The Bush Wall Of Secrecy

(January 9, 2004)

Rivaling the Nixon administration, George W. Bush has pursued an arrogant policy of denying the American people access to important information about their government.

"For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government--cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government while making increasing amounts of information unavailable to the taxpayers who pay for its collection and analysis."
- U.S. News & World Report, December 22, 2003

BUSH PLACED NEW RESTRICTIONS ON THE RELEASE OF GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

• Ashcroft Encouraged Agencies to Deny FOIA Requests.  In October 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a directive that encouraged federal agencies to deny Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests if there was a "sound legal basis" to do so, promising that the Justice Department would defend them in court.  This directive reversed a policy established during the Clinton administration that, according to the New York Times, required agencies to "make records available whenever they could, even if the law provided a reason not to, so long as there was no 'foreseeable harm' from the release."  In addition, the administration filed papers before the Supreme Court asking that the Freedom of Information Act be significantly narrowed.  [U.S. News & World Report, 12/22/03; New York Times, 1/3/03]
• Bush Restricted Access to Presidential Documents.  In March 2001, the White House ordered the National Archives not to publicly release 68,000 pages of records from the Reagan-Bush administration that were requested by scholars and which archivists had determined posed no threat to national security or personal privacy. The documents were due to be released after Jan. 20, 2001, as stipulated under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.  The Reagan administration was the first to be covered by this law.  President Bush also issued a more sweeping executive order in November 2001 that allows former presidents and vice presidents, or representatives designated by them or their families, to bar the release of documents by claiming one of a variety of privileges: "military, diplomatic, or national security secrets, presidential communications, legal advice, legal work or the deliberative processes of the president and the president's advisers."  Prior to this order the Archivist of the United States could reject a former president's claim of privilege.  The order was attacked on Capitol Hill, and according to the New York Times, "House Republicans were among the order's sharpest critics." Representative Steve Horn called a hearing on the issue, and Representative Doug Ose blasted the order, saying it "undercuts the public's right to be fully informed about how its government operated in the past." In the face of criticism, the White House announced in December 2001 that nearly all the 68,000 pages of the Reagan records would be released. [New York Times, 1/3/03]

