- action | issues
- Academic Freedom
- Books
- Classrooms
- Copyright
- Film
- Government Secrecy
- Hate Speech
- Internet
- LGBT
- Libraries
- Music
- Nudity & Pornography
- Political Correctness
- Political Dissent
- Public Spaces
- Race Ethnicity Gender
- Radio & Television
- Religion
- Science
- Sex Education
- Theater & Performance
- Video Games
- Violence
- Visual Art
- Youth
- advocacy | projects
- education | resources
in support of free expression
The information presented here by the National
Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) may be freely redistributed in its entirety,
provided that readers are informed that the information was obtained from
NCAC's World Wide Web site and that credit is given to the appropriate source
of whatever information is used. Permission is expressly granted for the information
obtained to be made available for file transfer from installations offering
unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet. Information found here
may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without
the written permission from the National Coalition Against Censorship.
LAST UPDATED APRIL 2005
©Copyright 2005 NCAC
WEB DESIGN
Jeanne Criscola Criscola Design
NCAC Censorship News Issue #71:
Government Secrecy: Bad Habits Die Hard
In 1995, President Clinton issued an executive order to declassify Government documents older than 25 years. Since then, more than 400 million pages of documents have been made public - more than the government had declassified in all the preceding years combined, according to Steven Aftergood, Director of the Project on Government Secrecy. Now, the flow of information may end. A provision in a Defense Department authorization bill - reminiscent of cold-war secrecy policies - would require all federal agencies to inspect each page of documents 25 years and older, for nuclear secrets. John W. Carlin, the Archivist of the United States, has warned that the proposed restriction would "completely nullify" the 1995 executive order since the agencies lack the people and money required to "eyeball" the millions of documents under review for public release.