Posted on 11/03/2001 7:03:54 AM PST by liberallarry
Fury as Bush keeps key to the archives He has signed an executive order allowing incumbent presidents to maintain the secrecy of past documents, even if the former president involved wanted them released. The order was made despite specific objections from his own predecessor, Bill Clinton. By statute, papers are supposed to be released 12 years after a president leaves office, and 68,000 pages from Ronald Reagan's term, which ended in 1989, were due to be available in January this year. But Mr Bush's administration stalled on the issue the moment it took office, and has now formalised its objections, turning the White House itself into the gatekeeper of history. The order is expected to be challenged in Congress and the courts. Ari Fleischer, the president's spokesman, insisted that the change was intended to be helpful. "More information will be forthcoming and it will be available through a much more orderly process," he said. This convinced no one. "I'm quite stunned by this decision," said the presidential scholar Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Karen Hult, professor of political science at Virginia Tech, said: "It's difficult to tell what the exact effect will be, except that it will expand the time and effort required to get any documents at all. Using the Freedom of Information Act takes a long, long time but in comparison that will seem very easy indeed." This administration has far more reason than most to be worried about the shadow of the past. The blocked Reagan papers will include many records of confidential, and perhaps embarrassing, conversations between the then-president and Mr Bush's father who was his vice-president. The papers from President Bush Sr's own term of office were due to become public in 2005. Many current senior figures were around the White House then, including Vice-President Cheney and the secretary of state, Colin Powell. Writers who prefer to muse on the motives of past leaders were obliged yesterday to join journalists and try to fathom the thinking of the current president. The consensus was that it was a product of the country's first presidential dynasty of modern times, and that the current president was concerned above all to keep his father's name untainted. "I see it as the Family Protection Act myself," Mr Hess said. "Loyalty is a hallmark of the Bushes, and there's something quite attractive about it. "But there is an honourable case for historic record-tending, and that's clearly going to be inhibited by this. Twelve years is a decent enough interval to protect secrets, but you might have embarrassment longer than that." The 12-year rule was introduced in 1977, after the Watergate scandal; until then, each president had control of his own documents. In the years since then officials have become far more careful about what they commit to paper. "Since the Reagan administration, less and less material has been written down," Professor Hult said. "This is mainly because of concern about lawsuits, not only against presidents but against their staff. "We have some evidence that notes are not being taken in meetings, so that a whole range of things are not even being done even by email, but through talking over the phone or perhaps in corridors. Scholars are going to have to be more like investigative journalists."
Matthew Engel in Washington
Saturday November 3, 2001
The Guardian
In the sort of dispute normally more associated with secretive Britain than the open-minded US, American historians and political scientists reacted with outrage yesterday after President Bush acted to block automatic access to the archives of previous administrations.
Upon leaving office packed up all his papers and took them with him.
Our founders left this matter to be addressed solely by the elctorate, or by impeachment.
The separation of powers precludes any legislative or judicial authority, leaving a constitutional amendment as the only avenue to enforce a standard upon the executive.
The point here is about official secrecy. Are you contending that sovereign citizens do not have a fundamental right to know all the acts its government transacts in its name? Are you claiming that individual Predidents may engage in withholding information about past governemntal actions by executive order, which is in itself merely legislating by decree? How can our system ever hope to function with the people serving as the ultimate guardians of freedom if we allow our elected officials to hide their actions?
Here is George Washington on "executive privilege:" Click here
'The House of Representatives established an investigative committee on March 27 1792, "to call for such persons, papers and records, as may be necessary to assist their inquiries." (20 5 Annals of Congress (1796), 771, 782-783.)
The investigating committee requested from the president Washington the testimony and documents regarding St. Clair's failed expedition. This was the first time Congress tested what is now known as executive privilege and Washington set the benchmark for all future presidents.
Washington noted the group's determination:
"We had all considered, and were of one mind, first, that the House was an inquest, and therefore might institute inquiries. Second, that it might call for papers generally. Third, that the Executive ought to communicate such papers as the public good would permit, and ought to refuse those, the disclosure of which would injure the public: consequently were to exercise a discretion. Fourth, that neither the committees nor House has a right to call on the Head of a Department, who and whose papers were under the President alone; but that the committee should instruct their chairman to move the House to address the President. (20 5 Annals of Congress (1796), 773.)'
From the NARA site:
"In the past, Presidents had tremendous power to dispose of their papers as they saw fit. Of the first 30 men to hold the Presidential office, only 13 made specific bequests of their papers. Presidents Van Buren, Garfield, Arthur, Grant, Pierce, and Coolidge are among those who destroyed significant numbers of their papers. President Van Buren destroyed a large portion of his Presidential correspondence while he was still in office. Similarly, President Garfield destroyed many of his Presidential materials in the 2 months between being shot by an assassin and his death in 1881. President Arthur apparently burned three large garbage cans filled with his papers.
