Memory Holes and the Internet (updated)

blamanj writes "As reporters and researchers depend more and more heavily on the Internet as a research tool, manipulation of the net becomes a serious problem. A recent Slashdot article discussed this in regard to the White House. Now, The Memory Hole has noticed that Time magazine has pulled an article by Bush, Sr. on why it was a bad idea to try and overthrow Saddam. How can we keep corporate America honest?" Update: 11/11 22:16 GMT by T : Declan McCullagh (former Time, Inc. employee, among other things) writes in with the non-conspiracy explanation for the change, below.

Declan writes "It is silly to claim that Bush Sr. and Scowcroft would strong-arm Time Inc. into removing an article from time.com -- when that article was an excerpt from their book that you can buy today from Amazon.com for $21.

Another explanation is more likely. And, yes, a quick search turns up a May 2003 article from Slate that debunks this rumor. It turns out that Time Inc. only had permission from the publisher to post the content for a limited time."

Archive.org

[eurleif]

Archive.org, Google Cache, etc. all help.

The Excerpt

[ndunn]

Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):

While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasio route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

A matter of public record

[Space cowboy]

Once you've published something on the internet, it's very hard to remove it. There are too many 'bots beavering away in the background. If I do a search for my name on google, I get info going all the way back to my post-grad days at college some 12 years ago....

The only real way to get rid of something is to pull it quickly.. leave it around and you've no chance......

Simon

Google Cache of Memory Hole

[Mr Haxalot]

Since its becoming slashdotted, here is the cache [66.102.11.104]

Easy Answer - MOD UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can we keep corporate America honest?

1) Be helpful. Inform Time Magazine to their 404 missing page.

2) Donate to The Memory Hole. [thememoryhole.org]

From the archive on web.archive.org

[NZheretic]

Because this is legitimate political comentary and to save the webarchive being slashdotted here is a copy of the article From web.archive.org/web/20000816 [archive.org]

SPECIAL REPORT/CLINTON'S CRISES MARCH 2, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 8

Why We Didn't Remove Saddam

By GEORGE BUSH AND BRENT SCOWCROFT

The end of effective Iraqi resistance came with a rapidity which surprised us all, and we were perhaps psychologically unprepared for the sudden transition from fighting to peacemaking. True to the guidelines we had established, when we had achieved our strategic objectives (ejecting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and eroding Saddam's threat to the region) we stopped the fighting. But the necessary limitations placed on our objectives, the fog of war, and the lack of "battleship Missouri" surrender unfortunately left unresolved problems, and new ones arose. We were disappointed that Saddam's defeat did not break his hold on power, as many of our Arab allies had predicted and we had come to expect. President Bush repeatedly declared that the fate of Saddam Hussein was up to the Iraqi people. Occasionally, he indicated that removal of Saddam would be welcome, but for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an uprising. While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

We discussed at length forcing Saddam himself to accept the terms of Iraqi defeat at Safwan--just north of the Kuwait-Iraq border--and thus the responsibility and political consequences for the humiliation of such a devastating defeat. In the end, we asked ourselves what we would do if he refused. We concluded that we would be left with two options: continue the conflict until he backed down, or retreat from our demands. The latter would have sent a disastrous signal. The former would have split our Arab colleagues from the coalition and, de facto, forced us to change our objectives. Given those unpalatable choices, we allowed Saddam to avoid personal surrender and permitted him to send one of his generals. Perhaps we could have devised a system of selected punishment, such as air strikes on different military units, which would have proved a viable third option, but we had fulfilled our well-defined mission; Safwan was waiting.

As the conflict wound down, we felt a sense of urgency on the part of the coalition Arabs to get it over with and return to normal. This meant quickly withdrawing U.S. forces to an absolute minimum. Earlier there had been some concern in Arab ranks that once they allowed U.S. forces into the Middle East, we would be there to stay. Saddam's propaganda machine fanned these worries. Our prompt withdrawal helped cement ou

Two words:

[skia]

Wayback Machine [archive.org]

READ MORE CAREFULLY

[AyeFly]

If you go to the TIMES table of contents thats posted on the "Memory Hole" page, you will see why the article is not online. Since it deals with a popular subject, TIMES moved it to their paid content... so the free version is no longer available. Go HERE [time.com] and read the top line. In short, I doubt its a conspiracy, TIMES is just being greedy and wants more money. Which as a company is its right.

