Cheney Defiant on Classified Material-Executive Order Ignored Since 2003

[rodeodance]

Source: Wash Post



Cheney Defiant on Classified Material
Executive Order Ignored Since 2003

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 22, 2007; Page A01

Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.

............


The dispute centers on a relatively obscure process but underscores a wider struggle waged in the past 6 1/2 years over Cheney's penchant for secrecy. Since becoming vice president, he has fought attempts to peer into the inner workings of his office, shielding an array of information such as the names of industry executives who advised his energy task force, costs and other details about his travel, and Secret Service logs showing who visits his office or official residence.

The aggressive efforts to protect the operations of his staff have usually pitted Cheney against lawmakers, interest groups or media organizations, sometimes going all the way to the Supreme Court. But the fight about classified information regulation indicates that the vice president has resisted oversight even by other parts of the Bush administration. Cheney's office argued that it is exempt from the rules in this case because it is not strictly an executive branch agency.

"He's saying he's above the law," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which released a series of correspondence yesterday outlining the situation. "It just seems to me this is arrogant and shows bad judgment."



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062102309.html?hpid=topnews

[rodeodance]

1. Page A01----good for them!!

[rodeodance]

2. Cheney's office declined to discuss what it called internal matters.

Cheney's office declined to discuss what it called internal matters. "We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law," said spokeswoman Megan McGinn.

The Justice Department confirmed yesterday that it is looking into the issue. "This matter is currently under review in the department," said spokesman Erik Ablin, who declined to elaborate.

The handling of classified information by Cheney's office has been a sensitive issue in the past. The vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in March in a case stemming from the leak of a CIA agent's identity. Libby testified during the investigation that Cheney instructed him to leak intelligence on Iraq, telling him Bush had declassified the information.

The standoff disclosed yesterday stems from an executive order establishing a uniform, government-wide system for safeguarding classified information. The order was first signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 and was updated and reissued by President Bush in 2003. Under the order, an "entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information" must report annually how much it is keeping secret.........

[rodeodance]

3. Gonzo office has not replyed to a request to render a legal ruling:

......After the Chicago Tribune reported last year that Cheney failed to report classification data, the Federation of American Scientists filed a complaint. J. William Leonard, director of the Archives' oversight office, sent two letters to Cheney's chief of staff, David S. Addington, requesting compliance with the executive order but received no replies. Leonard then wrote Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in January asking him to render a legal ruling on whether the vice president is violating the order. Gonzales has not replied.

[wake.up.america]

4. People should realize that sets a very bad precedent for the general

public. If you don't like something, if people are getting too close, do everything in your power to either circumvent that law or attempt to have that law changed.

Cheney will get away with this just as this administration has gotten away with everything else.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Open defiance of the constitution.

The executive branch has thrown down the glove. We should be very afraid of the implications of this act.

[acmavm]

8. Yes, we should be very afraid. And now is the time that the

dems should be ramping up the impeachment hearings.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

9. Carpe diem

We shouldn't be afraid- we should be galvanized. Cheney's trying to have his cake and eat it too- he should be made to know he can't have it both ways.

Secrecy or immunity- one or the other, but not both. They're mutually exclusive in light of the claims he's making, and if the Congress lets him slide on this one, I'm moving to Siberia.

[tomp]

11. agree carpe diem, but nosecrecy, no immunity. nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

31. hgfh

cpodep

[Norquist Nemesis]

12. Not to mention open defiance of his boss, Bush!

It was BUSH's EO.

[Double T]

6. The WH is a den of thieves and criminals aided and abetted by...........

their criminal henchmen minion agency and department appointees.

[msongs]

7. cheney knows NOBODY will do anything about it. why should he care? nt

[Beetwasher]

10. This Is Not Funny Anymore

If it ever was.

[RiverStone]

13. Cheney in Dispute on Oversight of His Office

Source: New York Times - June 22, 2007

By SCOTT SHANE

For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested that the oversight office be shut down, according to documents released today by a Democratic congressman.

The oversight office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter.

The effort by Mr. Cheney to shut down the oversight office was disclosed by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Mr. Waxman, who has played a leading role in the stepped-up efforts by Democrats since they took control of Congress to investigate the Bush administration, outlined the matter in an eight-page letter sent today to the vice president and posted, along with other documentation, on the committee’s Web site.

Officials at the archives and the Justice Department confirmed the basic chronology of events outlined in Mr. Waxman’s letter.



Read more: http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nytA10.html

---

Shooter seems to only want to live by his rules.




I can think of no better application of the saying:


Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

[demnan]

14. Waxman is coming after Cheney

n/t

[rodeodance]

29. keep nipping Waxman---then HIT EM HARD!

[pacalo]

15. So outrageous that I wonder if his brain is getting enough oxygen.

He does have heart problems.

[Kikosexy2]

16. Dear God...

when is this evil f*#k's heart going to explode?....

