Conspiracy Gold - A Multitude of Classified Documents Available January 1st

January 1st will be a banner day for conspiracy theorists and researchers worldwide, as the US Government releases an enormous amount of previously-classified information all at once. Every document classified twenty-five years of more will be open to the public, unless it has been granted a specific exemption. On January 1st, 2008, even more material will become declassified, and every year that follows (unless the policy changes of course) will see more and more documents made available. The sheer volume of information is staggering, and will require an enormous amount of effort on the part of researchers to even make a dent.



Well, I'll believe it when I see it. That said, it's very exciting. I hope they go through with it and make this material available to researchers. Of course there's no way an individual could make headway against such a mountain of information, but I suspect that a number of groups will step up and shoulder the burden, and hopefully together they can make some progress.

As pointed out in the article, the records clerks won't be able to meet the demand, but hopefully that won't put too much of a bottleneck on getting the material out. It would be great if they could digitize all this stuff, and make it available on the internet, but I doubt if the government would be willing to spend any money on helping people get information, when they've proven themselves so eager to spend millions upon millions of dollars concealing the very same information for decades.

I think nothing but good can come of this decision. The American people want a more transparent government, a government more interested in helping its citizens understand the world we live in. There should be some choice material included in this bulk, and I for one can't wait to start sifting through the mess to find it.

You have to bear in mind that historical documents can get "lost" before they become declassified. The dead line could be extended on some or all of the documents in questions.

Well, we'll know in a couple of weeks whether there will be a general extension. Bush has said there won't be, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

And yeah, the best stuff will remain classified, but there will be plenty of red meat for us to chew on, I think.

I'm particularly interested in the info about our behind-the-scenes machinations in Latin America, and a more thorough picture of the anti-Communist efforts that took place in this country. Makes my mouth water.

oooh I am shakin in my converse over all of the proof we are gonna gget. Do any of yall know where to find the information when it is released.

A lot of news organizations are sure to release excerpts, and some research foundations will probably do the same. Beyond that, you'd have to submit a FOIA request and wait like everyone else.

I wonder if the government is still working under the policy of denying any and all FOIA requests for no reason?

If so, the fact that the material is declassified is only a small comfort. If we can't gain easy access to it, what's the point?

It is a loophole that the Gov. will syrely use its kind of like when they legalized mary jane, and you could own\grow\use with a special permit....the problem was the Gov. never made a permit.

I am curious though, what is a FOIA?

[edit on 21-12-2006 by Ford Farmer]

Freedom of Informaton Act - FOIA.

www.usdoj.gov...

www.usdoj.gov...

foia.fbi.gov...

Hope that helps.

Anybody want to start a pool? We pick a document and we all guess how many sections are blacked out. Closest one to the correct number wins. I downloaded one from the Black Vault website and out of 157 pages you might have had 10 pages of text.

Wont there at least be a list or a table of contents or something available on line that will tell us what is available to ask for via the FOIA?

so, has anyone laid hands on these elusive documents yet? the original link is no longer openly accessible, fyi...

thanx in advance

The three links below might be old news but maby it will be a start to find this new information.

National Security Arcive
CIA FOIA
UT Library

Edit for one more link
government files

[edit on 1-1-2007 by RedGolem]