 declassification efforts. An August 1998 WhiteHouse press release called Executive Order 12958 became“the first effort since the end of the Cold War to reassessthe balance between open government and the need tomaintain secrets vital to national security.” Although criticsdisputed White House claims as to the extent of theeffort, the order did open a vast body of informationfor declassification. According to the press release, theInteragency Security Classification Appeals Panel establishedby the order had, in the three years that followed itsissuance, reviewed some 96 documents and released81 of them.Among these were documents from the administrationsof presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy,and Lyndon B. Johnson regarding the deploymentand possible use of nuclear weapons in Europe; two 1962letters from Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru toKennedy expressing fears of an impending nuclear warbetween his nation and China; State Department communicationsregarding Israeli nuclear capabilities during theJune 1967 Six-Day War; and a September 1967 memorandumto Johnson regarding military options available tothe North Vietnamese army. Less than 25 years old weredocuments from the administration of President Gerald R.Ford concerning nuclear weapons programs in SouthKorea. Some of the latter information remained classified,because disclosure would endanger a source, orbecause its release would harm U.S. relations with foreigngovernments.NSA and NIMA records. The National Security Agency(NSA) subsequently undertook a review of documents fordeclassification, a project it named OPENDOOR. As NSAannounced in a press release dated April 2, 1996, it had215