Government restricts access to information

In March President George Bush issued a new executive order delaying the release of millions of classified government documents and making it easier for the government to keep information secret. The order amends the previous administration's less restrictive order, which required automatic declassification of most government documents after twenty-five years. The new order pushes back to 2006 the declassification of documents that were to have been released this year. It also gives government agencies more power to reclassify documents that have already been declassified, and to keep information classified indefinitely. Unless specifically exempted, however, documents will still be automatically declassified after twenty-five years.

Historians and other researchers have criticized the administration's increased secrecy, but are generally relieved that much of the previous policy, including the basic expectation that documents will be automatically declassified, remains intact, according to Bruce Craig, executive director of the National Coalition for History. He says that access to government records should concern every American, because it helps to ensure that the government is "both accountable and free." Openness of government records is of particular importance to historians, Craig notes, because records are the "meat and potatoes of the historian's meal. Without the documentary record, history cannot be written, or digested."