Letter: Bush team stifles public information

Friday, Nov. 9, 2001 | 3:56 a.m.

Betcha didn't know that George W. Bush recently signed an executive order that gives him control of any access to former President Ronald Reagan's papers and includes members of Reagan's administration who are now in W's administration. Poppy Bush is similarly protected from nosy reporters seeking access to (former) public information.

Another information clampdown was issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft in his Oct. 12 memo reversing the Freedom of Information policies, in place since 1993. Ashcroft called on agencies to withhold information "whenever the law permits," and to be assured that the "Department of Justice will defend your decisions."

The FAA erased the long-standing lists of sanctions against airports that violated security, leaving reporters no means of evaluating the FAA's failures to enforce its own public safety rules.

The chemical industries, the EPA and the Energy Department have all erased information from their websites, and the CDC has effectively been muzzled while Ashcroft continues his weekly and pointless issuances of generalized attacks that are "credible, substantial and imminent."

This administration asked for and received censorship of Al Jazeera tapes of Osama bin Laden speeches; information from Afghanistan is a mere trickle; the Pentagon is mostly silent, and Rumsfield repeats, daily, that the Taliban lies.

Sadly, the truth is, indeed, the first casualty of war!

VIVIEN CARDINAL