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CIA Historical Document Declassification Office going the way of WH tours
The forced cuts of the sequester are hitting everywhere, apparently even at agencies with black budgets. The budget ax has fallen on a CIA office that focused on declassifying historical materials, a move scholars say will mean fewer public disclosures about long-buried intelligence secrets and scandals. The Historical Collections Division, which has declassified documents on top Soviet spies, a secret CIA airline in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis and other major operations, has been disbanded. The office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests will take over the work. The agency's spokesman says this move will "create efficiencies." Dumping this onto the FOIA department adds more work to a part of the agency that already uses every excuse it can to avoid complying with requests. "This move is a true loss to the public," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who frequently litigates against the CIA. He said the CIA office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests "is the most obstructionist and unfriendly of those I have dealt with during the last two decades." Posted by: Pappy 2013-08-25 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=374578 |