Also remember Robin Cook, the now former UK FM

[NZheretic]

Robin Cook, the now former UK Foreign Minister, resigned his position due to his great consern over the actions of the UK and the USA.

What follows is a copy of his resignation speech in the House of Commons, which won applause from some backbenchers in unprecedented Commons scenes.

This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the back benches.

I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here.

None of those 20 years were more enjoyable or more rewarding than the past two, in which I have had the immense privilege of serving this House as Leader of the House, which were made all the more enjoyable, Mr Speaker, by the opportunity of working closely with you.

It was frequently the necessity for me as Leader of the House to talk my way out of accusations that a statement had been preceded by a press interview.

On this occasion I can say with complete confidence that no press interview has been given before this statement. I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support.

The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour party in my lifetime.

I hope that he will continue to be the leader of our party, and I hope that he will continue to be successful. I have no sympathy with, and I will give no comfort to, those who want to use this crisis to displace him.

I applaud the heroic efforts that the prime minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution.

I do not think that anybody could have done better than the foreign secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the Security Council.

But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to succeed.

Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.

France has been at the receiving end of bucket loads of commentary in recent days.

It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution.

We delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result of President Chirac.

The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner - not NATO, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.

To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse.

Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.

History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.

The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower.

Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules.

Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate.

Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.

I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo.

It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies.

It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating i

lexis nexis

[jason0000042]

As reporters and researchers depend more and more heavily on the Internet as a research tool, manipulation of the net becomes a serious problem

I don't think what Time does on their site has any real bearing on what most reporters and researchers will find. This is because most of them use lexis nexis [lexisnexis.com]. It is my understanding that lexis nexis will keep a copy of the article (I'm not sure, it costs money to use). Even if it doesn't, it will keep references to it. It will be shown to exist.

What would cause for concern is lexis nexis removing stuff.

Troll?

[heironymouscoward]

No, definitely not a troll.

There is an excellent article in the Economist about this, unfortunately for subscribers only. Here is a pertinent quote:

A case in point is the near-total secrecy in which the Department of Homeland Security was hatched. No cabinet secretary was consulted. Nor were most senior advisers. The largest government reorganisation in half a century, involving huge numbers of civil servants and tricky questions of government relations, was decided upon by a handful of people (originally four, with aides) and without serious consultation with Congress. Did that improve the quality of decisions?

Also Senator Patrick Leahy - Concerning Iraq

[NZheretic]

Friday, 14 March 2003, 3:16 pm
Speech: U.S. Senator
U.S. SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY

CONTACT: Office of Senator Leahy, 202-224-4242 VERMONT

Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy
On The Senate Floor
Concerning Iraq
The Countdown To War
March 13, 2003

Mr. President, last Thursday at his press conference, the President gave his reasons to justify the use of military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

The President said again that he has not made up his mind to go to war, but his own advisers are saying that even if Iraq fully complies with UN Security Council Resolution 1441, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power.

The President said his goal is protecting the American people from terrorism, a goal we all share, but he offered no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the September 11 attacks or any details of IraqA's links to al Queda.

He offered no new information about the potential costs of a war, either in American and Iraqi lives, or in dollars. Both Republicans and Democrats have urged the President to be more forthcoming with the American people, yet he is apparently ready to send hundreds of thousands of the sons and daughters of American taxpayers into battle without saying anything about the costs and risks.

The President repeatedly spoke of the danger of "doing nothing," as if doing nothing is what those who urge patience and caution A- with war only as a last resort A- are recommending. In fact, virtually no one is saying that we should do nothing about Saddam Hussein.

Even most of the millions of people who have joined protests and demonstrations against the use of force without UN Security Council authorization, are not saying that the world should ignore the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Yet that is the PresidentA's answer to those who oppose a preemptive U.S. invasion, and who, contrary to wanting to do nothing, want to give the United Nations more time to try to solve this crisis without war.

The President also failed to address a key concern that divides Americans, that divides us from many of our closest European allies, that divides our allies from each other, and that divides the UN Security Council. That issue is not whether or not Saddam Hussein is a deceptive, despicable, dangerous despot who should be disarmed. There is little if any disagreement about that.

Nor is it whether or not force should ever be used. Most people accept that the United States, like any country, has a right of self defense if faced with an imminent threat. And if the UN inspectors fail to disarm Iraq, force may become the only option.

