Re: CREST: CIA Records Search Tool

it looks like the files can't be downloaded or saved electronically, at all, period. They have to be printed instead

This is such bullshit On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 11:03 PM, Michael Best wrote:

I spoke to someone from the list privately and did a little digging - it looks like the files can't be downloaded or saved electronically, at all, period. They have to be printed instead, from one of four computers which are located in College Park, MD (transparency!). So now I'm working on a plan to print and scan files from CREST. Given the scale (11+ million pages)...

I plan to be down there on Tuesday; I'll get more information and solid numbers (document counts, print speeds, etc.) and see where things are from there. Keep your fingers crossed, I may actually be able to get something.

--Mike

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 7:18 PM, Michael Best wrote:

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I'll take notes on the access and interface when I'm there next, hopefully next week.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 7:16 PM, Martin Becze wrote:

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How exactly is the accesses setup? Can we arbitrary software that accesses DB?

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 7:07 PM, Michael Best wrote:

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Anyone can access it, but only from NARA II at College Park, MD. I'm there on a semi-regular basis and want to figure out a way to efficiently liberate the docs that are only accessible from there....because that's some weird-ass censorship.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 7:05 PM, Martin Becze wrote:

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Can anyone access the CREST db? Do I need any specail permission?

On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 2:55 PM, Michael Best wrote:

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I'm spending a fair amount of time at NARA II. Any thoughts on how I might be able to automate retrieval of documents from the CREST database? There are about 10 million pages of CIA docs that haven't even been accessed, much less made their way online.

Since 2000, CIA has installed and maintained an electronic full-text searchable system, which it has named CREST (the CIA Records Search Tool), at NARA II in College Park, Maryland. *Over 11 million pages have been released in electronic format and reside on the CREST database, from which researchers have printed about 1.1 million pages. **In order to directly access CREST, a researcher must visit the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.* http://www.foia.cia.gov/collection/crest-25-year-program-archive