The Bush Administration is no friend of the Freedom of Information Act. In October 2001, with few but hard-core right-to-know advocates paying attention, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued his required memorandum regarding FOIA policy. In preparation before September 11, the memo "reflects a movement back to the policy of the Reagan administration," commented Access Reports, an organization tracking access to government information for more than 25 years.
Ashcroft's new policy "supersedes the 1993 memo issued by then Attorney General Janet Reno, replaces Reno's 'foreseeable harm' test emphasizing disclosure, with a 'sound legal basis' test that emphasizes withholding records," reports Access' newsletter.
While these changes may seem like legalese blather -- more subtle than substantive -- it does represent a significant change in policy.
As columnist and political organizer Jim Hightower pointed out in a late July column posted at Alternet, "Secrecy… is now the prevailing ethos of the White House: There's the secret government that Bush established; the constant refusal to release public records…; Bush's attempts to hide his father's presidential records and his own gubernatorial papers from public view; the secret war on terrorism, complete with secret arrests and closed military tribunals; the decision to hide the results of the Pentagon's Star Wars missile tests; the refusal to make public the SEC investigative files on Bush's slippery stock deal with Harken Energy Inc."
http://foi.missouri.edu/federalfoia/foiactonropes.html Here is the actual memorandum
http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foiapost/2001foiapost19.htm