MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Legal process, ethics, transparency, mark Obama's first day

Obama ready to sign several excecutive orders including closing Guantanamo

US President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year. A draft order circulated on Wednesday also called for halting military trials in the prison, where terror suspects had been held for years without trial.

Separate orders are expected to ban abusive interrogations and review the detention of terror suspects. On his first full day in office on Wednesday, Mr Obama issued orders on government ethics and transparency. The measures included curbs on lobbying and a pay freeze for senior White House staff. Federal employees will have to sign up to new ethics procedures. Mr Obama and his advisers also discussed the global economic downturn affecting the US and also the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Late on Wednesday, a panel in the House of Representatives gave its support to a 358 billion US dollars bn government spending package, giving the first post-inaugural backing to the Democrats' economic plans. Mr Obama said he was beginning "a new era of openness" in government. The draft executive order on the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was circulated by the Obama administration on Wednesday. "The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order," the draft read, according to Reuters. It says anyone still in detention when the prison is shut "shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country or transferred to another United States detention facility". Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House official said the order would be signed on Thursday. Mr Obama has repeatedly promised to close the Guantanamo Bay, where some 250 inmates accused of having links to terrorism remain and 21 cases are pending. On Wednesday, judges suspended several of the military trials of terror suspects at Guantanamo, at Mr Obama's request. One trial involved several men accused in the 11 September attacks in the US. The legal process has been widely criticised because the US military acts as jailer, judge and jury. On Thursday, Mr Obama is also expected to issue a separate executive banning abusive interrogation techniques such as water-boarding - a form of simulating drowning used by the CIA. The president is also expected to order a review of America's detention policies, a White House official said. Regarding public scrutiny of the Executive Obama said the White House will have to consult with the attorney general and White House counsel "any time the American people want to know something that I or a former president wants to withhold." "Information will not be withheld just because I say so," Obama said while attending a ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. "It will be withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution". Obama also revoked an executive order issued by President George W. Bush less than two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that allowed past presidents to exert executive privilege to keep some of their White House papers private. The order was viewed as ushering in a new era of presidential secrecy. Under the 1978 Presidential Records Act, presidential records are the property of government, not ex-presidents, and are to be released after 12 years, except for those withheld for national security or certain personal reasons specified by law. Obama reinstituted a presumption of disclosure for Freedom of Information Act requests about the workings of government. This, too, is a reversal of Bush actions. Reporters and public-interest groups often make use of the law to explore how and why government decisions were made; they are often stymied as agencies claim legal exemptions to the law. But Obama said he was directing agencies that vet requests for information to err on the side of making information public â€" not to look for reasons to legally withhold it. "For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city," he said. One of Obama's new rules aimed at tamping down the influence-peddling game said that any lobbyists who get a job across his administration may not work on matters that they lobbied on and cannot even work in any agency they lobbied over the past years. The new lobbying rules also bar any Obama aides from trying to influence his administration when they leave, prohibiting them from lobbying former colleagues for two years. Obama said the steps "represent a clean break from business as usual." The watchdog group Democracy 21 said Obama called it "the toughest and most far-reaching revolving door provisions ever adopted."