Finding Aid to NSA History Collection Declassified
The National Security Agency has declassified the finding aid for a collection of thousands of historically valuable NSA scientific and technical records that were transferred to the National Archives (NARA) last year.
Up to now the contents of the collection had been opaque to the public. As David Langbart of NARA described the collection to the State Department Historical Advisory Committee last year:
“These records mostly consist of technical, analytical, historical, operational, and translation reports and related materials. Most of the records date from the period from the 1940s to the 1960s, but there are also documents from the 1920s and 1930s and even earlier. The NSA reviewed the records for declassification before accessioning and most documents and folder titles remain classified. [. . .] The finding aid prepared by NSA was the only practical way to locate documents of interest for researchers, but it is 557 pages long and is classified.”
When confronted with this impasse last month, the National Security Agency to its credit moved to rectify matters by declassifying the finding aid, which is now available as a .pdf file here (or as an .xlsx file here).
Most of the folder titles (listed beginning on p. 13 of the .pdf file) deal with narrow, highly specialized aspects of cryptologic history prior to 1965. A few examples picked at random: German Signals Intelligence in World War II; A Compilation of Soviet VHF, UHF and SHG Activity by Area, Source and Service; Hungarian Army Communications; Description of Chinese Communist Communications Network; and so on. Those folders all remain classified. But armed with the titles and file locations of such records (and of thousands more), researchers can now pursue their declassification.
Release of the finding aid by NSA “should help interested researchers gain access to relevant material more readily,” said David J. Sherman of NSA, who facilitated disclosure of the document.
The public rarely sees the quiet, often messy work that goes into creating, passing, and implementing a major piece of legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act.
If this proposed rule were enacted it would have deleterious effects on government workers in general and federal researchers and scientists, specifically.
When we introduce “at-will” employment to government employees, we also introduce the potential for environments where people are more concerned about self-preservation than service to others.
There is no better time to re-invigorate America’s innovation edge by investing in R&D to create and capture “industries of the future,” re-shoring capital and expertise, and working closely with allies to expand our capabilities while safeguarding those technologies that are critical to our security.