Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for RWBY Season 2.
Recently, I was rewatching the young adult animated series, RWBY, and forgot that there is an episode including a scene where one of the protagonists, Weiss Schnee, a daughter of an unscrupulous company executive, requests files from her parent’s company, the Schnee Dust Company (SDC). In the season two episode, “A Minor Hiccup”, Weiss uses a computer terminal, which she accesses at a CCT (Cross Continental Transmit System) Tower, a prominent part of Beacon Academy, using her scroll on the elevator to access the upper level, Once there, she is helped by a communications operator, who patches her through to the SDC. Once at a terminal, she is greeted by the SDC employee who looks at her file list and states that some of records are sensitive. Weiss responds that she will treat the records “with care”, and without even a second question, her request is fulfilled. [1] The records are later used in an effort to figure out more of what the “low-level” villain, Roman Torchwick, is doing. The claim by Weiss about the sensitive records relates to a recent interview with lawyer James Trusty.
Trusty defended his well-known client, the former president, stating there were no classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and implied that not turning over documents was “not a crime”. He then claimed his client was being politically targeted, declared that the Presidential Records Act is a “non-criminal statute”, and said civil litigation is the answer instead, among other statements. The comments by Trusty on national television and those by Weiss in RWBY relate to what I’ve written about before in regards to how classification works within NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), British Public Record Office, South African State Archives Service, National Archives of Korea, United Nations, and other U.S. government organs and non-U.S. institutions. The aforementioned comments by Weiss and Trusty connect to the reality of document classification within archives, which remains an important issue considering a recent U.S. Senate hearing on over-classification, with calls for “original classifiers to assign sunsets at the front end,” i.e. dates at which classification would expire automatically, along with other changes, as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) system remains thoroughly broken.
This is not a new issue, are classified records inherent to U.S. government institutions in many ways. For years, U.S. government agencies have been writing declassified institutional histories based upon the “still classified records of the services”, including about U.S. foreign relations. This is coupled with continuing complexities of record classification, leading to issues with obtaining access to “security-restricted records”. However, it can be bypassed thanks to sympathetic archivists or with the proper procedures in place. There have been cases in which classified records have been destroyed reportedly to “protect” operational security of U.S. military actions, even though the records should have been preserved. [2] This makes it clear that archives are not neutral, but are contested spaces instead, which is obvious for libraries, galleries, museums, and other institutions, but is also the case for archives.
There have been efforts to keep classified records intact and store them correctly. This has especially been the case after 1972 when the Archivist of the United States (AOTUS) became the center of government-wide policy-making in terms of research with classified records. Many years before, in March 1946, a National Archives appraiser, Philip C. Brooks, was worried about accepting “highly classified” records from the State Department about the Office of Strategic Services, due to the unknown size of the records being transferred, and had questions about record organization, issue of eventual declassification, and how these records would affect other transfers. Apart from the above-mentioned historical example, there have been instances in which researchers were denied from using classified records. On the contrary, declassification has been said to open up information for “intensive private historical research”. Some records at the U.S. state-level have also been classified, causing those in charge of the records to become declassifiers. [3]
In the past, the Pentagon had a room aside for storing classified records when agencies were reportedly under “extreme space pressures” as a result of World War II. This reality has only been reinforced by ever-present institutional resistance toward declassifying records for scholarly research due to a directive-of-sorts which instructs archivists to “guard” the security of classified records no matter what. This can involve classification for political purposes. [4] There have been evolving challenges from records classification and secrecy, archivists have opened older classified case files for historians, and declassification has become an important duty for NARA, especially since the 1970s. Further scholarship has focused on movement of classified materials, reviews of classified records by NARA, and continued pushes to declassify additional records. [5]
Recently, some have tried to differentiate between the different cases involving classified records involving the former president and President Biden, with Sharon L. Lynch of Reuters writing that neither president “should have had any classified material in their possession” and that such records should be in the “legal custody of the U.S. National Archives.” Lynch added that it is illegal to willfully or knowingly retain or remove classified material, and stated that failing to properly secure and store such material “poses risks to national security if it should fall into the wrong hands.” This has been so egregious in the case of the former president that one of his defense attorneys said the president used a folder with a classified marking to “block a light in his bedroom that kept him up at night”. The former president has further declared that he has the “right” to go through classified records which should have been handed over to NARA. In light of these recent scandals, some have called for NARA to adapt its protocols “around the handling of all classified documents” to prevent future scandals. [6]
All the while, there have been a defense of existing rules at the agency to safeguard records in opposition to those who state that there are too many rules, claims of “political bias”, questions about what NARA “knew” (or didn’t know) about classified records found at the office of the Penn-Biden Center, and laughable comments that such records were safer at Mar-a-Lago than at NARA. Others have praised the agency for its new agreement with the George W. Bush Foundation on a proposal to privatize the presidential library for George W. Bush by “transferring certain operations from NARA to the Bush Foundation” or called for a “revamping” at how the agency collects information, particularly classified information is Top Secret or Secret. [7] There have been broader comments about how it is fairly common to misplace classified documents (and “classified spillage” of documents outside “protected places”), and mentions of secure areas to view documents, known as SCIFs or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities. Other articles have stated that many public officials have shared classified papers over the years, with some rightly questioning whether too many documents are being classified, or saying that the existing classification system is “clunky”. [8]
This is important to note because archivists, especially those at NARA, have a key role when it comes to declassification. Former AOTUS David Ferriero said the agency has a leadership role in ensuring that millions of classified records are “declassified and made available for the people to inspect and for historians to mine”. Archivists are like Weiss in that they are dedicated to treat classified documents “with care”, but their access to the records is not based on family relation. When it comes to classified documents, archivists become guards. People cannot copy documents held by NARA “with uncancelled security classification markings” and there are specific procedures for copying formerly national security-classified documents.
