Bush library proposal highlights growing government secrecy

Michael RostonPublished: Tuesday February 6, 2007

A proposal to site the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University in Texas has highlighted growing difficulties in obtaining documents from the government based on a Bush executive order issued quietly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, RAW STORY can report.

Government openness activists are using the library proposal to bring attention to increased official secrecy.

A Bush executive order shortly after 9/11 gave presidents greater privilege to restrict the availability of documents from presidential libraries and other major national archives, according to a story published today in Inside Higher Ed. He quotes Benjamin Hufbauer, an art historian at the University of Louisville who has written about presidential libraries, as explaining why some are saying SMU should refuse to host the Bush library.

"If you don’t have all the papers, instead you have just a museum of political propaganda," Hufbauer says.

Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy fpr the Federation of American Scientists, says the SMU library debate could be an effective rallying point.

"I think the decision about where to locate the library has the potential to merge with a larger debate regarding Bush administration information policy," Aftergood says.

There are no signs that SMU's administration is truly rethinking hosting the library on its campus.

The full article can be accessed at Inside Higher Ed's website.