United States and Canada

Washington, D.C., July 4, 2011 - Forty-five years after President Johnson signed the U.S. Freedom of Information Act into law in 1966, federal agency backlogs of FOIA requests are growing, with the oldest requests at eight agencies dating back over a decade and the single oldest request now 20 years old, according to the Knight Open Government Survey by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org).

Washington, DC, June 13, 2011 - The complete version of the Pentagon Papers released today by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) includes a substantial amount of information not previously published. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time, according to NARA. The public release today of the full Pentagon Papers—40 years after their leaked publication in the media—is a welcome event on many levels: including closing a bizarre chapter in the annals of U.S.

Washington, D.C., April 21, 2011 - The United States Government’s system for the release of classified material into the public domain continues to be riddled with error, ignorance, arbitrary actions, and simple inaction, while often impaired by parochial agency interests that have nothing to do with the protection of national security secrets, an analysis of a recently declassified document plus associated materials shows.

Washington, DC, March 25, 2011 - Ron Rosenbaum's new book, How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, praises the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault as an "astonishing compilation of declassified discussions about the bomb." Rosenbaum, a columnist for Slate Magazine and the author of several well-received books, including Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars, has explored the danger of nuclear weapons since the late 1970s, when he published a major piece in Harper’s on nuclear command and control and weapons and the problem of “moral choice” raised by the existenc

Washington, D.C., March 14, 2011 - The Obama administration is only about halfway toward its promise of improving Freedom of Information responsiveness among federal agencies, according to the new Knight Open Government Survey by the National Security Archive, released today for Sunshine Week at www.nsarchive.org.

Washington, D.C., February 19, 2011 - "The Power of Decision" may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force's implementation of war plan "Quick Strike" in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies.

Washington, DC, December 16, 2010 - Efforts to tighten the secrecy system and crackdown on leakers and the media will be "fundamentally self-defeating," according to Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, who testified today before the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Washington, DC, December 9, 2010 - Friends and family of the late Smith Bagley joined the National Security Archive staff and board on December 9 to dedicate and celebrate the new Smith Bagley Research Center in the Archive’s renovated Gelman Library offices. The noted philanthropist, entrepreneur, and activist had long supported the Archive’s work to open government files at home and abroad, dating back to the organization’s founding in 1985. After his untimely death in January 2010, the Arca Foundation (which Mr.

Washington, D.C., November 16, 2010 - To counter a Soviet bomber attack, U.S. war plans contemplated widespread use of thousands of air defense weapons during the middle years of the Cold War according to declassified documents posted today at the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault and cited by a recently published book, Continental Defense in the Eisenhower Era: Nuclear Antiaircraft Arms and the Cold War (Palgrave Macmillan) by historian Christopher J. Bright. The U.S.

NEW - November 24, 2010 - Download the Complete Redacted Report as Released by the Department of Justice (PDF - 16MB) NEW - November 15, 2010 - Download the Complete Unredacted Report as Published in the New York Times (PDF - 57MB) Washington, D.C., November 13, 2010 - The Department of Justice censored dozens of pages of a candid history of Nazi-hunting (and Nazi-protecting) by the U.S.