BUSH TERMINATED OR ALTERED GOVERNMENT REPORTS NOT FAVORABLE TO THE ADMINISTRATION

• Bush Stopped Publishing Key Report Detailing Cuts in Federal Funding to States.  According to the Washington Post, Bush's Office of Management and Budget stopped publishing a key federal document the annual "Budget Information for States" report that details how much states received under each federal program.  As the Post reported, "...the nation's governors came to Washington complaining about inadequate federal funding for the states. But states are about to find it much harder to make this complaint because the Bush administration has decided to stop publishing the budget report that states use to see what money they are, or aren't, getting from Washington."  For fiscal year 2003, the report totaled 422 pages.  In 2002, it was 415 pages long. [Washington Post, 3/11/03]
• Bush Discontinued a Labor Department Program that Tracked Mass Layoffs.  The Bush administration quietly terminated a Labor Department program that tracked mass layoffs by U.S. companies.  This program produced a monthly report know as the Mass Layoffs Statistics report that detailed where companies with more than 50 employees closed and what types of workers were affected by the closures.  David Lazarus of the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the administration, which is "under fire for its handling of the economy," quietly killed the program which "served as a pulse reading of corporate America's financial health."  In 1992, President George H.W. Bush also eliminated the program amid his reelection campaign, which largely centered on the economy and job losses.  President Clinton revived the program two years later. [San Francisco Chronicle, 1/3/03; Washington Post, 1/3/03]
• White House Misled Public on Health Effects of September 11th Attacks in Manhattan.  In 2003, a report by the Environmental Protection Agency's Inspector General found that the White House directed the agency to alter a report regarding the health risks from debris in the air following the World Trade Center collapse in Manhattan.  According to the report, the White House "convinced the EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."  Former EPA administrator Christie Todd Whitman later confirmed that the changes were made to the report. [Associated Press, 8/23/03; Chicago Tribune 9/11/03]
• White House Altered Report on the State of the Environment.  In 2003, the White House directed EPA officials to dramatically alter a draft report on the state of the environment.  According to the New York Times, the changes requested by the White House "eliminated references to many studies concluding that global warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems."  Among these deletions requested by the White House were conclusions about the human effects on global warming that were included in a report released in 2001 by the National Research Council even though the White House had commissioned the very same report and the President endorsed it in speeches the year it was released.  Also deleted from the report at the request of the White House was a reference to a 1999 study indicating that global temperatures have increased more sharply than in the last 1,000 years.  White House officials replaced this reference with one from a study partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute that questioned the conclusion of the 1999 study.  The White House even deleted a phrase from the report that said, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment."  An internal EPA memorandum criticized the changes requested by the White House, stating that the section on climate change "no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change."  EPA officials eventually decided to delete the entire section due to concerns that they would be criticized for filtering science to fit policy decisions. [New York Times, 6/19/03; Associated Press, 6/20/03; Boston Globe, 6/20/03]
• Administration Covered Up Report Critical of the Justice Department's Diversity Efforts.  In 2003, an internal Justice Department report harshly criticized the department's diversity efforts.  However, when the report was posted on the department's website, half its 186 pages, including the summary, were blacked out.  A computer expert in Tucson electronically recovered the deleted portions of the report, which were critical of the department's record of hiring, promoting, and retaining minority lawyers.  The Justice Department pulled the report from the website after unedited versions began circulating on the Internet and appeared in the press.  The Department then re-posted a new version of the report that was thought to be more resistant to electronic manipulation. [New York Times, 10/31/03]
• EPA Allegedly Withheld Studies that were Unfavorable to Their "Clear Skies" Initiative. The New York Times reported last year that the EPA has delayed or refused to complete scientific studies of clean air proposals that conflict with or are more effective than the administration's "Clear Skies" initiative including a proposal sponsored by Senators Lieberman and McCain. "It's totally unacceptable," said Senator Lieberman at the time. "This is an administration that lets its politics and ideology overwhelm and stifle scientific fact."  According to the Times, Assistant EPA Administrator for Air and Radiation Jeffery Holmstead met with EPA staff members about the proposals they planned to analyze. Holmstead allegedly said he had to consult the White House before they proceeded, and he later decided to postpone the planned studies. The Times did, however, report that the EPA did, in fact, produce at least one internal study indicating that a proposal sponsored by Senators Carper and Chaffee was more effective than "Clear Skies." In a meeting discussing the study, Holmstead allegedly wondered out loud, "How can we justify Clear Skies if this gets out?" [New York Times, 7/14/03]

BUSH LIMITED ACCESS TO CONSUMER AND PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION

• Administration Failed to Disclose Vital Information on Tire Safety.  Congress enacted an auto and tire safety law in response to news that faulty Firestone tires on Ford SUVs had caused hundreds of deaths.  A key provision of this law required manufacturers to submit safety data to a government-run early-warning system designed to prevent future scandals and save lives.  Following passage of the law, officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicated that key data from this early-warning system would automatically be made public.  Automakers, tire manufacturers, and others objected to the release of the data, and after months of pressure, administration officials decided not to publicly release such important information as warranty claims, field reports from dealers, and consumer complaints all of which are potentially valuable sources of safety information.  One of the leading organizations opposing the release of the data was the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and as U.S. News and World Report has noted, the Bush administration has close ties to the industry.  White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was the top lobbyist for General Motors and headed a trade group of major domestic automakers. Jacqueline Glassman, NHTSA's chief counsel, was previously a top lawyer for DaimlerChrysler Corp. [U.S. News & World Report, 12/22/03]
• FAA Made it Harder for Public to Obtain Airline Safety Information.  Citing security concerns, the Federal Aviation Administration has ended online access to records on enforcement actions taken against airlines, pilots, mechanics, and others.  Agency officials said that decision to withhold the information was made after it was discovered that the on line system also made public data on breaches of airport security.  However, instead of merely removing public access to such information, officials decided to ban access to all enforcement records.  In addition, the agency has backed away from disclosing safety information that is voluntarily submitted by airlines. [U.S. News & World Report, 12/22/03]
• TSA Rules Ban Public Access to Information on Transportation Safety and Security.  In 2002, the Transportation Security Administration adopted rules without public notice or comment that ended public access to information on the safety and security of all modes of transportation.  As U.S. News and World Report noted, "the sweeping restrictions go beyond protecting details about security or screening systems to include information on enforcement actions or effectiveness of security measures. The new TSA rules also establish a new, looser standard for denying access to information: Material can be withheld from the public, the rules say, simply if it's 'impractical' to release it." [U.S. News & World Report, 12/22/03]

