From Secrecy News:
“Without reform in [declassification] policy and process, agencies will continue to spend millions of dollars each year perpetuating an ineffective and inefficient declassification system, while the backlog of records waiting to be processed for the open shelves continues to grow,” according to a newly obtained National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) white paper.
The best way to fix the current system, said NARA, is to establish a National Declassification Center that will facilitate and expedite the declassification process. The failings of the present system as well as the proposed solution were detailed in “A Concept of Operations for a National Declassification Center” (pdf), dated July 8, 2009. A copy of the draft document was obtained by Secrecy News.