Release of secret documents delayed

President Obama is pledging an unprecedented age of transparency, but the spy agencies are holding him up. There are a number of documents--all more than 25 years old--that the administration has not been able to nudge out of the secrecy vault, according to a Boston Globe article. The documents in question were scheduled to be declassified on Dec. 31 under an order originally signed by President Bill Clinton and amended by President George W. Bush.

Some of the agencies have thrown up roadblocks to disclosure and reviewed only a fraction of the material to determine whether releasing them would jeopardize national security.

Now, the White House has agreed to give the agencies an extension past the Dec. 31 deadline. It is the third extension of documents that should be destined for the historical record to shed light on U.S. behavior dating back to World War II and running through the 1980s, when relations with the Soviet Union were frigid.

The treasure trove of documents are held by a variety of agencies, according to the report, including the CIA; the NSA; the Departments of Justice, State, Defense, and Energy; and other security and intelligence agencies.

"They never want to give up their authority,'' said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive, a research center at George Washington University that collects and publishes declassified information. "The national security bureaucracy is deeply entrenched and is not willing to give up some of the protections they feel they need for their documents.''

For more on releasing intelligence documents:
- check out this Boston Globe article

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