If congress doesn't overturn one of President Bush's executive orders-

[MrMickeysMom]

... we won't know what they've been up to, says freedom-of-information activist CHARLES N. DAVIS

Charles N. Davis is an associate professor and executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri School of Journalism ([email protected]).

Sunday, December 16, 2007
By Charles N. Davis

If your holiday shopping this season finds you in a bookstore, take a moment and do me a favor.

Ask for the section on presidential history and go take a peek. I'll hazard a guess you'll find hundreds of works of presidential history, from the scholarly tomes with hundreds of footnotes to the downright silly works on presidential pets.

Now, take a moment and imagine it's 2033, and you're looking for a nice downloadable e-book history of the Clinton or Bush presidency.

What you find is truly disappointing: They look and feel like history, but sit down and read one for a moment, and the experience is wholly unsatisfying. Where is the background, the context provided by all of those once-classified memos detailing the West Wing intrigue that makes history come to life? Instead, we get the learned best guesses of the nation's finest historians working without their tools: the primary documents that make, well, history.

Sound like a nightmare? It's reality, for the moment, and it will rob us of our nation's historical record unless We the People wake up and do something about it.

Full Article: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07350/841856-109.stm