Sixty-two percent of respondents to a Scripps Survey Research Center poll conducted at the request of the American Society of Newspaper Editors said “public access to government records is critical to the functioning of good government.”
The poll indicated that only a third of Americans consider the federal government “very open.” Twenty-two percent of respondents consider the federal government “very secretive”; another 42 percent said it was “somewhat secretive.”
Bush Expands Government Secrecy, Arouses Critics By Alan Elsner, Reuters [September 3, 2002]
“This administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon administration. They don’t believe the American people or Congress have any right to information,” said last week Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that is suing the administration to force it to reveal the members of the energy task force.
AlterNet: WireTap: Five Minutes with Helen Thomas By Elana Berkowitz, Campus Progress.
Helen Thomas: “This Bush administration is the most secretive I have ever covered, and I think the most secretive in American history since the time presidents have been covered.”
Ari Fleischer in 2002: “I make the case that we are more accessible and open than many previous administrations — given how many times Powell, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft have briefed,” he said.
“It’s constantly getting worse,” said Ari Fleischer, who preceded Mr. McClellan as Mr. Bush’s spokesman. Perhaps surprisingly for a Bush defender, he attributed the soured relationship in part to what he said was a secretiveness within the White House.
“It’s accented and compounded now because this administration is more secretive,” he said.
USATODAY.com – Secrecy grows more common with war on terror as excuse
In the ensuing years, Americans have seen many examples, including:
• A program that allows authorities to intercept electronic communications between people in the USA and people abroad. It evades the long-standing safeguard against misuse: that a warrant be granted by an independent court. Even the program itself was kept secret from everyone save a few members of Congress.
• A stepped up effort to punish government officials who leak information and to prosecute journalists who refuse to name these officials.
• A network of foreign prisons about which virtually nothing is known, and an extreme reluctance to reveal any information about the detainees at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
• Sluggish response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents going back to before Sept. 11, 2001.
• A policy of classifying more government documents than previous administrations and even reclassifying some that had been released to the public in recent years.
USATODAY.com – Survey finds more information kept from public By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
Local, state and federal government agencies are keeping more information secret from the public, making it harder for citizens to keep tabs on what elected officials and bureaucrats are doing, an investigation by the Associated Press shows.
The findings alarm proponents of open government.
“What is happening, especially at the highest levels of government, is basically un-American,” says Hodding Carter, State Department spokesman in the Carter administration. “Americans should be treated as owners of their government and of their government’s information, not as supplicants to whom you dole it out when you feel like it.” …
The AP investigation found that:
• States have steadily limited the public’s access to government information since the Sept. 11 attacks. It analyzed legislation in all 50 states and found that, since the attacks, legislatures have passed “more than 1,000 laws changing access to information, approving more than twice as many measures that restrict information as laws that open government books.”
• “Many federal agencies fall far short of the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, repeatedly failing to meet reporting deadlines while citizens wait ever longer for documents.” The act, like similar laws in each state, is designed to ensure that most government information is available to the public. It also spells out how to request the information.
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog: Public Hearing Transcript Taken Off Line
The news media kicked off Sunshine Week yesterday. Still, darkness looms. In recent days, the Defense Department’s NORAD reportedly ordered that a transcript be taken off the web from an open, public hearing which happened in January. That’s a new one, with Big Brotherish overtones, we say.
Government Openness at Issue as Bush Holds On to Records By Adam Clymer, The New York Times
The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and the public release of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties.
Some of the Bush policies, like closing previously public court proceedings, were prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and are part of the administration’s drive for greater domestic security. Others, like Vice President Dick Cheney’s battle to keep records of his energy task force secret, reflect an administration that arrived in Washington determined to strengthen the authority of the executive branch, senior administration officials say. …
Secrecy is almost impossible to quantify, but there are some revealing measures. In the year that ended on Sept. 30, 2001, most of which came during the Bush presidency, 260,978 documents were classified, up 18 percent from the previous year. And since Sept. 11, three new agencies were given the power to stamp documents as “Secret” — the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services. …
Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, argues that secrecy does more harm than good. …
“Secrecy is a formula for inefficient decision-making,” Mr. Moynihan said, and plays to the instincts of self-importance of the bureaucracy.
This week on NOW:
Friday, March 17, 2006 on PBS
(Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html)
“The Sunshine Gang”
Your government is keeping secrets from you. Meet some people fighting
back to uncover the truth.
How far can and will the government go to keep its secrets? On this
week’s show, meet some ordinary people showing extraordinary courage in
fighting government stealth and secrecy. They include two mothers who
lost their sons in the Iraq War, a Massachusetts mayor with safety
concerns about a local energy plant, and a retired Virginia couple who
uncovered something very fishy in their hometown. Also, hear from a
Republican Congresswoman who charges the White House is resisting
Congressional efforts to keep warrantless eavesdropping in check.
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NOW Online
Starting Friday morning, the NOW web site will follow up on the story
with exclusive features and information, including:
* A comprehensive look at FOIA, featuring state-by state resources and
information on how to use the law yourself
* A personal reflection from Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa
* Comprehensive follow-up resources, including links to the memorial
websites for two U.S. soldiers whose parents were misinformed about
their deaths
* An update on the NSA wiretapping story
All this, plus an incredible archive of in-depth information and deep
insight on the issues most important to you at www.pbs.org/now
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