Archives need to be secured

Inter Lake editorial

The National Archives is supposed to be a secure repository of America's historical record, but it appears instead that some people have been committing a kind of national identity theft there.

Item after item has turned up missing, and there is now a criminal investigation under way to find out who has been pillaging the documents that are part of the record of who we are.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, calls it a major national security breach, and said that the loss of historical documents "robs our nation of our history and is completely unacceptable."

Among the items missing are autographs and writings of 19th century presidents, the patent file on the Wright Brothers historic airplane, and as many as thousands of electronic storage devices such as hard drives and computers.

Frankly, it's a sad state of affairs, and one that should be rectified immediately so that future donors will not be discouraged from turning important historic documents over to the public for safekeeping. This, after all, is our common heritage, and must not be allowed to be stolen away from us.

A PAIR OF Montana war veterans are heading to their final resting place today, thanks to the efforts of the Montana Missing in America Project.

The project aims to battle through the bureaucracy to find and pay final respects to veterans who went to funeral homes and never came out.

Two of those veterans died in Ronan but no one claimed their remains, so they stayed at a funeral home.

"These two people have been in a box for two years and that's long enough," project coordinator Marty Malone said. Today the cremains of the two go from Ronan to Helena for burial with military honors at Fort Harrison.

We would echo those sentiments and applaud Malone and the others who are dedicated to proper last rites for our veterans.

FINALLY, it's worth noting that comedian Al Franken is now a U.S. senator.

After a months-long battle to prove he had won election from Minnesota even though he was behind when the votes were counted on election night, Franken was at last sworn in as a senator on Tuesday.

We're not sure if this is a step up or down for him, but at the very least there is every reason for other Senate comedians to welcome home one of their own.