The Cult of Secrecy at the White House

THE CULT OF SECRECY AT THE WHITE HOUSE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
There’s no end to President Bush’s slyness in subverting new Congressional law and clinging to the secrecy that has been the administration’s executive cloak. When a vital measure to strengthen the tattered freedom-of-information law won unanimous approval by both houses of Congress, the president was forced to soften his stand and quietly sign it into law on New Year’s Eve. But, of course, even as open-government groups celebrated, the White House had another trick up its sleeve. Rather than fulfilling Congress’s bipartisan mandate to establish the ombudsman at the respected National Archives, the Bush budget attempts a shell-game switch of the new watchdog to the Department of Justice. The ombudsman’s independence is at the heart of repairing the information law. Congress must strike down the president’s end-run and keep the new watchdog at the National Archives, alert to the public’s understandable suspicions about its government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/opinion/07thu2.html?ref=todayspaper
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