Thread by @NSArchive

Both @ArmsControlWonk's thread on completely different redactions of the same doc and @BryanDBender's piece on the White House's new effort to rein in classification got us at @NSArchive thinking about all the ridiculous things we've seen over the last 37 years. A #FOIA thread.

Like the time we got two versions of the same page of a White House email addressed to then deputy national security adviser Colin Powell. It was reviewed ten days apart by the same reviewer - can you spot the differences? #FOIA

Or the time the Clinton administration released a completely unredacted DIA sketch on Gen. Pinochet in 1999, which the agency re-released in 2003 with large swaths of redactions. Among the secrets...that Pinochet's favorite drink was scotch and pisco sours
#FOIA

In 1997 a CIA reviewer released a 1974 Weekly Situation Report. The last page includes a joke plan to sabotage the "annual courier flight of the Government of the North Pole" (GONP). The same report was published on CREST in 1999 - the Santa Secret redacted #FOIA

In a more serious example, here is a side-by-side comparison of the Bush and Obama Versions of the CIA Inspector General's Report on Torture
nsarchive2.gwu.edu//torture_archi…

Then there was the time the Defense Department deleted Khrushchev's public statements about Jupiter Missiles in Turkey
nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB…

There have also been multiple instances of reviewers redacting info on anti-ballistic missiles, strategic arms control, and US policy towards China, even when the docs have been published in the State Department's FRUS series
nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb2…

This document contains numerous examples of redactions of public information, including the names of Air Force personnel tried for espionage - individuals whose trials were public and were reported in the media.
nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB9…

Some of these items are "secrets of convenience," others show the pernicious trend of classification in reverse, while others show a classification system whose right hand is unaware of what the left is doing. The NSC has its work cut out for it - but we'll all be better for it