Wednesday, December 05, 2007

As internet reveals government increasingly, Bush administration is secret

I am continually amazed at the rush of government databases available to the citizen these days. If you look at my left-hand column, you will see an ever-growing list of mostly free-to-use campaign finance, government finance and document databases.

As the internet has been integral in empowering American citizens to see what their government is up to, the Bush administration has been stonewalling most attempts by Congress to review Executive branch documents. In fact, it was determined in spring of this year that at least 5 million emails were destroyed by the administration between 2003 and 2005; there is still a chance there is a backup of these on tape. Now, according to a press release from CREW, the number of lost emails is probably much more-- between 10 and 20 million messages!

What has the Bush administration to hide, for such a long period of time? All government officials are ultimately answerable to we, the people, the citizens of the United States. Just as the law to maintain all emails was passed after the 1970's Watergate scandal, we must see that transparency in government is still very important to an accountable government.

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