All of these present much greater difficulties for declassifiers than working with paper because of the requirement for special equipment to access the information. Scanning and on-line redaction systems might be adapted for review of microfilm. But at present the only way to declassify audio tapes, motion picture films, or videotapes is to listen to or view them. While these records are much smaller in volume than the mountain of paper records awaiting our attention, they are proportionally much more time consuming to review. We must concern ourselves now with developing effective methods and automated tools for declassifying records in these other formats.
Electronic records pose a special problem.
We have growing quantities of computer generated records, ranging from millions of e-mail messages to vast scientific databases, all of which require new methods for appraisal, preservation, and public access. This includes the more than 5,000 magnetic tapes and hard disks made by the Executive Office of the President and the National Security Council under Presidents Bush and Reagan. Electronic maintenance means preventing inadvertent deletion of such data, transferring it from deteriorating tapes and disks, and making it accessible without keeping all the obsolescent hardware and software on which it was originally created. At the same time, all of the original information must be preserved. And while relatively few electronic records fall within the 25-year backlog, the decisions we make now about automated tools for declassification must be made with electronic records in mind.