LibGuides: Government Documents: Declassified Documents

Declassified Documents

Working with declassified documents

Government records classified upon creation are scheduled for automatic declassification after 25 years, though departments can file for extensions. A huge number of files are declassified each year, and sorting through them can be challenging, so many of the resources available here facilitate discovery and use by describing and sorting documents.

DoJ Archives - Declassification Frequently Asked Questions

Databases available to the Chapman community through the Leatherby Libraries:

U.S. Declassified Documents Online This link opens in a new window Previously classified federal records from presidential libraries and executive agencies in the 20th and 21st centuries, including intelligence studies, policy papers, diplomatic correspondence, cabinet meeting minutes, briefing materials, domestic surveillance, and military reports. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1900-2021.
Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window Approximately 140,000 declassified U.S. government documents relating to twentieth and twenty-first century history politics, and international relations. The digitized documents are made available in 56 topic-based collections. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1945-present.

Sources freely available on the web:

National Security Archive at George Washington University Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents ("the world's largest nongovernmental collection" according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.
FAS Project on Government Secrecy (1991-2021)

Freedom of Information Act Requests

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

The basic function of the Freedom of Information Act is to ensure informed citizens, vital to the functioning of a democratic society.

- FOIA.gov

The Freedom of Information Act requires the disclosure of unreleased/uncirculated information and documents upon request. This only applies to the Executive Branch, and there are several carve-outs for things that cannot be released via FOIA, including national security information, information relevant to criminal prosecutions, and the private information of individuals.

CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room The FOIA Electronic Reading Room is provided as a public service by the Directorate of Digital Innovation's Information Management Services. Here you can view documents released through the FOIA and other CIA release programs.
Department of State - Freedom of Information Act
FBI Records - The Vault
MuckRock MuckRock Foundation is a nonprofit, collaborative news site and public resource that brings together journalists, researchers, activists and regular citizens to request, analyze and share government documents, making politics more transparent and democracies more informed. MuckRock provides a repository of hundreds of thousands of pages of original government materials, information on how to file requests and tools to make the requesting process easier.