How long does classified information remain classified in the U.S.? Is there a standard time, or does it vary depending on degree of classification and/or other circumstances? Are there still any 19th-century classified documents? Are some documents to be classified forever?
Thanking you in advance…
Zev Steinhardt
Clinton issued Executive Order 12958, saying, among other things, that all documents are to be automatically declassified after 25 years, unless the issuing agency, following the guidelines set forth in the order, decides it should stay classified.
http://www.dss.mil/seclib/eo12958.htm
President Bush amended that executive order in 2003, but the 25 year provision is also in the amended order.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030325-11.html
Those “other circumstances” you mentioned do ocassionally cut short the lifetime of a classified document:
Thank you Captain Amazing and Squink for your responses.
So that means that the government has no secrets older than 1979? No hidden files on the Kennedy assassination? Nothing still secret from World War Two? No secret “John Wilkes Booth” file?
Zev Steinhardt
Not at all:
It’s just basically supposed to com eup for automatic review after 25 years, and that teh DEFAULT position is “Declassify.” However, if the authority that set it up still needs it to be kept secret (say, the circa 1975 codes to some aging nukes, or the alien spacecraft at Area 51), then it continues to be secret.
No, the exceptions are part of the classification. At the bottom of all classified documents you are required to mark the “declassify on” block, which can be a date “Declassify on 27 March 2029” or one of the exceptions (“Exes”), to wit:
An item is exempt from declassification at the ten-year point if its release would…
X1. Reveal an intelligence source, method, or activity,
or a cryptologic system or activity.
X2. Reveal information that would assist in the
development or use of weapons of mass destruction.
X3. Reveal information that would impair the
development or use of technology within a United States
weapons system.
X4. Reveal United States military plans or national security
emergency preparedness plans.
X5. Reveal foreign government information.
X6. Damage relations between the United States and a foreign
government, reveal a confidential source, or seriously
undermine diplomatic activities that are reasonably expected
to be ongoing for a period greater than 10 years.
X7. Impair the ability of responsible United States Government
officials to protect the President, the Vice President,
and other individuals for whom protection services, in the
interest of national security, are authorized.
X8. Violate a statute, treaty or international Agreement.
*
Cite: Classification Marking Guide at
http://www.wasc.noaa.gov/wrso/briefings/DOD%20Marking%20Guide.ppt
I had to learn these to mark classified documents; the bolding above is my own, and is how I referred to these exemptions shorthand. For instance, when someone asked “what’s X1 again,” the answer was “sources and methods”.
Anything marked X1, for example, could remain classified for as long as the source or method used to collect that information was believed to be important. If we had for example used a telepath to invade Khrushchev’s mind in the 1960s, then as long as we believed that source (or method!) to be useful – for example, if we thought we had a shot at using telepaths again, as long as the enemy weren’t aware of our attempts to do so – then we could keep all of those documents “X1” indefinitely.
If Poland assassinated JFK because they mistook him for an enemy of the state, and then confessed to it when they joined NATO, it would become X5 or X6, and could remain so indefinitely.
If there’s a secret tunnel JFK used to get out of the White House, and its location is still unknown, that tunnel’s location is (and will be indefinitely) X7.
One last note: documents are never just listed by their exemption. The location of the tunnel might be marked CONFIDENTIAL//X7; the telepath papers might be TOP SECRET//CLYDESDALE//X1,X3,X5. Good luck getting the latter declassified.