Most people also agree that a U.S.-led invasion would quickly overwhelm and defeat IraqA's ill-equipped, demoralized army.

Rather, the President said almost nothing about the concern that by attacking Iraq to enforce Security Council Resolution 1441 without the support of key allies on the UN Security Council, we risk seriously weakening the Security CouncilA's future effectiveness and our own ability to rally international support A- not only to prevent this war and future wars, but to deal with other global threats like terrorism.

And this concern is exacerbated by the increasing resentment of the AdministrationA's domineering and simplistic "you are either with us or against us" approach, which has already damaged long-standing relationships, both with our neighbors in this hemisphere and our friends across the Atlantic.

The President says that if the Security Council does not support the use of force today, it risks becoming irrelevant. But the President has it backward. The Security Council will not become irrelevant because it refuses to agree with the President of the United States. Rather, the Security CouncilA's effectiveness is threatened if the United States, the worldA's only superpower, ignores the will of key allies on the Security Council regarding the enforcement of a Security Council resolution.

The President

Re:Wow... another attempt to attack the president

[isa-kuruption]

The allies pretty much admitted that Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq before the war, but they didn't make much of a noise about that because it served their purpose to have the public believe that Al Qaeda was in Iraq to bolster support for the war.

Untrue. It is still upheld that Al Qaeda training camps existed in northern Iraq before the war. They have proof the camp was being used even 1 month before the beginning of the invasion. Secondly, Iraqi disposed commanders are now in charge of these Al Qaeda cells which are in Iraq. If Saddam had no ties with Al Qaeda, why would Iraqi officials be "leading" Al Qaeda members to attack civilians and U.S. soldiers?

As for N Korea, Bush claiming it was part of his "Axis of Evil" didn't help. NK has now seen what has happened to one third of that (Iraq) and is now trying to make sure it isn't the next target. At this point, you can't really blame it for developing a nuclear deterrant.

Again, untrue. North Korea has admitted to never stopping it's nuclear amibitions following the consessions made with Carter on behalf of Clinton in 1994. Their buildup of nuclear arsenol never stopped, therefore stating they want a nuclear deterrant is FALSE.

lexis nexis can be edited...

[freeBill]

...by content providers, perhaps more easily than things they published on the internet or on paper.

I worked for a company that provided large quantities of content to Lexis-Nexis for six years. They provide a method by which content can be removed by anyone who is providing it.

And my experience dealing with Lexis-Nexis as a company did not leave me with a good feeling about their concern for an accurate record.

The "Liberal" Media

[heironymouscoward]

The "Liberal Media" is a myth. It used to be like that, but over the last 10 years the bulk of the media in the US, and in fact many countries has ended up in the hands of a small group of very wealthy men.

It should not be surprising that these men have a rather more conservative point of view than the press owners who they bought out.

By and large, today's media speaks for the establishment, and in the US the establishment is a Republican one.

Not true...

[Mark Hood]

Not true.

The table of contents still lists all the other articles - if you click on any one of them (for example this one [time.com] you get the first paragraph, and then an invitation to buy the rest of the article. Fine, that's their right - it costs money to archive so many pages...

But the article is question isn't listed - and the link given by The Memory Hole doesn't offer to sell you the article, it says it has been deleted.

And it's nothing to do with it being a 'popular subject' - Time states quite clearly that it's only issues over 2 years old that are archived, not 'historically important' ones.

Mark

Re:Archive.org

[SoSueMe]

So what? Time pulled it, thememoryhole [thememoryhole.org] posted it, PBS [pbs.org] has Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the George H. W. Bush administration, interviewed in October 2001, Libertarian Thought [libertarianthought.com] and many others have the text.

Once it hits the net, it is around for a looong time.

Re:The Excerpt

[ronfar]

Why the hell aren't we stopping countless dictators in Africa (like, oh say, Mugabe in Zimbabwe)?

Don't forget about Islam Karimov:

Here are some pictures of Bush and Powell shaking hands with their good buddy, Islam Karimov. [thememoryhole.org]

I wonder if they might ask him politely to stop, you know, boiling people alive. I mean since Hussein's atrocities are now the only rationale for invading Iraq, you would think the administration would think twice about cozying up to brutal dictators. (But, then, no one was ever really bothered by that picture of Rumsfeld and Hussein shaking hands when Hussein was a CIA asset, either. To quote Chou En Lai, "One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory." )

Obligatory excerpt from 1984

[Rikardon]

"The messages [Winston] had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify.... As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs -- to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record."

