Abstract

Despite a lack of press attention, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration has a still-ongoing inquiry into whether the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction of videotapes depicting brutal interrogations of detainees was an unauthorized destruction of federal records. The relationship between NARA and the CIA illustrates how the role of archivists in government document destruction is fraught with legal and ethical complexities. Archivists must act as a promoter of efficient agency records management while simultaneously acting both as an arbiter of what records an agency should destroy and an enforcer when agencies destroy what they should not. The story of NARA and the destroyed CIA tapes provides an "in the trenches" view of negotiating these roles and balancing archival ethics, law, and government accountability