The requirement to automatically declassify records 25 years or older “rolls” forward one year at a time.\u00a0\u00a0For example, by\u00a031 December 2012, permanent records through 31 December 1987 were automatically declassified, unless\u00a0appropriately exempted under the guidelines of the EO.\u00a0 In this regard, CIA maintains a program operating out of the CIA Declassification Center to review records under the purview of EO 13526 before they reach their automatic declassification deadline.<\/em><\/p>\n Since 2000, CIA has installed and maintained an electronic full-text searchable system, which it has named CREST\u00a0(the CIA Records Search Tool), at NARA II in College Park, Maryland.\u00a0The CREST system is the publically accessible repository of the subset of CIA records reviewed under the 25-year program in electronic format (manually reviewed and released records are accessioned directly into the National Archives in their original format). Over 11 million pages have been released in electronic format and reside on the CREST database, from which researchers have printed\u00a0about 1.1\u00a0million pages.<\/em><\/p>\n In order to directly access CREST, a researcher must visit the National Archives at\u00a0College Park, Maryland. CIA recognizes that such visits may be inconvienent and\u00a0present an obstacle to many researchers. Therefore, this website\u00a0provides researchers with an online CREST Finding Aid to research the availability of CIA documents declassified and loaded on CREST. In certain cases, as described below, PDF document images are also available.<\/em><\/p>\n Title:<\/strong>\u00a0The title listed will be the formal title of a report or the stated subject of a memorandum. However, the title maybe the best attempt by Agency indexers to identify documents without clear formal titles such as cables, letters, written notes, and other forms of communication and correspondence. In such cases, the title may include reference to the type of document, originator, recipient, location, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n Doc No.\/ESDN:<\/strong>\u00a0The Electronic Standard Document Number (ESDN) is the internal Agency tracking number which should be used when submitting a FOIA request.<\/em><\/p>\n With each rolling year, CIA will continue to release documents on CREST that are 25-years old or older in compliance with the provisions of the Executive Order.<\/em><\/p>\n In April of 2014, I requested all CIA manuals that pertain to CREST. I was supplied with the below document.<\/p>\nCREST<\/em><\/h4>\n
CREST Manuals<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/images\/pdf.gif\")
\u00a0CREST User’s Manual, 2008 Version<\/a> [80 Pages, 9.3MB]<\/p>\n\u00a0CREST Executive Overview, 2008 Version<\/a> [15 Pages, 1.7MB]<\/p>\n\u00a0CREST Quick Reference Guide, 2008 Version<\/a> [7 Pages, 1.2MB]<\/p>\n