Franklin Roosevelt negotiated an arrangement with Congress in which he gave his White House materials to the United States on the condition that they be maintained in a library to be built on Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, NY. A historian is said to have asked Roosevelt why his papers did not come within the class of official government documents. The President replied that he was following the precedent set by Washington: "When I came to the White House there was not a scrap of paper in that room; when I retire, I shall not leave a scrap. The room will be swept clean for my successor."
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 terminated the long-standing historical tradition of private ownership of Presidential papers and hence the reliance on Presidential giving for the government to acquire legal custody."
Notice: former Presidents, including all of the Founders who held that office, considered themselves to be the judges of what would be released and when.
Obviously, I hold the Presidential Records Act of 1978 to be an unconstituional infringement of the Executive Branch by the Legislative.
I abhor efforts by the Legislature to pass laws that overreach it's Constitutional authority.
I agree that there is a serious problem here to be addressed, either by an Amendment, or a standard so just- that the people would support impeachment of a President who did not accede to it.
Thank you for the source on John Adams. I too have read the recent David McCollough book on Adams, and others as well, but I remember nothing about this issue. I will have to reread it.
On the Presidential Records Act, I am not at all sure of its unconstitutionality, or exactly what your argument for this position is. What constitutional duty of the Executive is being preempted by the act and exactly how does it infringe on constitutional Executive powers? I am sure, however, of the need for openness about official acts of the executive, however this is assured by our political system. During our early years, we relied on the integrity of our Presidents and their concern for their reputations to prevent abuse of the people through lying. This policy obviously cannot be relied on now. I remember being glued to the TV during the Watergate hearings and the amount of lying that was going on by Executive officials convinced me that the ability to deem something secret by virtue of national security on the decision of one person alone, the president, was the most dangerous and the most undemocratic practice existing in our political system.
Another example is the presidential pardon power. During the constitutional debate in America, the presidential pardon power was criticized as permitting the President to pardon someone who had knowledge of his own ill doings or who could provide something of value -- a sort of criminal conspiracy against the people at the Presidential level. There was no check against this power, not even impeachment since pardons can be done at the end of a term. Those arguing for this power said we just have to trust some things to an executive and the fear of a ruined reputation would prevent presidents from misusing the pardon power. Clinton disproved this theory. Self-rule cannot function in such an environment of official deceit. Permitting such secrecy allows a fundamental breakdown of the republican political thory on which our system is based. No other constitutional protections can make up for the lack of public knowledge of official acts.
While I am not sure of your argument on the Presidential records act -- I am quite sure that the use of executive orders by the President is an infringement of the sole legislative prerogative of the Congress. Executive orders have the force of law and are therefore simply nothing less than legislation by executive decree. The Congressional statue that authorizes these orders is in my mind an unconstitutional abdication of legislative duty by the Congress.
The only problem is that in recent years, republicans have been grossly ineffective at doing that.
Still, in the long run, taking the high road is probably the best course. It's easier to take your hits up front than to have to lie and mislead for years. The Clintons have succesfully used that for years, but I'm not sure that it won't eventually catch up with them.
Not according to the President. This war is expected to last for years. We're not even at the beginning yet. Anything the President wants to do can't be excused as a wartime measure. If you think that Americans need to be protected from the truth about their government, then you'd better suggest to the current administration that they privatize that protective function. After all, our government hasn't protected us from diddly at this point.
Because that's what the law says; it's what the Presidential Records Act is all about. The PRA became law in 1978 in the wake of Nixon's attempts to keep all of his records and papers secret by claiming that his records were his personal property. The PRA set things up so that when a President leaves office, his papers are left in the possession of we the people. The Reagan administration is the first administration to which the law became applicable. The law allows the (outgoing) President to designate certain papers as "off-limits to the public" for up to 12 years, but when the 12 years are up, the archivist is supposed to make the papers available to us. 68,000+ pages from the Reagan administration were supposed to be released at the beginning of 2001--it's the law, remember. Bush has been stonewalling the release since he took office. He first took a 30-day period to review the documents, then he asked for another 90 days, then another 10 weeks. These are the first Presidential records that would have been released subject to the PRA. Bush in essense has made that law null and void by claiming executive privilege and national security.
What is the government hiding? Afraid of? I'll tell you exactly what's going on. Our politicians are afraid of - the full extent of
the damage done by the CLINTON/GORE CHINAGATE ESPIONAGE SCANDAL...that's what's going on!!!
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