Bush Administration Information Policy and Democratic Values

Abstract

Bush administration information policy raises fundamental questions about the survival of democratic values in what is increasingly a surveillance society. After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, Bush administration information policy abandoned the transparency in government policies of the Clinton administration and the 1990s, moving the pendulum toward a policy of secrecy in government and massive classification of documents. From perpetuating core elements of the Congressionally-banned Total Information Awareness program to warrantless electronic searching on a mass basis to undermining provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, the Bush administration has sought as a matter of policy to curtail the democratic freedoms it purports to protect. A comprehensive civil remedies statute needs to be enacted in order to assure that citizens have a clear legal claim in litigation against the government when they suffer various forms of injury as a result of wrongful surveillance and intrusion into their privacy.