The Department of Defense returned a large collection of unclassified policy directives to its web site, Secrecy News reported on Oct. 16. According to the Associated Press, the Defense Department documents in question included papers that explained department policy on conscientious objectors, displaying flags, and hundreds of other unclassified materials. Public oversight helped the Defense Department to rethink this instance of secrecy. Secrecy News earlier this month called attention to the removal of the documents. On October 13, The Memory Hole web site posted the removed documents to their web site. Secrecy News is a highly respected publication of the Federation of American Scientists and is written by Steven Aftergood.