Executive orders

Being the subject of much chatter in the press, I thought I would look up executive orders, to find that there is plenty of the stuff out there, with most presidents issuing a few hundred of them in their ten year stints but with Roosevelt, exceptionally, issuing a few thousand. Numbered sequentially, presumably from the very beginning, with Trump's order about Obamacare being EO.13765.

The previous two, the last throws of the Obama administration being 'Providing an Order of Succession Within the Environmental Protection Agency' and 'Amending the Civil Service Rules, Executive Order 13488, and Executive Order 13467 To Modernize the Executive Branch-Wide Governance Structure and Processes for Security Clearances, Suitability and Fitness for Employment, and Credentialing, and Related Matters', these last obtained by typing 'executive order 13764' into google and getting wikipedia.

The government websites are all present and correct but are a little harder going.

For old executive orders, one has https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders, with the list given here appearing to stop someway through the reign of Obama.

I learn that several of Roosevelt's orders appeared to be to do with waiving statutory retirement age for important officials during the second world war.

Then, it seems that the drill is to publish those orders which are not classified in an organ called the 'Federal Register' - a sort of upstart version of the 'London Gazette', and containing all kinds of stuff about the routine business of government, in addition to the executive orders of present interest. It can be found at https://www.archives.gov/federal-register.

Another source, from which the snip is taken, is the Government Publication Office which yields the rather long winded 'https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=FR&browsePath=2017&isCollapsed=false&leafLevelBrowse=false&ycord=0'.

So what with public and private sites, it is all there.

Presumably secret orders are given away by gaps in the numbering system, as you can't have an order without a duly allocated number. Or do they have a special series of secret numbers?

PS: a few days later: the government machine now seems to have caught up a bit and we have reference 1. All nice and tidy. But no order 13769 yet. Maybe that will turn up later today (Monday).

Reference 1: https://www.federalregister.gov/executive-orders/donald-trump/2017.