US classified documents report [Information Security Oversight Office] News
US classified documents report [Information Security Oversight Office]

Report to the President 2004, Information Security Oversight Office, issued to the President on March 31, 2005 and publicly released July 1, 2005 [indicating that 15.6 million documents were classified by the US government in 2004, almost double the number from 2001, leadig to a cost to taxpayers of $7.2 billion]. Excerpt:

This report provides information on the status of the security classification program as required by Executive Order 12958, as amended, "Classified National Security Information." It includes statistics and analysis concerning components of the system, primarily classification, declassification, and the ISOO inspection program. It also contains information with respect to industrial security in the private sector as required by Executive Order 12829, as amended, "National Industrial Security Program."

Read the full text of the report here [PDF]. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

First US life insurance company incorporated

On January 11, 1759, America's first life insurance company was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers was established by Presbyterians to support the families of their ministers. In 1988, the company's name was changed to the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund. The company later became Covenant Life Insurance Company before being acquired by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in 2002. Read a history of the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund from the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

Treaty ended Anglo-American claims, courts in China

On January 11, 1943, the United States and Great Britain relinquished by treaty their extraterritorial claims in China. This abandonment effectively ended the jurisdiction of the extraterritorial United States Court for China (established 1906) and the British Supreme Court in China. Read more about the United States Court for China, which one scholar has called "probably the strangest federal tribunal ever constituted by Congress," in a short online history of the US Ninth Circuit.