BUSH AND CHENEY FOUGHT EFFORTS TO RELEASE DOCUMENTS FROM THEIR ENERGY TASK FORCE

• Cheney Refused GAO Request for Energy Task Force Documents.  Soon after taking office, President Bush established the National Energy Policy Development Group (commonly referred to as the Energy Task Force), headed by Vice President Cheney, to create "a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, and government at all levels, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future."  In developing this policy, Cheney and other officials serving on the task force met with a number of energy companies, including the Enron Corporation, and other groups that had a direct interest in the policy.  However, the White House has repeatedly refused requests to disclose documents indicating which companies and groups the task force met with and what issues were discussed in these meetings.  After failing to receive documents, the General Accounting Office took unusual step of filing a lawsuit against the Vice President.  A U.S. District judge eventually ruled that the GAO had no legal standing to sue the Vice President because he refused to turn over the documents.  [Presidential Memorandum, 1/29/01; Washington Post, 8/26/03]
• Head of GAO Said Standoff Over Energy Documents Questioned the "Transparency" and "Accountability" of Government.  David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States and head of the GAO, said that the standoff over the energy task force documents questioned the existence of "a reasonable degree of transparency and an appropriate degree of accountability in government."  Walker also noted that because of the White House's refusal to cooperate, this was the first instance since he took office in November 1998 where the GAO could not do its job and prepare a report according to generally accepted government auditing standards. "The Congress and the American people had the right to know the limited amount of information we were seeking," Walker said.  The GAO eventually released a brief report highlighting what information they were able to collect on the task force.  Among its conclusions, the report stated:
  • In developing the National Energy Policy report, the [task force] also met with, solicited input from, or received information and advice from nonfederal energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry representatives and lobbyists.  To a more limited degree, they also obtained information from academic experts, policy organizations, environmental advocacy groups, and private citizens.  The extent to which submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations, or were incorporated into the final report is not something we can determine based on the limited information at our disposal.  Nor can we, because of [the Office of the Vice President's] unwillingness to provide us with information, provide a comprehensive listing of the dates or purposes of these meetings, their attendees, or how the attendees, when solicited, were selected."  ["Energy Task Force: Process Used to Develop the National Energy Policy," GAO, August 2003; Washington Post, 8/26/03]
• Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club are Suing Cheney Over Energy Documents.  In addition to the lawsuit filed by the GAO, Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club have also filed suit to obtain energy task force documents.  The case is currently pending before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, D.C.  Judge Sullivan has denied Vice President Cheney's motion to dismiss the case and ordered him to turn over some documents for the case's discovery process.  Cheney asked the D.C. Court of Appeals to stop the discovery process, even as the case remained before the lower court, and dismiss him as a party in the lawsuit.  In a 2-1 decision, the Court refused Cheney's request and reaffirmed Judge Sullivan's order to provide documents for discovery.  Cheney is now appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. [Washington Post, 7/9/03; U.S. News & World Report, 12/22/03]

BUSH OPPOSED EFFORTS TO INVESTIGATE THE SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS AND THE REBUILDING EFFORTS IN IRAQ

• Bush Opposed Commission to Investigate the September 11th Attacks.  Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, Senator Lieberman and McCain proposed an independent commission to investigate the attacks and whether improvements in our intelligence community could have prevented the attacks from taking place.  The White House opposed the establishment of the commission until the end of 2002 just as a lopsided vote in Congress showed broad bi-partisan support for the issue.  The commission eventually became law as part of fiscal year 2003 Intelligence Authorization Act.  However, after it was created the White House initially opposed the additional funding that the commission needed to operate.  In addition, the White House and a number of federal agencies dragged their feet in providing important documents that commission members sought.  Even after the White House provided document after a subpoena was threatened -- family members of attack victims complained there were too many restrictions on release of the information.  The administration similarly delayed providing documents to a Congressional inquiry that also investigated the attacks.  And even after the Congressional report was completed, the administration delayed the declassification process and blacked-out as many as 28 pages discussing links between the Saudi Arabian government and terrorist groups. [Title VI, HR 4628 / Public Law 107-306, 11/27/02; U.S. News & World Report, 12/22/03; The Record (Bergen County, NJ), 3/28/03]
• Bush Placed Limitations on Inspector General for Iraq Rebuilding Effort; Leading House Republican Called Limitations "Preposterous."  As part of the $87 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress created an Inspector General within the Coalition Provisional Authority to review the billions of taxpayer money being spent in Iraq.  However, when President Bush signed the bill into law he placed severe limitations on what types of information the Inspector General could review.  In a statement, the President stated that the Inspector General would be prohibited from investigating any issue that "requires access to sensitive operation plans, intelligence matters, counterintelligence matters, ongoing criminal investigations by other administrative units of the Department of Defense related to national security, or other matters the disclosure of which would constitute a serious threat to national security." Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., chairman of the House Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, called limitations that Bush placed on the Inspector General "preposterous": "I'm not happy with the limitations he has put on the inspector general ... The suggestion that the inspector general would not have access to classified documents, that's preposterous. He's got to have access to those documents in order to do his job." [Congressional Quarterly Daily Monitor, 11/13/03]

