President Bush has signed an executive order that explicitly gives the government the power to classify information about critical infrastructures such as the Internet. Bush late Tuesday changed the definition of what the government may classify as confidential, secret and . . .

President Bush has signed an executive order that explicitly gives the government the power to classify information about critical infrastructures such as the Internet. Bush late Tuesday changed the definition of what the government may classify as confidential, secret and top-secret to include details about "infrastructures" and weapons of mass destruction. The new executive order also makes clear that information related to "defense against transnational terrorism" is classifiable.

In his executive order, which replaces a 1995 directive signed by President Bill Clinton, Bush said that information that already had been declassified and released to the public could be reclassified by a federal agency. Clinton's order said that "information may not be reclassified after it has been declassified and released to the public."

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