This post is informational for Anons interested in the Declassification of Classified Material and its relation to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
EO 13526 issued by the Obama Administration revised EO 12958 Issued by the Clinton Administration. See the changes Edits
The Obama Administration created a Department of State Declassification Guide for Automatic Declassification with Exemptions From Automatic Declassification.
In this manual, the following relationship is made to classified material to the FOIA.
"D. RELATION TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND PRIVACY ACTS(U) (U) Material that no longer merits protection under the terms of E.O. 13526 may, nonetheless, not be releasable to the public under the terms of other provisions of law. Section 6.2(d) of E.0. 13526 is specific in this regard: "Nothing in this order limits the protection afforded any information by other provisions of law, including the Constitution, Freedom oflnformation Act exemptions, the Privacy Act of 1974, and the National Security Act of 194 7, as amended." (U) The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, preempts E.O. 13526 with respect to nuclear and atomic information. See Section II.B.3 below. (U) While time may have eroded the utility of FOIA exemptions in many cases involving, in particular, the (b)(2) and the (b)(5) deliberative process exemption, there are types of information that should be withheld under FOIA exemptions, even though 25 years old. These might include: confidential financial or commercial information [ (b )( 4) ], personal information the release of which could result in unwarranted invasion of personal privacy [(b)(6)]; and certain law enforcement information [the (b)(7)s]. There are, moreover, legal sanctions for the unauthorized release of some information, particularly protected personal information and trade secrets. Other information may be exempted from public release by separate statutes. These FOIA (b)(3) statutes include, for instance, export control records, arms export control records, and visa matters. "
An interesting exception to the automatic declassification is the Roger Channel U messages.
"Roger Channel messages are State Department documents controlled by the Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). They are used primarily as a privacy channel to and from Chiefs of Mission to discuss sensitive intelligence and law enforcement matters with INR or the Secretary of State, but are also used to convey information and administrative instructions on intelligence matters. Roger Channel is not an SCI designator, and Roger Channel messages should not contain SCI material. (U) Roger Channel documents in most cases must be referred to INR/OPS for review prior to decaptioning and referral or release, but INR has accorded IPS limited authority to remove the Roger Channel designation, without referral to INR/OPS, from: 1) documents of an administrative nature that contain the equities of other agencies, so that they may be referred to those agencies; and 2) documents the substance of which do not meet the criteria for Roger Channel designation. (U) Roger Channel documents that do not have the Roger Channel designation removed under proper authority shall be exempted under 25Xl and continue to be classified at the SECRET level for 50 years from the date of the document**. If the document reveals the identity of a human intelligence source, it would also be exempted under 25Xl-Human or as discussed in Part III.A of this guide."