- home - Saved Articles -
~
EA note: Early in his first term as President, George Walker Bush prevented the release of the Reagan Administration archives. The question on some minds, including my own, at that time was whether Bush-43 was candidly attempting to suppress the illegal and criminal enterprises of his father, George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush-41), who was President Reagan's Vice President and the White House commander of the horrible activities executed by criminals such as Oliver North and Felix Rodriguez and their Iran-Contra-Mena scandal pals. (High atop that list of criminal activities was the CIA's drug-smuggling and money-laundering operations at Mena, Arkansas.) By sealing the Reagan papers from public scrutiny, it appeared at that time that Bush-43 would forever suppress the vast criminality carried out by his father. So today, with this news from the Washington Times, I must guardedly wonder, and hope!, whether the Reagan papers shall finally be released.
from here on January 28, 2009:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/22/obama-lifts-bushs-veil-of-secrecy/
~
Obama lifts Bush's veil of
secrecy
Repeals act to extend presidential records shield
Christina Bellantoni and Stephen Dinan
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Moving quickly to undo the Bush administration's
regime of secrecy, President Obama on Wednesday repealed a 2001 executive order
granting former presidents, and even vice presidents, the ability to keep
documents secret long past the 12 years allowed by law.
It was one of Mr. Obama's first official acts, and was hailed as a rebuke of the
past eight years. In announcing the order, Mr. Obama said it will even tie his
own hands.
"Going forward, any time the American people want to know something that I or a
former president wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the attorney
general and the White House counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance
with the rule of law," Mr. Obama said. "Information will not be withheld just
because I say so. It will be withheld because a separate authority believes my
request is well-grounded in the Constitution."
After Watergate and President Nixon's attempts to shield presidential records,
Congress passed the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which said beginning in
1981 all records produced by a president or vice president belonged to the
public and must be archived. The law provided for their release 12 years after
an administration ended.
But with historians hoping in 2001 to finally gain a peek at Reagan
administration documents, Mr. Bush changed the rules with Executive Order 13233,
which gave former presidents, relatives of deceased former presidents and even
former vice presidents a veto over the release of information.
Former presidents can still exert privilege, but the new order returns the final
say to the Archivist of the United States, in consultation with the current
president.
An attempt to reach Mr. Bush's office was not successful.
Scott L. Nelson, a lawyer for Public Citizen who has litigated cases against the
executive order, said the new order doesn't immediately free up a bunch of
records, but "takes away the hanging threat that that veto power might be
exercised."
"It's a strong symbolic statement, if nothing else, about this president's
desire to send a message that he is committed to openness that he's willing to
take a certain portion of his own inherent authority and say he won't exercise
it unless these other officials tell him it's proper," Mr. Nelson said.
Mr. Obama also moved to undo then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's guidance in
2001 that gave government agencies new grounds to deny the release of records.
In new directives, Mr. Obama said agencies
should instead presume records are open. He signed a memo requiring three senior
officials to produce an "open government" action plan within 120 days.
"The mere fact you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean
you should," Mr. Obama said, adding that he will hold himself to "a new standard
of openness."
The Bush administration was no stranger to fights over secrecy.
As vice president, Dick Cheney was in a dispute with the National Archives,
arguing that he did not have to comply with rules requiring him to preserve
classified information. Mr. Cheney said the Constitution didn't place his office
in the executive branch, so he wasn't bound to rules written for the executive.
Open-government advocates who had battled the Bush administration praised Mr.
Obama's moves.
"President Obama's actions today are a triumph for the rule of law," said Sen.
Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, calling the move "a critical step toward
fixing the damage done to our Constitution over the last eight years."
Anne Weismann, chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, said the changes signal "a new era of transparency and
accountability that's been badly missing for eight years."
"Unlike President Bush, President Obama is not going to be reflexively
supporting executive privilege claims of former presidents," she said, adding
that it's "unprecedented."
Mr. Obama's memos encourage all government agencies to use "modern technology"
and increase the amount of information shared with the public.
"This is an enormous opportunity to set a tone and to empower hundreds of
thousands of federal employees to do the right thing," said Lucy Dalglish,
executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who
characterized it as a "180-degree turn" from the Bush administration.
Danielle Brien, executive director of the Project for Government Oversight, said
the new disclosure rules reverse President Bush's "presumption of secrecy, and
will return us to 20th-century openness." She said enforcement of the rules
could make the Freedom of Information Act a tool of the past.
"It's particularly important to get these reforms set in stone now before the
people in power start to look longingly at the good old days of secrecy," she
said.
(end article)
~
- home - Saved Articles -
~