Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Columnist Benjamin Grove: Bush’s culture of secrecy shrouds public records

IN 1974 TWO influential aides to President Ford urged him to veto a strong revision of the eight-year-old Freedom of Information Act. The legislation was aimed at shining more light on government in post-Watergate Washington, but the aides fretted that it gave the public too much access to White House business.

Ford vetoed the legislation, Congress overrode him, and the act became law.

Nearly 30 years later, those aides -- Ford's chief-of-staff Donald Rumsfeld, and Rumsfeld's top lieutenant Dick Cheney -- are part of a new campaign to block the flow of information to the public.

Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld are now influential players in a presidential administration that even Watergate figure John Dean calls "startlingly Nixonian," it is noted in the September issue of American Journalism Review.

The trade magazine's cover story examines how openness in government is under attack. In the article, William Powers, editor of Washington-based National Journal magazine, says, "This administration keeps secrets like nobody in Washington has kept secrets for a long time -- maybe ever."

Consider some examples:

But in October, Ashcroft boldly directed federal agencies to deny access to unclassified documents requested under the act. He added that he would throw the full weight of the Justice Department behind defending agencies that deny requests. Ashcroft's message was simple and brazen: short of State Department cafeteria menus, all records are off limits. If you want them, get a good lawyer.

How did Bush's culture of secrecy evolve? In a word, war. Bush says virtually everything government does these days has to do with national security and is, therefore, off-limits. Congress has been reluctant to challenge Bush on this point in an election year. And the public may be accepting Bush's reasoning in increasing numbers, one poll indicates.

This year a record high 49 percent of respondents to a Freedom Forum survey said the First Amendment gives Americans too much freedom. That's up from 39 percent last year and 22 percent in 2000, according to the fifth annual survey conducted by the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center.

The war spurred the most "astonishing" survey results yet, said Kenneth Paulson, the center's director. People view the First Amendment (freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition) as possible obstacles to the war on terrorism, he said.

Of the five freedoms, freedom of the press was least popular: 42 percent said the media have too much freedom. Forty percent said newspapers should not criticize the military.

"They think the press is too aggressive, that the media is too intrusive," Paulson said. "They want to feel good about their president, and here are these people asking hard, sometimes rude questions. That doesn't go over well."

If that is true, it is more troubling than the statistics. Would Americans really prefer it if the media stopped covering the Pentagon and the White House -- so they could feel good about their leaders and not be bothered by the dirty details of war?

One man who is particularly troubled by Bush is journalist Bill Moyers, who explored attacks on the Freedom of Information Act in an April PBS special. Moyers has more than a passing journalistic interest; he was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary in 1966 when Johnson signed the original act into law.

The government's secrecy is all the more disturbing now because the war on terrorism is one without limits, Moyers noted in a column.

"We don't know what's going on, how much it's costing, where it's being fought, and whether it's effective," Moyers said. "That gives a handful of people enormous power to keep us in the dark."

Where is Congress in all this?

Certainly, a few lawmakers have taken note.

Bush looks at the public "as some sort of obstacle or hurdle that is to be avoided," Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V., said in a speech in July. "This kind of executive mentality can only emanate from the arrogance ... that believes the White House is the fountain of wisdom in Washington."

But many lawmakers look the other way as Bush minimizes Congress -- and the public -- as partners in democracy.

Lawmakers can work to change that. The Senate should start this week.

Congress returns to Washington Tuesday after a month off, and senators will promptly pick up Bush's request for a new Department of Homeland Security. Bush asked that the 170,000-employee department be exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests, which the House approved. The Senate should reject that provision.

"Defending freedom is good," Bush told reporters during a chat earlier this year. Few could argue.

While Bush defends freedom abroad, his administration should stop diminishing the public's freedom at home.

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