About this site

The Classified Record is a searchable index of declassified U.S. government documents, with primary sources linked and FOIA status documented for each entry. It exists because the existing infrastructure for accessing declassified records was built for researchers, not for the general public.

The CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room contains millions of pages of declassified material. The National Archives holds billions more. The National Security Archive at George Washington University maintains one of the most important collections of government records in the world. None of these resources were designed for a person who simply wants to know what a document says and why it matters. They require familiarity with FOIA exemption categories, document numbering systems, and archival search interfaces that have not been meaningfully updated in years.

This site is not a replacement for those resources. It is a translation layer between them and anyone who wants to understand what the government has confirmed without spending weeks learning how to navigate federal archives.

Every document on this site has its full text transcribed into searchable HTML. This has not been done before at scale for declassified government records. Declassified documents exist almost exclusively as scanned PDFs, which means their text is not indexed by search engines. A person searching for information about Project ARTICHOKE's June 1952 overseas interrogations, the 1963 CIA Inspector General report on MKUltra safehouses, or the 1977 Department of Defense memorandum confirming Army and Navy participation in CIA drug programs will find newspaper articles about those subjects. They will not find the documents themselves, because the documents are image files that search engines cannot read.

The Classified Record changes that. When a document is added to this site, its full text is transcribed, redacted passages are marked as REDACTED so the structure of the original document is preserved, and the transcription is published as indexed HTML. For the first time, the actual language of these documents is searchable.

Each entry also includes a plain English summary of what the document confirms, a section on what the document does not establish, and a documented FOIA status that distinguishes between records withheld under a classification exemption and records for which the government claims no documents exist. That distinction is meaningful. Most resources that discuss these documents do not address it.

This site does not draw conclusions that the documents do not support. Where a document establishes a fact, that fact is stated. Where a document raises a question without answering it, the question is noted and the absence of an answer is documented. Where a claim about a program or event is not supported by any released document, that absence is stated plainly.

The documents on this site include records that have been used to support conspiracy theories, and records that have been used to debunk them. The site treats neither use as its purpose. A document says what it says. The Classified Record reports what the document says.

This site is not affiliated with any government agency. It is not a FOIA filing service. It does not provide legal advice regarding FOIA requests or the interpretation of classification exemptions.

The Classified Record was built by William Ray Brown, a techno-thriller author whose fiction is built on actual patents, declassified CIA documents, and government research programs. The first book in his Interference series begins with US Patent 3,951,134, a device for remotely monitoring and altering human brain waves filed in 1974 and approved by the United States Patent Office. The fiction follows where the documents lead.

The research infrastructure built for the novels became the foundation for this site. The documents indexed here are the same documents that informed the books. The difference is that on this site, the documents are the product, not the source material.

The Classified Record is a project of williamraybrown.com and goforlaunch.live.

A document is added to this site when three conditions are met. The document must be a genuine primary source, produced by a government agency, classified at the time of production, and subsequently released through declassification review or a Freedom of Information Act request. The document must be locatable through a public archive. The document must confirm something specific that people are searching for and not finding in a readable form.

Documents are not selected because they support a particular conclusion. They are selected because they are real, because they are hard to find in readable form, and because understanding them requires context that most people do not have and most resources do not provide.

Every document entry links to its primary source. Where a direct document URL exists in the CIA FOIA Reading Room, the National Archives, or another government database, that URL is provided. Where a direct link is not available, the document's identifying number and the agency's FOIA portal are provided so the record can be located independently.

Government FOIA portals change their URLs. Pages go offline. Collections are reorganized. When a source link becomes inactive, this site preserves the document identifier and the Internet Archive snapshot URL so the record remains locatable.