The Secretive Bush Administration

"Taken individually, each of the new national security policies adopted by the Bush Administration in recent weeks has its pros and cons, its potential excesses and mitigating factors," observes the Secrecy News, a publication of the Federation of American Scientists. "But collectively, the policies represent a striking new concentration of power in the executive branch and a transformation of the national security landscape." Each measure "involves an expansion of the exercise of executive branch authority with diminished opportunity for independent oversight, and little or no provision for public accountability. ... It is not necessary to attribute any malicious intent to the Bush Administration in order to conclude that its new policies will make the abuse of government power more feasible, harder to detect, and much more difficult to correct."