Washington Post: Army blocks access to web-based library of doctrinal publications.

From the article:

Army officials moved the Reimer Digital Library (http://atiam.train.army.mil) behind a password-protected firewall on Feb. 6, restricting access to an electronic trove that is popular with researchers for its wealth of field and technical manuals and documents on military operations, education, training and technology. All are unclassified, and most already are approved for public release.

Is the move excessive? We think so. Is it surprising? Of course not.

Also from the article:

In 2006, the National Archives acknowledged that the CIA and other agencies had withdrawn thousands of records from the public shelves over several years and inappropriately reclassified many of them. Early in 2002, then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft issued a memo urging federal agencies to use whatever legal means necessary to reject Freedom of Information Act requests for public documents.

And with the jockeying around of the FOIA ombudsman position, who knows which - if any - requests (one has been filed for the information now blocked in the Reimer Digital Library) will be heard.