The Central Intelligence Agency said this week that it will post its database of declassified CIA documents online, making them broadly accessible to all interested users.
The database, known as CREST (for CIA Records Search Tool), contains more than 11 million pages of historical Agency records that have already been declassified and approved for public release.
Currently, however, CREST can only be accessed through computer terminals at the National Archives in College Park, MD. This geographic restriction on availability has been a source of frustration and bafflement to researchers ever since the digital collection was established in 2000. (See CIA’s CREST Leaves Cavity in Public Domain, Secrecy News, April 6, 2009; Inside the CIA’s (Sort of) Secret Document Stash, Mother Jones, April 3, 2009).
But that is finally going to change.
The entire contents of the CREST system will be transferred to the CIA website, said CIA spokesperson Ryan Trapani on Tuesday.
“When loaded on the website they will be full-text searchable and have the same features currently available on the CREST system at NARA,” he said.
CIA was not able to provide a date for completion of the transfer, but “we are moving out on the plan to make the transition,” Mr. Trapani said.
In the meantime, “The CREST database housed at NARA will remain up and running at least until the website is fully functioning,” he said.
Slashing research and development programs across the DOE, all while Congress rolls back clean energy tax incentives and programs, is not going to solve the nation’s energy emergency. It makes our current challenges even worse.
With strategic investment, cross-sector coordination, and long-term planning, it is possible to reduce risks and protect vulnerable communities. We can build a future where power lines no longer spark disaster and homes stay safe and connected — no matter the weather.
A lack of sustained federal funding, deteriorating research infrastructure and networks, restrictive immigration policies, and waning international collaboration are driving this erosion into a full-scale “American Brain Drain.”
With 2000 nuclear weapons on alert, far more powerful than the first bomb tested in the Jornada Del Muerto during the Trinity Test 80 years ago, our world has been fundamentally altered.