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S PENCHANT FOR SECRECY

• Alan Brinkley, a Columbia University Historian: "Generally speaking, said Alan Brinkley, a Columbia University historian, while secrecy has been increasingly attractive to recent administrations, 'this administration has taken it to a new level.'  Its 'instinct is to release nothing,' Professor Brinkley said, adding that this was not necessarily because there were particular embarrassing secrets to hide, but 'they are just worried about what's in there that they don't know about.'" [New York Times, 1/3/03]
• Thomas Blanton, Executive Director of the Private National Security Archive: "This is an administration that was already tending toward greater secrecy before 9/11.  Now, we have a war, which is the ultimate leverage...  This is a matter of theology for them.  They really do believe in their hearts that we the people have made the White House too open and too accountable." [Washington Post, 3/26/03]
• Stephen Hess, former Nixon Administration Official: "Stephen Hess, who served in the Nixon and Eisenhower administrations, said the Bush administration was already the 'most closed' he had seen in peacetime." [Washington Post, 10/10/01]
• Mary Graham, Scholar at the Brookings Institution and Harvard University: "Mary Graham, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, saw two major risks in this administration's level of secrecy.  'What are often being couched as temporary emergency orders are in fact what we are going to live with for 20 years, just as we lived with the cold war restrictions for years after it was over,' Ms. Graham said. 'We make policy by crisis, and we particularly make secrecy policy by crisis.'  Moreover, she said, it ignores the value of openness, which 'creates public pressure for improvement.'  When risk analyses of chemical plants were available on the Internet, she said, people could pressure companies to do better, or move away." [New York Times, 1/3/03]
• U.S. Senator Charles Grassley: "Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said things were getting worse, and 'it seems like in the last month or two I've been running into more and more stonewalls...' Mr. Grassley, the incoming chairman of the Finance Committee, said administration obstruction required him to go and personally question government officials working on Medicare fraud cases, instead of sending his staff. But his new chairmanship and the Treasury confirmations before it may give him a lever. He said he told a White House aide of his problems and asked, 'How can I get a presidential nominee through if I have to be spending my time doing things my investigators could be doing?'" [New York Times, 1/3/03]
• James Neal, Columbia University Librarian: "James Neal, the Columbia University librarian, said that officials of libraries like his around the country that serve as depositories for federal information 'have some concern about the requests to withdraw materials from those collections.' Perhaps even more important, Mr. Neal said, was that 'we also do not know what materials are not getting distributed.'" [New York Times, 1/3/03]
• Bruce Alberts, Head of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences: "Bruce Alberts, a biochemist who heads the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences, told the academy's annual meeting on April 29: 'I am worried about a movement to restrict publication that has been proceeding quietly but quickly in Washington. Some of the plans being proposed could severely hamper the U.S. research enterprise and decrease national security. It is being suggested that every manuscript resulting from work supported by federal funds be cleared by a federal project officer before being published, with serious penalties for violations. Another rule could prevent any foreign national from working on a broad range of projects.'" [New York Times, 1/3/03]
• Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "The most striking similarity [between Bush and Nixon] is in the area of secrecy and what Nixon staffers called 'managing the news.'  ...Then, as now, journalists complained about a lack of news conferences.  In turn, the administration complained of 'instant analysis and querulous criticism.'  Those words, from Vice President Spiro Agnew, were close to Bartlett's complaints about 'analysis' and 'commentary' in newspaper articles.  And while watchdog entities such as Congress' General Accounting Office and the Sept. 11 panel have complained of the Bush administration's withholding of information, a National Press Club panel accused Nixon, before Watergate, of 'an unprecedented, government-wide effort to control, restrict and conceal information.'" [11/25/03]
• U.S. News & World Report: "For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government--cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government while making increasing amounts of information unavailable to the taxpayers who pay for its collection and analysis." [12/22/03]
• 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." [1/3/03]