Documents / Official release
This Clinton Library release of Clinton Presidential Records covers the National Security Council email folder labeled Area 51, dated September 15, 1997 to November 3, 2000. It lists withdrawn emails, most held back for national security or privacy reasons. Some emails were released. They include November 1997 talking points on the President renewing a classified information exemption for the Air Force site near Groom Lake, Nevada, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Other released items are news clippings about Lake Havasu grass circles and UFO requests to the NSA.
34796D26.FIN Page 2 of 2 2 Oral arguments are scheduled for November 5. Among other things, the Government will appeal the court's decision that a Presidential exemption is required to protect classified information. Plaintiffs will seek to over-turn the court's decisions to proceed with exhibits under seal and on attorney's fees in addition to challenging the lower court's dismissal of both cases. The 9th Circuit would likely rule six to twelve months later. exemption. The exemption was necessitated by litigation over RCRA compliance at the facility. While ruling that the information in question was appropriately classified, the Federal district court ruled that under RCRA classified information could only be protected from public disclosure pursuant to a Presidential exemption. That ruling remains under appeal by both the plaintiffs and government, which argues among other things that a Presidential exemption under RCRA is not required in order to protection classified information.
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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 37 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.