George W. Bush Quotes

He was criticizing the George W. Bush Administration of his own party.

The main reason that the English or American Freedom of Information Act is not used so much by individuals is that the executive agencies make the process of obtaining documents very difficult and then when the government stonewalls, the requestor has to spend a great deal of time and often engage an attorney. The result is that few individuals can spend the time or money and the field consists mostly of media and non profit organizations which have staff and resources.

The George W. Bush White House which had tried to keep secret things that no other administration in history had attempted found itself in the position where it was leaking secret classified information. A Key staff member of the administration was indicted for covering up their leaking activities of secret material.

See Louis D. Brandeis for an earlier phraseology.

At the time Holland was a republic and a confederation of different states. There was an assembly of delegations from each of the States but most important decisions tended to be made by the Prince and a few of the representatives in his sway. Mathenesse was the delegate of the largest and wealthiest state but even others in his state delegation were out of the loop. Others claimed that the necessity of secrecy was just a pretext for a small group to dominate the republic. See {620069}. This battle goes on in almost every country including the United States where there are many matters in which only a few members of Congress and the President make decisions with national security given as the reason. In many cases there has been such a reason, but it is very easily corrupted into a pretext as only the people on the inside who get to make the decision know what the secret material was.

While many people hold that view today, in the 17th century this was truly a radical notion. There were NO democracies at the time and this philosopher argued that the citizens had a need to know that might supersede the need for the state to maintain secrets from enemies. Spinoza was one of the most feared intellectuals in human history-feared that is by the established power structures. He is the only known person who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims-all were forbidden to read his works. He was the enemy of authority and advocated personal reason as the guide for men.

And the New York press is probably the most difficult and cynical in the world.

The executive order to which this statement referred was the then new President’s first—Executive Order 13489. It was enthusiastically received by the public, historians, researchers and the media. However at the end of Obama’s two administrations, the system was a little better than when George W. Bush, blocked much of the Freedom of Information Act from being implemented. However, the agencies who want to operate in secrecy without having to deal with public criticism, had developed even more sophisticated techniques of avoiding transparency and when they must disclose, they have developed techniques to delay the process, sometimes even for years, while they study whether the material should be disclosed. The president personally declassified a few CIA files from decades ago that the agency maintained should be secret, but he did nothing else systemic so solve the problem of declassifying and material and nothing to control the over classification which virtually everyone agrees is a major problem. More material is being classified than ever.

This was one of the best confirmations that Nixon had authorized illegal activity to further his reelection prospects and then orchestrated a cover up of the crimes.

Who does and does not get parole often depends more on politics and political contributions than on any issue of merit. Keeping all the records secret and the meetings closed allows much of this to happen. In Georgia, the politicians are so desperate to be sure that no one can determine the truth about parole decisions that they have passed a law that even the highest judges of the state cannot subpoena parole board records even if they are material and necessary for criminal or civil trials.

The response to the newspaper was required by law to be made promptly to the Journal’s Freedom of Information Act Letter Request. The failure to find the documents was not that unusual. However the legal request was properly made by the newspaper almost 15 years earlier. The original letter was send in October 1989. It took the CIA 15 years to say that they had not found any relevant documents. Incredibly enough this was not the oldest outstanding pending Freedom of Information Request. One had been submitted to the FBI in 1987 that had not then been responded to yet.

The Bush presidency was the most secret presidency in history up to its time with less information available to the public than other administrations in modern times.