Press Releases Could Get Security Stamp From White House

July 3, 2008

Under a new White House directive, embargoed press releases could be guarded as "Controlled Unclassified Information."

President Bush on May 9, 2008, issued a "Memorandum For The Heads Of Executive Departments And Agencies" ostensibly meant to regularize the patchwork of extra-legal secrecy stamps that have proliferated over the last 7 years.

A background paper accompanying the memo said embargoed press releases could be withheld using the CUI stamp temporarily, according to the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project.

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