According to the National Coalition for History, President Obama Revokes Bush Presidential Records Executive Order.
The press release from the White House says the following:
“The Executive Order on Presidential Records brings those principles to presidential records by giving the American people greater access to these historic documents. This order ends the practice of having others besides the President assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the President will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the Attorney General and the White House Counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.”
UPDATE: Here is more: On Day One, Obama Overturns Era of White House Secrecy, By Mark Fitzgerald, Editor and Publisher, January 21, 2009.
In his first full day in office, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum ordering government agencies to examine Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with a bias toward release of the documents — overturning eight years of a Bush administration directives to find ways not to disclose information.
“For a long time now there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” Obama said. “The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”
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