Executive Order 12958

On April 17, 1995, President Clinton signed the new Executive Order 12958, "Classified National Security Information." The Order reflects one of the Clinton administration's highest priorities: the principle of openness in government. It gives the public unprecedented access to previously classified government information. The latest amendment as of June 1, 2006, is Executive Order 13292.

The Department of Energy has a fundamental belief that openness is the first step in a logical progression of public participation in government, which provides better government accountability and fosters public trust, ultimately resulting in government better serving the people.

Executive Order 12958 formalizes the concept of openness that the Department has worked so hard to implement since 1993. In fact, the Department of Energy's declassification program served as a model for some of the key elements contained in the order which are designed to eliminate improper classification.

Under the previous Executive order, National Security Information was classified indefinitely with no regard for the public's right to know. This policy resulted in the unnecessary classification of many historically significant records, making them unavailable to the public for no good reason. The new Executive order, however, no longer allows this information to remain classified indefinitely.

Specifically, the order requires that Government agencies automatically declassify, by the year 2000, all permanently valuable National Security Information records that are 25 years old or older, and that do not contain information which is exempt from declassification under one of nine specific categories of currently sensitive information. Until then, Agencies must declassify an appropriate percentage of such records annually. In order to prevent the inadvertent declassification of sensitive nuclear weapons information, the Department must review records prior to their declassification and public release. The release of such records would assist proliferants in their quest to develop a nuclear weapons program.

Executive Order 12958 does not apply to and, therefore, cannot require the automatic declassification of all types of classified information. In fact, the Department's information of most interest to stakeholders, that is classified Restricted Data—information specifically concerning our nuclear weapons program, is not covered by the Executive order. Restricted Data is classified under the Atomic Energy Act, which does not require large-scale review and release.

Regardless, in order to meet the needs of our customers, we have committed to include all historical records related to our nuclear weapons program in our reviews for declassification under the Executive order, whether required or not. This approach to implementing Executive Order 12958 ensures that the maximum amount of theDepartment's historical records of most interest to our stakeholders are made publicly available.