The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) at the National Archives this week issued its 2006 Annual Report detailing the status of declassification programs in the federal government and industry.

The major challenge facing ISOO last year was the December 31, 2006, deadline imposed by Executive Order 12958, as amended requiring mandatory declassification of federal records 25 years old or older. During fiscal year 2006, the Executive Branch branch declassified 37.6 million pages of records, and since 1996 approximately 460 million declassified pages have been made publicly accessible. However, the National Archives still holds another 400 million pages of declassified federal record that require additional processing before they can be made available.

On July 12, ISOO Director J. William Leonard testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence on the state of declassification efforts by ISOO. Also testifying were Meredith Fuchs, General Counsel to the National Security Archive and Steven Aftergood, Project Director on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.