Kafka's Non-reclassification scheme

The government is reclassifying documents that have been declassified for years. No reason, just for the heck of it. But no, they say, we're not declassifying at all:

The document removals have not been reported to the Information Security Oversight Office, as the law has required for formal reclassifications since 2003.

The explanation, said Mr. Leonard, the head of the office, is a bureaucratic quirk. The intelligence agencies take the position that the reclassified documents were never properly declassified, even though they were reviewed, stamped "declassified," freely given to researchers and even published, he said.

Thus, the agencies argue, the documents remain classified — and pulling them from public access is not really reclassification.

Mr. Leonard said he believed that while that logic might seem strained, the agencies were technically correct.

"he believed...the agencies were technically correct"? You mean, given that they insisted they were doing a perfectly legal thing, he felt he'd better believe they were? No further explanation?

(Hat tip Max, who emails me interesting things instead of posting them to the blog. Why, husband? You can post blog entries your ownself too!)