Government Documents (United States): Declassified Documents

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.

As NSA/CSS reviews records under the Freedom of Information Act or Mandatory Declassification Review provisions of Executive Order 13526, we will make the material available to the public via the NSA.gov website on the Internet. In addition, NSA/CSS periodically conducts "Special Topical Reviews" of categories of records, such as the Gulf of Tonkin, USS Liberty, UKUSA, and posts those records to this site. Lastly, in accordance with the federal Open Government initiative, we will identify subjects and records for which there is a general public interest. We will meet transparency goals by reviewing those records and including them on this web page.

Access to over 485,000 bibliographic references and 140,000 recently declassified documents, including information declassified in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. In addition to these documents, OpenNet references older document collections from several DOE sources. This database is updated regularly as more information becomes available. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at opennet@osti.gov or use the Contact Us link above the Search box.

Includes instructions on where and how to a FOIA request.