Obama Intended to Decrypt Cold War Files, Establish National File Decryption Center

Recently the president of the United States, Barack Obama, said that his government would make a decision on whether to decrypt more than 400 million Cold War era files of various types before the end of the year. White House officials announced that the above measures mean that the U.S. government will conduct a great number of reforms to the existing “Regulations on Files Management.” It is reported that Obama will make an announcement about setting up a “National File Decryption Center” before the end of this year in order to provide more opportunities for the public to have access to all kinds of declassified documents.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that the Cold War documents that would be declassified at the end of this year were related to the relationship between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the process of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, various spying cases, drastic changes in Eastern Europe and so on. Currently, the “Confidential Provision” implemented by every department of the U.S government includes up to 2000 kinds of widely varied and differing aspects of rules and regulations. Since coming to power, Obama has promised to implement more open and transparent policies, one of which is decrypting these Cold War files.

When George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were president, they signed a number of decrees to strengthen the confidentiality of all types of archived files in the name of “national security.” Obama tried to find a balance between national security and the public’s “right to know,” in order to achieve both at the same time. According to the AP, in 2008, the United States government (except for the intelligence agencies) spent $8.2 billion on preserving these confidential files and $43 million to decrypt various types of files.

According to people familiar with the situation, the task of decrypting files is time-consuming and laborious. Therefore, some people suggested that Obama decrypt all the Cold War archives once and for all, so that the relevant institutions can avoid spending too much taxpayer money reviewing each document individually. However, the U.S. intelligence agencies have made it clear that they don’t want to hand over the files on their hands to the newly established “National File Decryption Center” for processing.