Under Bush,* Expanding Secrecy

[kskiska]

By Dana Milbank

It was a banner week for government secrecy.

Last Monday, the Supreme Court announced it would consider an effort by Vice President Cheney to keep private the records of the energy policy task force he ran. On Friday, the White House announced that it has known for two weeks about an attack on a convoy carrying Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer -- but had decided not to divulge the information. Later that day, President Bush announced a disarmament deal with Libya reached during nine months of secret negotiations.

Also last week, it emerged that the government was acting to keep more Pentagon information out of the public domain and that it has removed from the U.S. Agency for International Development Web site remarks by an administration official that had badly understated the cost of Iraqi reconstruction.

In the meantime, however, the chairman of the federal Sept. 11, 2001, commission, in remarks released last week, criticized needless government secrecy.

"I've been reading these highly, highly classified documents. In most cases, I finish with them, I look up and say, 'Why is this classified?' " said the chairman, former New Jersey governor Tom Kean, a Republican. "And so one of the things that I hope is that maybe out of our work and maybe others, a lot of these documents that are classified, will be unclassified."

Well, governor, keep hope alive. But don't bet on it. As last week's events and discoveries make clear, the Bush administration seems to be going in the other direction. The administration has been unusually successful keeping its policy deliberations out of public view, and millions of government documents -- including many historical records previously available -- have been removed from the public domain.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22764-2003Dec22.html

[Rose Siding]

1. Milbank includes a bushism at the end!

snip>
The Quotable Bush:

"I want to remind you all that in order to fight and win the war, it requires an expenditure of money that is commiserate with keeping a promise to our troops to make sure that they're well paid, well trained, well equipped. . . . See, without the tax relief package, there would have been a deficit, but there wouldn't have been the commiserate -- not 'commiserate' -- the kick to our economy that occurred as a result of the tax relief."

-- President Bush on Dec. 15, giving a

commensurate response to a question at his news

conference.

[Snazzy]

7. Dana seems to be one of the only WaPo Journalists...

That is not a pod.

Dana :yourock:

Beware the watermelon truck. Stay off the marsh.

[Fenris]

2. Trust us!

This government behaves like Bill O'Reilly, clamoring for the support and faith of the common man whilst increasing it's profit. And when anyone starts asking questions, the government tells them to shut up.

[young_at_heart]

3. Surely there are SOME Republicans who don't agree with this!!!!

This is no longer the Republican party. Those who are old enough should tell the younger people about Eisenhower, etc. The amount of secrecy today is somewhat pathological when you add up all the specifics.

[qanda]

4. If anyone gets a chance

See the re-run of the last segment from today's (12/22) Washington Journal. A man by the name of Steven Aftergood from an organization called the FAS Project on Government Secrecy http://www.fas.org/sgp/
He was absolutely excellent. Also, I believe there is an article in this week's US News and World Report called "Keeping Secrets" http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/031222/usnews/22secrecy.htm which discusses the Bush* Administration and their excessive secrecy.

I believe you can see that tape from following the links at www.c-span.org

On Edit: Added link to USNews Report: Keeping Secrets

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Yes, it was good. Recommended.

[Thor_MN]

5. I, for one, would like to see a candidate promise to undo *'s exec order

keeping Ronnie's and poppy's papers from the public that paid for them. Watergate resulted in legislation to make presidential papers public - * short circuited it with an executive order, Congress rolled over and played dead.

[pfitz59]

6. "of the people, by the people, for the people...."

Question is...which people? Certainly not you and I! Aristocrats run amok.

[dennis4868]

9. Question is...which people?

This is a so-called government of, by, and for the Halliburtons of the world! I just wish the people of this country would see that.....