CREST: CIA Records Search Tool

[Lee]

On 1/16/16, Michael Best <themikebest at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone can access it, but only from NARA II at College Park, MD.

If anyone can access the database from a laptop on the guest wireless
then something like
  https://www.att.com/devices/netgear/beam.html
would give the rest of the world access.  But if access is allowed
from only a NARA computer you're pretty much SOL..

> 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.

Not at all weird; it seems pretty effective to me.  Over 11 million
pages "released" and only 10% _printed_ (as in someone would have to
scan the page to get it back into electronic format) sounds like a
pretty good access control system for something you don't really want
to make public.

Regards,
Lee


>
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 7:05 PM, Martin Becze <mjbecze at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Can anyone access the CREST db? Do I need any specail permission?
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2016 at 2:55 PM, Michael Best <themikebest at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>
>>
>