White House Declines to Provide Storm Papers

[yellowdogmi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/politics/25katrina.html?_r=2
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: January 25, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.
(snip)

More secrets from the most secretive administration in the history of our republic. Just to weigh in does anyone recall a brief blurb at the beginning of this nightmare about * extending the date when the papers classified under his fathers administration become open to the public? It seems to me I can remember something to that effect and wondering at the time what do they have to hide?

[stevedeshazer]

1. This might answer your question

Bush's Veil Over History

WASHINGTON - SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.

But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.

Before that executive order, the National Archives had controlled the release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which stipulated that all papers, except those pertaining to national security, had to be made available 12 years after a president left office.

Now, however, Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy. (Although Mr. Reagan's term ended more than 12 years before the executive order, the Bush administration had filed paperwork in early 2001 to stop the clock, and thus his papers fall under it.)

more: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1010-20.htm

On a related note, why does the President get to keep everything secret, while he spies on the rest of us? :grr:

[Justitia]

2. "Declines"?? Like an invitation??? How about REFUSES???

This is the most secretive, arrogant, abusive and opaque administration in at least the last century, and their actions are still being "dressed up" for public consumption.

The tyrant and his entire cabal are completely craven and never held to account.

Why the hell did we have a revolution anyway, only to end up like this???

Unbelievable.

[gratuitous]

3. If they've done nothing wrong, what do they have to hide?

Gee, that stupid little aphorism works both ways. Who'da thunk it?

[depakid]

4. Why should they?

What are the Dems going to do about it? They've never done anything before.

[Supersedeas]

5. Open Responsive Democratic Government????