Recently, U.S. intelligence agencies have been reclassifying old declassified documents, says the NY Times.
According to U.S. law, all secret documents are to be declassified after 25 years. Recently, many documents that had previously been made public are now being taken away. The National Archives and many researchers are of course in an uproar over this. For some headlines, see
NY Times 1NY Times 2NY Times 3The Times reported that most the reclassified documents were not of a particular sensitive nature, and that they mostly described "ancient history" in the political arena -- events and ideas that had occurred in the 50s, for example.
Why would the government recall all these documents? Well, suppose you were a toy company that sold dolls, and it turned out that one of the million dolls you sold last year had, say, evidence of fraud at the highest levels of the corporate hierarchy stuffed inside. Or a bomb, or something. You would never issue a message saying, "Would the person who bought the doll with the incriminating evidence please return their doll with all its contents? Thankyou." No. They would make some fuss about how the fiber they used caused a minor allergic reaction -- a rash, nothing more -- in 0.1% of children who played with the dolls, and so all the dolls need to be recalled. They would seem a little silly, but nobody would bother looking inside to see what's really going on.
"Overkill" is a standard tactic in political games. Make lots of noise, and nobody will notice what you're whispering.
I suggest that maybe, the large-scale recall is intended to mask the recovery of a few accidentally-declassified items of great sensitivity.
Would anyone else care to speculate?
-Erasmus