“As an off campus observer, I found this a very interesting summary. I appreciate the ability to stay informed on these issues. I don’t know much about SMU. But I did once work for the National Archives, which administers and staffs the Presidential Libraries. I worked with President Richard Nixon’s White House tapes and documents.

You mention, “An executive order signed by Bush early in his first term makes it easier for presidents to classify documents.” You’re right in that some editorials have mentioned Executive Order 13233 of 2001 and the rights over records that it describes for Presidents and their families. But the phrase to describe what is involved would be “presidents to claim
privilege.” That’s because the term “classify” has a specific meaning for archivists. It is described in a different executive order. This all actually is defined in publicly available documents.

As I just mentioned, there is an order — different from the one you mentioned — that covers classification:

http://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/eo-12958-amendment.html

Notice that there is no mention of family. A President’s son or daughter (such as Chelsea Clinton or Barbara or Jenna Bush) usually would not have held government office enabling them to “classify” documents. Even if they once did have classification authority, the ability to classify documents doesn’t pass on to family members from an official. That’s because it attaches to a government function, not to a person.

The best way to look at at is this way. Say you were employed in an administrative capacity at SMU. If you resigned to take a new job elsewhere, or by some misfortune, died while working at SMU, any authority you previously had vested in you would not pass on to your
family members. They wouldn’t have an expectation that they could come in to your former office and make determinations about highly sensitive documents with which you once might have worked.

But the order you mentioned in your article does mention family. If you read it, you can see that there are constitutional issues involved in the order. This executive order is the subject of an ongoing court case. To see what President Bush’s 2001 order says, look at

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011101-12.html

Again, claiming privilege and having classification authority are addressed in two different executive orders, one of which involves a President’s family, the other of which does not.

(Submitted from home on January 31 at 7:25 a.m. eastern time)”

posting to Bushlibraryblog submitted at 7:30 a.m. from home