The on-going battle to gain access to missing White House e-mails intensified this week as the National Security Archive (NSA) filed suit against the Executive Office of the President (EOP), including the White House Office of Administration (OA), and the National Archives and Records Administration. NSA is seeking the recovery and preservation of millions of e-mail messages that were apparently deleted from White House computers between March 2003 and October 2005. The National Security Archive is a member of the National Coalition for History.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week held that the disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act of two Presidential Daily Briefs written for President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s could “reveal protected intelligence sources and methods.” The Court rejected, however, the Central Intelligence Agency’s “attempt to create a per se status exemption for PDBs.”

Government secrecy saw further expansion last year despite growing public concern, according to an annual report released on September 1 by OpenTheGovernment.org. The 2007 Secrecy Report Card, which identifies trends in public access to information, found a lack of transparency in military procurement, increased assertions of executive privilege, and expansion of “sensitive” categories of information, among other areas.