Obama Opens Up Secret Docs

Another reversal from the Bush-Cheney era: President Obama announced on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely”—part of his administration’s efforts to overhaul the executive branch’s system of protecting national-security info. Obama’s executive order also rescinds an earlier order by President Bush that allows the leader of the intelligence community to veto decisions by an interagency panel to declassify information; now he will have to appeal to the president. In addition, agencies will be required to regularly review the kinds of information that they classify and to scrap obsolete secrecy requirements. Obama also set up a new National Declassification Center at the National Archives to help speed up declassification.