What seems to be coming out of the administration is the idea that public information is a dangerous thing. —Tom Connors, Society of American Archivists

The Bush-Cheney administration may be the most secretive in U.S. history.

Soon after the administration took office, Vice-President Cheney chaired a National Energy Policy Development Group, which met in secret and issued policies that seemed purpose-built to satisfy a handful of big Bush-Cheney contributors. National energy policies affect the economy, the environment, and our relations with oil-producing nations, but the administration has fought hard to prevent the American people from learning how those policies were decided, and who was invited to participate in the process. They’ve fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep their secrets.

Bush’s Executive Order 13223 attempts to repeal, by executive fiat, the 1978 Presidential Records Act. It lays down new rules to prevent journalists, historians and other scholars from seeing any presidential documents that a sitting or former president doesn’t want them to see. The shroud of secrecy can outlive a former president—he can pass his veto power over the release of information on to his heirs.

The administration resisted the creation of an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Congress created the commission anyway, and the administration’s consistent response has been to throw roadblocks into the commission’s course. For a long time they refused to allow testimony from White House officials. Under tremendous public pressure, they eventually allowed a few officials to testify, in exchange for guarantees that the commission would not seek testimony from others. The administration is blocking access to Clinton-era documents that might show what the government knew, and when the government knew it. Clinton wants the documents released to the commission. Bush wants more secrecy.

Emily Miller, deputy press secretary to Secretary of State Colin Powell, “pulled the plug” while Powell was being interviewed for the Sunday morning news program Meet the Press. I don’t know what she was trying to hide, but her bizarre behavior is entirely in keeping with Bush-Cheney policy.

The entire administration seems to be afflicted with a kind of gag reflex.
11:09:10 PM  #  
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A good line, from a Slashdot comment by someone who calls himself “Frigid Monkey”:

No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don’t feel safe.