[NYTr] Fed Ct Strikes Down Bush Exec Order on Pres'l Records

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Public Citizen - Oct 1, 2007
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2524

Federal Court Strikes Down Bush Executive Order on Presidential Records

Court Finds Bush Order Impedes Access, Violates Presidential Records Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal district court today struck down part of
an executive order issued by President Bush in 2001 to limit public
access to the records of past presidents. The ruling by Judge Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly in American Historical Association v. National Archives
and Records Administration (No. 01-2447) holds that the Bush order
violates a requirement of the Presidential Records Act (PRA) that
historical materials of former presidents be released to the public “as
rapidly and completely as possible.”

The lawsuit was brought by Public Citizen in 2001 on behalf of itself,
the American Historical Association, the National Security Archive, the
Organization of American Historians, the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press, the American Political Science Association and
noted historian Stanley Kutler.

The case was prompted by Bush’s issuance of Executive Order 13,233 in
November 2001. The order granted former presidents, their
representatives and former vice presidents the authority to veto
releases of their papers by claiming “executive privilege” and gave
them an unlimited time in which to review materials the National
Archives proposed to release. The lawsuit challenging the order claimed
that these provisions violated the Presidential Records Act, which
gives the Archives control over records of former presidents and vice
presidents and requires it to make them public (with some exceptions)
12 years after a president or vice president leaves office.

Since the order was issued, historians and other researchers have faced
significant delays in obtaining the records of former Presidents Reagan
and Bush (and their respective vice presidents), thanks to the
unlimited time the order allows for “privilege reviews” by the former
officeholders and their representatives. Judge Kollar-Kotelly found
that these lengthy reviews injured the plaintiffs and violated the
PRA’s public access requirement, and were not, as the government
argued, required by the Constitution.

The court did not reach challenges to other aspects of the executive
order, holding them “unripe” because no former officeholder has yet
exercised the unilateral veto power granted by the order.

“We’re delighted by the court’s recognition that the executive order
unlawfully impedes access to presidential records,” said Public Citizen
attorney Scott Nelson, who brought the case. “Although its failure to
strike down the order in its entirety is disappointing, the court’s
rejection of the government’s unfounded constitutional theories of
executive privilege sends a warning shot suggesting that the other
provisions of the order are unlawful as well.”

“The executive order was one of the first indications of this
president’s obsession with secrecy,” said Public Citizen President Joan
Claybrook. “Finally, the court has begun the process of dismantling the
edifice of concealment that President Bush has been trying to build
over the past six years.”

READ the ruling and learn more:
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=77