In Order to Comply With Obama's Transparency Pledge, NSA Declassifies a 200-Year-Old Document

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Secrecy News reports

The National Security Agency announced yesterday that it has declassified a report that is over two hundred years old.

The newly declassified report, entitled "Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing," dates from 1809.  It is part of a collection of 50,000 pages of historic records that have just been declassified by NSA and transferred to the National Archives.

The NSA said the new release demonstrated its "commitment to meeting the requirements" of President Obama's January 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.

Also at that link: an update on the federal government's collapsing case against Thomas Drake, the NSA employee who told Americans their government was spying on them.