You wanna know something...? You DO, huh...? Well, forget it... We don't DO THAT in the U.S...

freedom of information...? our country's history...? those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it...? a country "by and for the people...?" "with the consent of the governed...?" poof and piffle... such quaint notions...

[M]y story, “History on the Ballot” dated Nov. 5, 2000, predicted that a victory by George W. Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, would mean that the flow of records “could slow to a trickle or be stopped outright.”

Little did I know, however, that the reality would be even worse, that Bush would not only block the release of those documents but move aggressively to reclassify papers already released – and let the heirs of presidents and vice presidents continue the withholding of historic records long after the principals had died.

One of Bush’s first acts after being inaugurated President on Jan. 20, 2001, was to stop the scheduled release of documents from the Reagan-Bush administration. Supposedly, the delay was to permit a fuller review of the papers, but that review was strung out through Bush’s first several months in office.

Then, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush began considering how to lock those records away from the public indefinitely. On Nov. 1, 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13233, which effectively negated the 1978 Presidential Records Act by allowing presidents, vice presidents and their heirs the power to prevent many document releases.

and it ain't just about keeping classified material from being de-classified... oh, no...

George W. Bush has even moved aggressively to reclassify documents that had previously been released. A study by the privately funded National Security Archive at George Washington University found that more than 55,000 pages of records have been taken off the shelves of publicly available documents.

every day in every way, the country to which i have pledged my citizenship and my allegiance, where my loved ones live, the country of my culture and my heritage, seems more and more like a foreign and alien land...

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