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At least in the US government, whomever creates the document classifies the document. It basically requires an act of congress or the President to change it once done.

That being said, "I will say that 'classified' has often become a way to hide actions that governments and individuals don't want the public to see" is just as true there.

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> At least in the US government, whomever creates the document classifies the document

That’s just not true unless you mean they apply already established classifications on derivative content.

https://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/cnsi-eo.html

Section 1.3 for the list of people that can classify things. The rest is “derivative” of an OCA’s decisions.

Well, that happened in 2009, I was in back in 2007… so, if we want to get super-pedantic, only the President can classify and unclassify documents and he/she delegates the fuck out of it.

> It basically requires an act of congress or the President to change it once done.

Isn't the mere passage of time also a remover of classification? Like isn't there a default time from the creation date?

Or it must be positively declassified by an action?

IIRC, after 50 years it can be reviewed for declassification. I don't think there is anything automated about it.

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