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Court Reverses Bush On Archive Secrecy
WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Monday tossed out part of a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep some of their presidential papers secret indefinitely.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the U.S. Archivist's reliance on the executive order to delay release of the papers of former presidents is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law."
Criticized by historians, the November 2001 order allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president's papers and put the onus on researchers to show a "specific need" for many types of records.
"The Bush Order effectively eliminated the archivist's discretion to release a former president's documents while such documents are pending a former president's review, which can be extended -- presumably indefinitely," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a 38-page ruling.
"The average delay caused by a former president's review of a document request is 170 days or nearly, six months," the judge wrote, adding that the Archivist's reliance on the Bush order has "caused" the delay.
The judge did not address provisions of the Executive Order extending the authority over release of presidential papers to a former president's designated representative or to former vice presidents.
The White House had no immediate comment.
The ruling came in a lawsuit led by the National Security Archives, a non-governmental research institute and library at George Washington University. It argued that the Bush order severely slowed or prevented the release of historic presidential papers.
Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, said the court had avoided "the hard questions" about the role former presidents, former vice presidents, and their heirs can play when it comes to disclosure of presidential records.
"Unless the executive order is reversed or withdrawn, decisions about the release of records from this administration may ultimately be made by the Bush daughters," Fuchs said in a statement.
Despite a veto threat, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation in March to overturn the order. A similar bill has stalled in the Senate.
© 2007 Reuters
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14 Comments so far
Show AllNow you know why they call it the Bush Crime Family.
And a big and long-lived Crime Family it is. The bushes have been around since pre-revolutionary days. They were British sympathizers then.
Traitors then. Traitors now.
I've been unable to imagine why Bush initiated such an order other than his fantasy that he could do anything he wanted, keep it secret, and never be held responsible.
What do you want to bet that in early January 2009 Washington will see a lot of smoke rising from the White House as they frantically burn incriminating papers, memos, directives, executive orders, etc....
Gee, what have they got to hide?
Probably small fruit of the looms...
In the pursuits of scholarship and GPL/free software, there are no secrets in bona fide research. The work is there in the open for everyone to see, critique, cite, improve upon, judge, etc. as the case may be.
Let me guess. "National security" reasons.
Wow, isn't it surprising that people who are secretive have secrets to hide? I would never have guessed.... The Bush-Cheney Crime Syndicate have been allowed to do anything they wish by the complicit Congress. No wonder Bush and Cheney always look so smug, like the cat that swallowed the canary.
Now that is my country! Working! Its amazing! I thought I would never see any of these half secret legislative orders overturned. Remember when you could see all the government hearings in action on public brodcasting? I thought it was from the side of a pool these days!?
Hey people, these guys work for us, are paid by us, and anything they do while in office that is recorded in any fashion is OUR property, not theirs. There is no 'proprietary' safeguard when it regards something a 'public' servant does. If we can pry the documents loose from their greedy corrupt overly-secret hands we will at last achieve true transparency from our government, and likely the Bush family will even face incrimination for the JFK assasination, 911, and many other criminal acts. They should be worried...very worried.
As the bard so succinctly stated, "The truth will out".
anney wrote:
"I've been unable to imagine why Bush initiated such an order other than his fantasy that he could do anything he wanted, keep it secret, and never be held responsible."
I remember hearing about this when he
first issued this executive order. My thought was then was that he wanted to cover his father's complicity in the Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan years.
Now with all the illegal and otherwise lowbrow stuff the current adminstration is doing, it makes sense they want to keep it secret for as long as possible. I would guess that an objective reading of their archives would result in war crime charges. Not that the spineless and
complicit Democrats would ever take
such a principled stand.
"The Bush Order effectively eliminated the archivist's discretion to release a former president's documents while such documents are pending a former president's review, which can be extended — presumably indefinitely,"...
Dictators are not inclined to allow professional archivists or anyone else the "freedom" to make judgments, especially if they're trying to hide something.
Executive abuse or executive privilege?
Executive abuse or executive privilege?
Dictatorship, or dictatorship-lite?
That's for them to decide.
And so the answer is clear.
Dick Tater, at work and play.