“A much tighter lid” is how reporter Adam Clymer’s lede paragraph characterizes the Bush Administration approaches to government proceedings and public release of information … “a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties.”

Stemming both from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and by a commitment to “strengthen the authority of the executive branch,” the Administration’s efforts have proceeded with “relative little attention, masking the proportions of what dozens of experts described in recent interviews as a sea change in government openness.”

He quotes Columbia University historian Alan Brinkley as saying that secrecy is not new to the presidency, but that the Bush Administration “has taken it to a new level …. instinct is to release nothing.” He reports that for the first time three agencies – the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services – can now stamp documents as “secret,” this despite White House spokesman Ari Fleischer’s contention that the Administration is “more accessible and open than many previous administrations,” and that President Bush himself consistently advocates for openness. (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/03/politics/03SECR.html?tntemail0=&pagewanted=print.