| Executive Order 13233 |
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VEILED PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS EO 13233 restricts access to the records of former US Presidents : :"...reflecting military, diplomatic, or national security secrets, Presidential communications, legal advice, legal work, or the deliberative processes of the President and the President's advisers, and to do so in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in '' Nixon V. Administrator Of General Services '', 433 U.S. 425 ( 1977 ), and other cases..." Online access to EO 13233 was reportedly made unavailable at the time of issuance. {Link without Title} BACKGROUND In 1974 , the Congress Of The United States passed legislation placing the presidential records of Richard Nixon in federal custody to prevent their destruction. The law's intent was to discourage, if not prevent, the abuse of power by the veil of secrecy. The legislative action was also intended as a means to promote a reduction of secrecy, while allowing Historian s to perform their responsibilities. Just two years earlier, in 1972 , decades of official and unofficial Federal Bureau Of Investigation records had been destroyed, upon the death of J. Edgar Hoover , by his longtime secretary. The Presidential Records Act Of 1978 expanded such protection of historical records, by mandating that the records of former presidents would automatically become the property of the federal government upon his leaving the Oval Office , and then transferred to the Archivist Of The United States , thereafter to be made available to the public after no more than twelve years. CRITICAL RESPONSE The Society Of American Archivists was among many groups, including Librarian s, who took umbrage at George W. Bush's exercise of executive power by issuing EO 13233, stating the action "violates both the spirit and letter of existing U.S. law on access to presidential papers as clearly laid down in 44 U.S.C. 2201-2207," noting that the order "potentially threatens to undermine one of the very foundations of our nation." WHITE HOUSE DIRECTIVE TO ARCHIVIST In a White House memo dated March 23 2001 , the Counsel to the President conveyed the following to John W. Carlin , Archivist Of The United States : :"Section 2(b) of Executive Order 12667, issued by former President Ronald Reagan on January 16 1989 , requires the Archivist of the United States to delay release of Presidential records at the instruction of the current President. On behalf of the President, I instruct you to extend for 90 days (until June 21 2001 ) the time in which President Bush may claim a constitutionally based privilege over the Presidential records that former President Reagan, acting under Section 2204(a) of Title 4, has protected from disclosure for the 12 years since the end of his Presidency. This directive applies as well to the Vice Presidential records of former Vice President George H.W. Bush ." SEE ALSO
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