The process is often referred to as "reclassification," but because the records were never properly declassified and remained classified even when made publicly available, they are not re-classified.
In 1995, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12958 which directed agencies to declassify all records that were twenty-five years or older by the end of 1999, with certain exemptions for information that remained sensitive.
Security concerns over restricted data were heightened in 1999 by the Wen Ho Lee case, in which a Taiwanese American nuclear weapons engineer was accused of selling secrets to the People’s Republic of China.
The Kyl-Lott Amendment led to the removal of previously declassified records from public access for re-review of restricted data.
[2] During the George W. Bush administration, the signing of Executive Order 13292 in 2003 eased the process of withdrawals and further delayed automatic declassification review.