Re: "Keep" them honest?

[dalf]

Unfortunately I can't seem to find the site again, but maybe someone can cough it up for us.

There was a study from some Think Tank, and then an article by Jim Lobe summarizing/commenting the result, which had some fame, with title "We report, you get it wrong". Search the title, you'd find it on several sites, some of which of some interest, the source is Tim Lobe via the Asia Times [atimes.com]

Republican budgets

[Doc Ruby]

The biggest spending budgets have been Bush Jr, Bush Sr. and Reagan - Clinton's budgets were smaller, if you subtract the entitlements inserted into each by everybody's predecessors. Of them all, only Clinton balanced the budget into a vast surplus, partly by winding down the profligate military budget, without disrupting the economy or political stability. Each of those Republican presidents vastly increased the budget, the deficit, the debt, and the size of government, and each has started a recession/depression in their first couple of years. By subsidizing corporations, the military, and the uppermost class crossover of the two, at the expense of the public. More accurate:

Liberal: spends public money on the public, people
Conservative: spends public money on private corporations

How about the FUCKING LIBRARY?

[FatSean]

Geeze...I'm sure there are quite a few copies of that magazine and article in paper form or micro-whatever. Geeze...

I mean, you shouldn't be using one source for your research anyway. Especially the internet!

Re: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

[saforrest]

Sure wish i knew mexican :T

"Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?" is Latin for "Who Watches The Watchers?".

I'd like to say I could've translated that. However, I still get some geek karma for it: I recognized it from having seen it before on the Star Trek TNG episode named, appropriately, "Who Watches The Watchers".

Copyright, not Orwell.

[cananian]

I wrote about this back in September [livejournal.com]:

Time seems to have scrubbed this article from their

on-line archives [time.com]. Lexis-Nexis also doesn't list it, although they list the Newsweek version of the article, which wasn't co-authored with Bush Sr. This may have to do with the fact that the Time article is a straight excerpt from Bush and Scowcroft's book A World Transformed [amazon.com] (1998) and Time didn't secure electronic rights to the excerpt --- or it could be more sinister. You decide.

I think the "electronic rights" explanation is more likely, and should certainly be fully exhausted before we start hatching conspiracy theories.

Re:Archive.org

[Catbeller]

I do know. The Bush administration, on reaching office, immediately sealed the records of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, as well as all future records of the current adminstration. Clinton's are wide open, though.

This administration has ordered government agencies to hinder Freedom of Information Act requests.

This administration now has effectively refused to honor Freedom of Information Act requests.

This administration has ignored subpoenas regarding its energy polices meetings.

This administration has refused to cooperate with 9/11 investigators RE what the President's briefings said about the possibility of attacks just prior to 9/11. Simply hindered and refused.

This is what I know.

Feel a Draft ?

[dackroyd]

The US government is at it as wel....

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/draft-boards.ht m

--------

On 23 Sept 2003, the Defense Department Website called "Defend America" posted a notice for people to join local draft boards. "If a military draft becomes necessary," the notice explained, "approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines."

In early November, that notice started to receive media attention, with articles from the Associated Press, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer , the Oregonian, the Toronto Star, the BBC, and London Guardian (unsurprisingly, none of the major papers or networks in the US covered it).

In a familiar turn of events, the notice suddenly disappeared from the Website. (Thanks to LG for pointing this out.) We've mirrored the page and posted the text below.

Re: "Keep" them honest?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War [pipa.org]. It's a 312 K PDF.

Fox garnered a 80% misperception rate, while PBS/NPR audiences mispercieved about 23% of the time. I wonder what the equivalent rate among uruk.net readers was...

Re:Archive.org

[Artifakt]

The government isn't hiding anything from us. The government is a tool that is used to hide things from us, but often isn't even told what it is they should hide. People like Ashcroft aren't privy to some big plan that tells them the inside scoop and why the rest of us aren't supposed to know, they are functionaries who help hide things because someone is dangling the chance of actually getting to be on the real inside, in the know, in front of them. Probably more than half the reasons Bush, Ashcroft, and so on are doing things re. national secrecy are pseudo-reasons someone made up to manipulate them. These sombodies tend to be people with money, old family connections, and a spider-like web of strings they can pull, but they don't want to hold office personally. When one gets elected, it's because his fellows decide to put the dumb one in the public eye.

