Union representatives demanded that the aid agency follow the law stated in the Federal Records Act. Defense lawyers argued that officials had not destroyed personnel records and would not destroy any more documents without notification.

A senior official at the main U.S. aid agency, which is being dismantled by the Trump administration, told employees to clear safes holding classified documents and personnel files by shredding the papers or putting them into bags for burning, according to an email sent to the staff.

The email, sent by Erica Y. Carr, the acting executive secretary, told employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development to empty out the classified safes and personnel document files on Tuesday. “Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” Ms. Carr wrote, according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times.

  • hansolo@lemm.eeEnglish
    21·
    1 day ago

    That was all digitized during the Obama administration. NAR has it all.

    FOIA your face off, see how much you end up with. It’ll be plenty.

    • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      4·
      1 day ago

      Specifically USAID classified files? I ask because I worked with a different segment of the US government during the Obama years and we sure as shit didn’t have everything digitized.

      • hansolo@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        22 hours ago

        My understanding was nearly everything that wasn’t digitized internally by around 2013ish was with the Archives and in their remit to digitize as of was already with them anyway. Everything after that is all electronic so it can fill out the Development Clearinghouse (DEC). It’s a whole lofty academic library aspiration, except that the DEC is a black hole because the search function sucks. Sucked. It’s gone now.

        Also, let’s not divulge too much personal info in public by asking the right questions, OK? It’ll be worth it.

        Is USAID large enough that, being co-located with another large agency in 99% of its overseas locations, and working closely with that agency which manages numerous annexes with scifs around DC, that it should warrant its OWN classified system? Can you find any documents supporting that?

        Is there already a well-established practice and policies of formal reporting from USAID using that other agency’s system for unclassified documents?

        Hint: https://fam.state.gov/fam/05fah02/05fah020440.html

        What is the name of the classified system that other large agency, large enough to be a department, uses? Hint: it’s a basic portmanteau in the document above.

        Is that the same name as is found in this public document as showing that a small agency with only a few hundred or maaaaybe a thousand staff with S or higher clearances, producing very few classified documents per year per this same document, might be using? https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2018-06/9-000-16-001-p_0.pdf

        Anyone who knows about this stuff in detail has zero feelings about shredding documents because they had to do that anyway to clean out their desks over the last month.

        • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          2·
          14 hours ago

          Thanks for the thorough response. It makes sense that different groups do things differently and the group I was working with was less forward-thinking/forward-mandated.

          Also, shout-out to Archives for doing the thankless task of storing, organizing, and making accessible everyone’s collective history.