Classified records need to be more readily available to the public through more-common (or even mass) declassification, something which requires archivists to maintain their roles as declassifiers. More public availability of records will clash with the impossible institutional push to remain “neutral”, as the institutions are contested instead of “neutral”. In any case, archivists are vital since the amount of records, especially classified records from government agencies, flowing into institutions like NARA is bound to increase in years to come.
Notes
[1] The person she talks with tells her that she can talk to her sister Winter or her father but she says that she doesn’t want to, and her smile almost becomes a frown, implying a bad/fraught relationship.
[2] Nelson, Anna. “Government Historical Offices and Public Records.” The American Archivist 41, no. 4 (1978): 407-408; Hill, Edward. “Reviews.” The American Archivist 36, no. 2 (1973): 237; Herschler, David and William Slany. “The ‘Paperless Office’: A Case Study of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Information System.” The American Archivist 45, no. 2 (1982): 151-152; Robinson-Sweet, Anna. “Truth and Reconciliation: Archivists as Reparations Activists.” The American Archivist 81, no. 1 (2018), doi: 10.17723/0360-9081-81.1.23; Soyka, Heather and Eliot Wilczek. “Documenting the American Military Experience in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.” The American Archivist 77, no. 1 (2014): 188, 191.
[3] Angel, Herbert. “Archival Janus: The Records Center.” The American Archivist 31, no. 1 (1968): 9; Heaps, Jennifer. “Tracking Intelligence Information: The Office of Strategic Services.” The American Archivist 61, no. 2 (1998): 301-302; Peterson, Trudy. “The National Archives and the Archival Theorist Revisited, 1954-1984.” The American Archivist 49, no. 2 (1986): 131; Harrison, Donald F. “World War II: A Bibliography of Books in English, 1945-1965” [Review]. The American Archivist 34, no. 4 (1971): 388; Epstein, Fritz. “Washington Research Opportunities in the Period of World War II.” The American Archivist 17, no. 3 (1954): 226; Baumann, Roland. “The Administration of Access to Confidential Records in State Archives: Common Practices and the Need for a Model Law.” The American Archivist 49, no. 4 (1986): 360, 364-365, 367.
[4] East, Sherrod. “Archival Experience in a Prototype Intermediate Depository.” The American Archivist 27, no. 1 (1964): 46, 51; Marrow, Mary. “Moving An Archives.” The American Archivist 53, no. 3 (1990): 423-424; Cox, Richard. “Secrecy, Archives, and the Archivist: A Review Essay (Sort Of).” The American Archivist 72, no. 1 (2009): 220-224, 227, 230.
[5] Leopold, Richard. “A Crisis of Confidence: Foreign Policy Research and the Federal Government.” The American Archivist 34, no. 2 (1971): 143-144; Rositer, Margaret (ed. Brenda Beasley Kepleyand Sara L. Stone). “Understanding Progress as Process: Documentation of the History of Post-War Science and Technology in the United States. Final Report of the Joint Committee on Archives of Science and Technology” [Review]. The American Archivist 47, no. 3 (1984): 298; Newman, Debra L. (ed. Brenda Beasley Kepleyand Sara L. Stone) “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume I: 1826-August 1919…[and] The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume II: August 1919-August 1920” [Review]. The American Archivist 47, no. 3 (1984): 309; Weir Jr., Thomas E. “News Notes.” The American Archivist 41, no. 4 (1978): 485; Goggin, Daniel T. and Carmen R. Delle Donne. “News Notes.” The American Archivist 36, no. 4 (1973): 606-607; Dowling, F.P. “News Notes.” The American Archivist 39, no. 3 (1976): 398-399; Dowling, F.P. “News Notes.” The American Archivist 39, no. 1 (1976): 83-84; Goggin, Daniel T. and Carmen R. Delle Donne. “News Notes.” The American Archivist 36, no. 2 (1973): 289-290.
[6] Meola, Lexi and Robert Weiner, “Op/Ed: Better protocols needed to keep classified documents out of the wrong house,” Indianapolis Star, Apr. 7, 2023.
[7] “Strict Rules at the National Archives Preserve Treasures,” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 30, 2023; Johnson, Ron, and Chuck Grassley. Electronic. “Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley Ask About Review of Classified Records By FBI and NARA.” Electronic, March 27, 2023 (also see here); “Fox’s Mark Levin: Classified documents are “safer at Mar-a-Lago” than “at the National Archives”,” Media Matters, Apr. 3, 2023; Rigby, David. “Petty Tyranny at the U.S. National Archives,” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 23, 2023; Quinn, Melissa and Arden Farhi, “National Archives says it retrieved nine boxes of Biden records from ex-personal attorney’s Boston office.” CBS News, Mar. 9, 2023; x, Connelly, Gerry. “Chairs Maloney, Connolly Issue Statements on Revised Agreement Between the National Archives and George W. Bush Foundation.” Nov. 16, 2022; Jacobson, Sheldon H. “Do classified document revelations highlight problems at the National Archives?” The Hill, Jan. 30, 2023.
[8] Waxman, Olivia B. “Classified Documents Get Misplaced All the Time. A Former National Archives Official Explains Why,” Time, accessed April 9, 2023;Herb, Jeremy, , and , “‘I had to sleep with that document’: How the government tries to prevent classified government documents from spilling out,” CNN, Jan. 24, 2023; House, Billy. “Kissinger, Albright Among Officials Who Shared Classified Papers,” Bloomberg News, Mar. 9, 2023; Lopez, German. “Too Many Top Secrets,” New York Times, Jan. 27, 2023; “What Biden’s Documents Reveal About the Confusing Classification System,” Time, accessed Apr. 9, 2023;
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