Just because it is public DOES mean it's declassified. There are Supreme Court cases on this. If the government can recover all the copies, then it can REclassify it. But if it can't, then the document is not classified. I ran into this situation when digging up some of William Friedman's early work from the government. I sued under FOIA to get copies, the gov't declared that the documents were top secret, and I got copies from public libraries and filed them with the court. The government complained bitterly, but a day after the New York Times story broke, they dropped the issue. Thus: Shine a bright, bright light ANYTIME they start to pull this sort of garbage. And make sure you've stashed copies of the document in half a dozen unlikely places, before letting the government know you have the document. It's completely likely that they'll send their bully-boys to steal it from you so they can reclassify it, if you have the only copy. John