[CTRL] Bush and the FOIA, Cheney and secrecy

[William Shannon]

Bush and the FOIA, Cheney and secrecy:
Why we might never find out who won

By Carla Binion

 
December 5, 2000 | A Bush presidency might pose a threat to the free flow of
information.  Bush and Company are long time champions of government secrecy
and foes of the public's right to know.  Once Bush is in office, we might
never have the chance to count questionable Florida ballots, for the reasons
that follow:  (1)  Democrats have pinned their hopes on the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA.)  They say if George W. Bush becomes president, some
day the ballots will be obtained through FOIA and fairly counted.  However,
The Freedom of Information Act, passed by Congress in 1966, requires that
government officials make their files available to the public, unless
revealing those files conflicts with national security interests.  Here is
the clincher:  The FOIA leaves it to individual presidents to determine what
constitutes a threat to "national security."  Recent Republican
administrations have worked to severely limit FOIA, hiding their personal
wrongdoing behind a cloak of national security.President Ronald Reagan, who
hid his Iran-contra misdeeds behind the national security banner, said the
government should withhold information from any FOIA requester whenever there
was a "substanial legal basis" for withholding.  (A Culture of Secrecy:  The
Government Versus the People's Right to Know, Athan G. Theoharis, University
Press of Kansas, 1998.) The George H. W. Bush administration argued in court
that judicial review for the Freedom of Information Act was severely limited
and that courts could not second-guess national security classifications, a
decision writer Jon Wiener says "can be an invitation to a police state."  (A
Culture of Secrecy, Theoharis.)(2)  Bush's choice for Vice President, Dick
Cheney, has publicly argued for tight government secrecy.  For example, he
has said that Congress should have little or no oversight regarding
clandestine CIA activities.  Cheney once attempted to retaliate against
journalist Seymour Hersh for his investigation into intelligence agency
deeds.  As Gerald Ford's deputy chief of staff, Cheney outlined options for
punishing journalist Seymour Hersh after Hersh investigated the intelligence
community.  Among the options were ordering an FBI investigation of Hersh and
the New York Times and getting a search warrant to rummage through  Hersh's
private papers in his apartment.  (Challenging the Secret Government,
Katherine S. Olmsted, University of North Carolina Press, 1996.)The White
House rejected the idea, in part for fear such tactics would call unwanted
attention to the importance of Hersh's story.  Dick Cheney asked in his notes
on conversations about Hersh whether the White House could take advantage of
the story to help limit the scope of a Senate investigation into other
intelligence activities.  (Challenging the Secret Government, Olmsted.)
Recent Democratic administrations have made some effort toward government
openness rather than secrecy.  For example, Bill Clinton rescinded Reagan's
1981 policy.  Clinton said information should be withheld from citizens 
"only when an agency reasonably forsees that disclosure would be harmful."  (
A Culture of Secrecy, Theoharis.)Clinton's Department of Energy Secretary,
Hazel O'Leary, began an "Openness Initiative," publishing secrets about
goverment radiation experiments done on American citizens.  Clinton's
Advisory Committe on Human Radiation Experiments showed that the Veterans
Administration knew as early as 1947 that American veterans might have valid
claims regarding veterans' exposure to radiation during the cold war.  (A
Culture of Secrecy, Theoharis, The Human Radiation Experiments:  Final Report
of the President's Advisory Committee, New York: Oxford University Press,
1996.)Hazel O'Leary said that in the long run revealing government secrets
would "restore the confidence of the American people in the integrity of
their government."  Under Clinton, O'Leary tried to enlist the input of
public interest groups and worked to speed up the declassifcation of
government secrets. ( A Culture of Secrecy, Theoharis.)Another Democratic
President, Jimmy Carter, issued an executive order allowing classified
information to be made public if public interest outweighed potential
national security concerns.  (A Culture of Secrecy, Theoharis, Executive
Order No. 12065, 3 C.F.R., 190, 1979).By contrast, Republicans Ronald Reagan
and George H. W. Bush preferred hiding shady activities.  In addition to his
1981 FOIA restrictions, Reagan said in 1983, that the FBI could keep from the
public any documents "which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to
the national security."  The public interest was not factored in to Reagan's
policy as it was in both Carter's and Clinton's.  (A Culture of Secrecy,
Theoharis).When people say there is little difference between Democrats and
Republicans, consider the difference between recent administrations'
approaches to government secrecy.  A vote for Bush/Cheney was a vote against
the public's right to know.Once a Bush/Cheney adminstration gets its paws on
the reins, any remaining Florida ballots might be "classified" for reasons of
"national security."  Anyone who protests may have his private papers
rummaged.


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