Re:Archive.org

[Gerdia]

The Ministry of Truth is a fictitious government agency from George Orwell's dystopian work 1984. The protagonist, Winston Smith, was an employee of the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue).

Minitrue concerned itself with the publishing of all media such as newspapers, novels and pornography. Winston's job within Minitrue was to edit newspapers (The London Times) after they were published to rewrite history. This process was controlled by the all-powerful "party" of which Winston was a mere functionary.

Winston would modify economic data such as ration values to transform decreases into increases, when in reality the product was not available to any but the inner party. He would replace names in articles for citizens who had recently been arrested for crimes against the state. The state (Oceania) was constantly at war with either Eastasia or Eurasia. When the party decided they were at war with Eastasia, Minitrue would be required to rewrite all references to a war with Eurasia. When the tide changed, Minitrue would rewrite all news to reflect the current enemy. According to the party, whomever Oceania was at war with in the present moment was who they had been at war with throughout history.

A quote from 1984: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

Re:Archive.org

[lexluther]

Orwellian means more than putting someone in jail. Specifically, I believe, the original poster was pointing to the aspect of 1984 (Orwell) which dealt with the protagonists responsibility of deleting/changing history to suit the regime. In this sense it is highly Orwellian because there is a body manipulating the historical record as is needed. It is one thing to control what were spoon-fed by the media on a daily basis, but it is a much more disturbing problem to change the historical record by casually deleting or adding to it based on anything other than historical integrity. That is precisely why 1984 is disturbing, as is what happened with Time Magazine.

Re:Archive.org

[Catbeller]

I can understand why anyone would think I pull data out of the air. It was like pulling teeth to find stories. I found it very interesting that CNN had damn-all on a lot of subjects... it seems they are too intimidated to report on things the neocons don't want discussed. But, I persevered.

My god. Is our children learning? How in the hell can Bush's people be judged if no one wants to report on their actions on a regular basis?

No wonder the country has neocon fever. How could they not? They don't hear anything!

Links:

I do know. The Bush administration, on reaching office, immediately sealed the records of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, as well as all future records of the current adminstration. Clinton's are wide open, though.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=U TF -8&q=sealed+presidential+papers+Bush+

Bush Clamping Down On Presidential Papers (washingtonpost.com) ... Bush Clamping Down On Presidential Papers Incumbent Could Lock Up Predecessor's
Records By George Lardner Jr. Washington Post Staff ...
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20731-2001 Oct31

NM&L (Fall 2001): Reagan's White House papers stay sealed ... advisors, or between such advisors" sealed for 12 ... and Carter willingly released their
presidential papers after 12 ... year period for the Reagan papers expired in ...
www.rcfp.org/news/mag/25-4/foi-reaganp.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

CBS News | Reagan Papers Released | January 4, 2002 09:58:30 ... The memo was among 8,000 pages of Reagan presidential papers released at ... been released
last January but were kept sealed as the Bush administration worked ...
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/ 04/politics/main323121.shtml - 35k - Cached - Similar pages

Secret Papers ... Just recently, Bush decreed that those papers will remain sealed for as long ... His
executive order stipulates that, in order for presidential papers to be ...
www.skepticism.org/politics/lib_SecretPapers. shtml - 19k - Cached - Similar pages

NM&L (Fall 2001): Reagan's White House papers stay sealed ... advisors, or between such advisors" sealed for 12 ... and Carter willingly released their
presidential papers after 12 ... year period for the Reagan papers expired in ...
www.rcfp.org/news/mag/25-4/foi-reaganp.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

This administration has ordered government agencies to hinder Freedom of Information Act requests.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/09/re090302.htm l
"For whatever reason, this administration has gone way way too far in its pursuit of secrecy in some particularly worrying ways," said Mark Tapscott, head of the Center for Media and Public Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "

"Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration was expanding secrecy. It moved to hold up the release of presidential papers from former President Ronald Reagan and insisted on keeping secret members of an energy policy task force chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney."

"This administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon administration. They don't believe the American people or Congress have any right to information," said last week Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that is suing the administration to force it to reveal the members of the energy task force. "

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.a sp ?documentID=15902

"Among the more egregious actions, Attorney General John Ashcroft told government agencies in an Oct. 12, 2001, memo