David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, published a new blog post this week regarding prioritizing the declassification of government secrets.

“The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) recently hosted an open meeting to discuss its recommendations to the President on Transforming the Security Classification System, focusing on declassification prioritization,” he said.

The task before the National Declassification Center is massive, with an estimated backlog of 354 million pages awaiting final declassification review.

The nation’s archivist has asked the public for input on the approach it should take. Should the National Archives “make declassification decisions because of their topicality or ‘gradually declassify everything in an orderly and systematic way’?” he asked. “Or do some of both? Your thoughts?”

For more on this, read Steven Aftergood’s post on declassification prioritization and then weigh in transforming classification, if you’re so inclined.