Finally I Found It

I read Bush had signed an executive order allowing him and former presidents to hide evidence of what they had done by sealing presidential papers in perpetuity.

When the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in 1996 released all of the records created by the Carter administration, presidential historians such as Vanderbilt University's Hugh Graham used the documents to bolster a three-day conference the following year analyzing the work of the 39th president.

And as the scheduled Jan. 20, 2001, release of some 68,000 documents from the Reagan administration approached, the historians hoped to create a similar program delving into the successes and problems during the two terms of the nation's 40th president.

"We figured we would be seeing some good documents," Graham said. "It takes about a year to look at the documents, so we had scheduled a conference for February 2002."

But a Nov. 1 executive order signed by President Bush placed the conference on hiatus. And now historians and open-government advocates fear the order effectively could allow former or sitting presidents to close unclassified presidential records indefinitely.

According to the five-page executive order, both the sitting president or a former president have a right to withhold the former president's papers from the public. Even if the former president wished for his records to be released, the incumbent could stop it.

"Basically, they are attempting to do what Nixon failed to do and that is take complete control over access to the papers forever," Graham said.

Finally I found a source.

Can you say fascist state? Yeah, I thought you could.