Romenesko

Secrecy News
AP's piece on the "Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act of 2007" said: "The legislation is aimed at reversing an order by former Attorney General John Ashcroft after the 9/11 attacks in which he instructed agencies to lean against releasing information when there was uncertainty about how doing so would affect national security." Steven Aftergood says that's wrong. "Although the original House version of the OPEN Government Act did include a provision that would have repealed the Ashcroft policy and established a 'presumption of openness,' that provision was removed from the bill prior to passage."