The AHA has written to the leadership of the Committees on Armed Services in the US Senate and US House of Representatives expressing strong concern about the restriction of public access to the Defense Technical Information Center’s (DTIC) online database following an August 4, 2026, memo that directed a Reduction in Force of civilian employees at the DTIC.
The DTIC has “served as a crucial resource for historians, military professionals, and other scholars, who have used its documents to conduct research, inform policy and practice, and preserve an important record of the nation’s military and scientific history,” the AHA wrote. AHA members have relied on the public database for decades, which includes only documents that are unclassified or have been declassified and therefore “should be available to the public consistent with the law and Congress’s longstanding commitment to transparency and public access to government information.”
The Honorable Roger Wicker
Chairman
Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Jack Reed
Ranking Member
Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Wicker and Senator Reed:
The American Historical Association writes to register our strong concern about the restriction of public access to the Defense Technical Information Center’s (DTIC) online database. Since World War II, the DTIC has served as an invaluable repository for the Department of Defense of government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business information. The DTIC’s public website featured material that was unclassified and approved for public release, and the Department has not provided a reason the portal has been restricted.
For decades, DTIC has served as a crucial resource for historians, military professionals, and other scholars, who have used its documents to conduct research, inform policy and practice, and preserve an important record of the nation’s military and scientific history. This pause in access raises significant concerns about transparency and stewardship of government documents.
An August 4, 2025, memo, “Rationalization and Transformation of the Defense Technical Information Center,” directed that a Reduction in Force of civilian employees would occur within two weeks of that date; this RIF seems to have led to the decision to restrict public users from accessing the archive. At present, only people who hold a DoD Common Access Card (CAC), Personal Identity Verification (PIV), or External Certification Authority (ECA) can access the website. This change severely restricts those who can access the site by limiting it to active-duty uniformed service personnel, selected reserve members, Department of Defense civilian employees, and eligible contractors.
Our members have used the public database’s valuable material for years to support their research and teaching in military history. As one member shared, “DTIC is absolutely essential to both my research and teaching” in military history. He pointed to reports on force readiness from the 1980s and 1990s, which were essential to his scholarship, and he and his students used other documents from the DTIC in his classes on the Vietnam War. He highlighted a specific student paper on the role of the Coast Guard during the Vietnam War, in which DTIC reports were foundational for the student’s work. Another member echoed the centrality of the DTIC in her teaching of military history. Her students used the DTIC to investigate topics ranging from army rations to long-term medical care for casualties of mines and booby-traps during the Vietnam War.
These represent just a few examples that demonstrate the DTIC’s value as a research and teaching tool about the US military. As one member concluded, if the DTIC remains inaccessible to the public, there “will simply be fewer scholars and students who decide that they want to study and understand [the military]. And that’s a loss for everyone.”
The AHA, along with our colleagues at the Society for Military History, respectfully requests that the Congressional Armed Services Committee Chairs assert its appropriate oversight over the DTIC by requiring the Department of Defense to provide a public explanation for the decision to shut down the public website, establish an interim means of access, and announce a defined timetable and process for restoring its vast unclassified resources to the public.
The Department of Defense has a legitimate responsibility to protect classified, controlled, and otherwise sensitive information. There is already a robust process in place to review classified materials. However, the public database includes only documents that are unclassified or have been declassified and, as such, should be available to the public consistent with the law and Congress’s longstanding commitment to transparency and public access to government information.
The DTIC is an invaluable resource for scholars who study the modern military. It stewards our nation’s military history and provides efficient access to declassified information. AHA members have used documents found in the DTIC in their scholarship, to teach classes on the US military, and to inform students at professional military education institutions. The sudden removal of public access to this database thwarts research into military history and teaching.
Founded in 1884 for the promotion of historical studies in the United States, the American Historical Association is the largest professional association of historians in the world, providing leadership for the discipline and promoting the critical role of historical thinking in public life. Our 10,000 members include military historians and veterans, across all 50 US states and territories.
Thank you for your assistance with this important matter.
Sincerely,
Sarah Weicksel
Executive Director
American Historical Association