- (AFP) - A group of historians and citizens' groups filed
suit here in a bid to quash an executive order by President George W. Bush,
which they charge severely restricts access to presidential records.
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- The executive order -- signed on November 1 --
reinterprets
the 1978 Presidential Records Act, adopted after the Watergate scandal
and former president Richard Nixon's subsequent crusade to keep his White
House records and tapes under wraps.
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- While the act provided for presidential records to be
made available to the public 12 years after a president leaves office,
the new decree gives the White House or former presidents veto powers on
the release of such documents.
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- The parties to Wednesday's lawsuit -- the American
Historical
Association, the National Security Archive at George Washington University,
the Organization of American Historians, Public Citizen, the Reporters'
Committee for Freedom of the Press and history professors Hugh Graham and
Stanley Kutler -- charge that Bush's decree tries to "take the power
back" from the people.
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- "The Presidential Records Act of 1978 was meant
to shift power over White House documents from former presidents to
professional
government archivists and, ultimately, to the public," National
Security
Archive director Thomas Blanton said in a statement.
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- "But the Bush order attempts to overturn the law,
take the power back, and let presidents past and present delay public
access
indefinitely."
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