[StClone]

24. Your remote diagnosis

Parallels mine. He appears to teeter above the class of those elderly that people call childish (senile?) where awareness is gone and most of the last remaining motivations are selfish because their is no longer the capacity for love, empathy or reason.

Plus he is -- and I don't give a damn who this offends -- an overly-self important, self-serving rich white bastard (and yes being a white especially a paranoid, old male) that has the worst of intentions for the world as they pursue their own agendas.

[NoodleyAppendage]

32. No. I'm afraid it's a simple problem of his being...EVIL AS HELL.

Cheney is our shadow dictator. He is pure evil, devoid of any conscience, and determined to rule without consequence.

J

[BootinUp]

17. Hey dick! Make..Our..Day. nt

[Marnieworld]

18. cheney's response

Yah so? Whaddya gonna do about it?

[dmosh42]

19. Dems don't have the guts, or whatever....

and DICK is making a laughing stock of congress with this latest joke. How much does he have to do in broad daylight to show he won't stay within the boundaries of our constitution. The Dems of the 70s forced Nixon to leave for much less, and the Repukes wanted Clinton convicted on a consenting sex charge. This guy is tied to Enron and the bilking of the state of Calif., and still refuses to open those records of meetings with the energy cos. Spreading disinformation to keep our army tied up in a civil war in Iraq, causing thousands of casualties. Discarding e-mails and phone records, etc. We really don't have any leadership in congress, just the same old bunch who were voted out in '94. Sad.

[go west young man]

26. Myself and many other posters I have read on DU believe

the full disclosure of those secret energy task force meetings conducted in April 2001 would expose quite a bit about this administration and their Middle East plans. I think the Dems don't go after him on it because they know were dependent on that Iraqi oil and Afghan resources in the long run.

[Igel]

36. No, he's not saying anything about Congress with this 'joke.'

It's an executive order, not a law. * inaugurated the requirement, and * could dispose of it this afternoon if he wanted to.

Nothing to do with the Constitution--it's an order by a boss to his underlings. If it's a violation of the Constitution, it's because the Constitution makes * the executive authority over the Executive (branch). But now we're talking 'unitary Executive', in a backhanded sort of way, saying that as far as the Executive branch goes nobody has any power but *.

Now, there are many other things to nail Cheney on, don't get me wrong. But this one is an entirely in-house sort of affair.

[Greyskye]

20. The Dick Branch

[yardwork]

21. LOL! Good one.

[Dukkha]

22. throw the fucker in jail already

Never in history has there been a more immoral, vile, despicable piece of human filth in the WH. He is truly void of any scruples or humility.

[Javaman]

23. And so it goes...

I...hope...something...comes...of...this...zzzzzzzzzzzz...oh sorry, wake me up when congress figures out that they have the power now, until then wake me up when september comes.

[BootinUp]

25. I'm sort of curious how Faux news is covering this

call me crazy, but it seems hard to believe they would try to spin this in Dickies favor.

[ProudDad]

27. Utterly silent

on their website.

I won't listen to their drivel on the tube...

[Harry Monroe]

28. Cheney is forcing Congress' hand

The Demo leadership will have to put up or shut up. And if they cave on this issue, then they will lose whatever credibility they have left. We'll see what kind of backbone our so called "leaders" in Congress have. I'm not too optimistic; to me the majority of our Democrat Congressmen/Congresswomen are spineless jellyfish. I hope they prove me wrong.

[Igel]

37. No, he's not.

Congress is unlikely to do more than complain about Cheney's flagrant abuse of an executive-branch order.

In other words, Congress is not likely to argue for *'s having more power over the executive branch.

[The Wes Clark Army]

30. Fascist

This is his Vision for America

Fascist:
somebody who supports or advocates a system of government characterized by dictatorship, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Dick you can't invoke executive privilege to avoid one bomb and then say you are not a member of the executive branch to avoid another.

[toopers]

33. The VP is not a member of the executive branch . . .

nor the legislative branch. In reality, Bush is not his boss. Cheney is there just in case Bush is somehow removed from office. Cheney can take over without a rush vote or an appeal to congress.

[BootinUp]

35. Cheney and his idiot advisers

are wrong on this just like on everything else. Were you being serious?

[calimary]

34. I hope people are calling Waxman's office AND Pelosi's.

Guys, this is urgent! CALL YOUR REPS! ENCOURAGE THEIR BACKBONES! Doesn't even matter who you call. Just THAT you call. Call your rep. Call somebody else's. They ALL need to hear from us about this, and PRONTO!!! republi-CONS, too! Ask THEM how THEY'D feel if some Democrat thumbed his or her nose in their faces the way cheney's doing now.

You can do it TOLL FREE:

1 (800) 828 - 0498

1 (800) 459 - 1887

1 (800) 614 - 2803

1 (866) 220 - 0044

1 (866) 340 - 9281

1 (866) 338 - 1015

1 (877) 851 - 6437

1 (888) 851 - 1879

They all work, although some of 'em are busy.

Not much is at stake. Only our future... our Constitution... our system of laws and of justice...