Bush Looks to His (Secret) Legacy
By Jason Leopold
July 11, 2008
George W. Bush, who has expanded his power to access the e-mails and other electronic communications of Americans, is resisting congressional demands that White House e-mails be saved for later research by historians.
Bush signaled he would veto a House-passed bill that seeks to overhaul the Presidential and Federal Records Act to ensure that e-mails and other government documents are preserved in the age of the Internet.
The measure passed the House, 286-137, on Wednesday, after congressional investigations revealed that the Bush administration apparently purged millions of e-mails and that dozens of administration officials used e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee to conduct official White House business and thus evade federal records laws.
Watchdog groups -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and George Washington University’s National Security Archive -- sued the administration last year alleging the White House violated the Presidential Records Act by not archiving e-mails sent and received between 2003 and 2005.
The Bush administration, in threatening to veto the legislation, said the bill is "an excessive and inappropriate intrusion" into the work of the Executive Branch and its staff.
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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/071008c.html