Central Intelligence Agency's Handling of Mandatory Review Requests Under Executive Order 12065

LCD-80-51: Published: Apr 11, 1980. Publicly Released: Apr 11, 1980.

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A brief summary and analysis were provided of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) handling of mandatory review requests under Executive Order 12065. The Order provides for the establishment of a mandatory review procedure to handle requests by the public, Government employees, or an agency, to declassify and release information. Each agency is to have a designated office to which the requests may be submitted, and the CIA has established this office as the Information and Privacy Division. All requests, including mandatory review requests, are sent to the Division and then assigned to the CIA components from which the documents originated. There is a handbook which provides general guidance for processing requests, and the components also use more specific classification guides. The CIA policy is to automatically deny mandatory review requests involving foreign government information. Although the Executive Order requires that the requests be processed within 60 days, a shortage of resources has caused a backlog of requests over 60 days old.

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