90 Day Review of Classifying Government Information

Following up a Jan. 21 memorandum on government transparency and the Freedom of Information Act, President Obama Wednesday told the heads of departments and agencies that within 90 days he expects to get recommendations and proposed revisions to policies on classifying information. The Administration is considering 1) establishing a National Declassification Center that would "bring appropriate agency officials together to perform collaborative declassification review under the administration of the Archivist of the United States" and 2) possibly restoring the presumption against classification, thereby "preclud[ing] classification of information where there is significant doubt about the need for such classification," as well as increasing accountability for the decision to classify.