Cheney ordered visitor logs destroyed, uses man-sized safes for documents, report says

[kpete]

Cheney ordered Secret Service logs destroyed, paper reports John Byrne
Published: Saturday June 23, 2007


VP created new secret document classification, keeps 'man-size' safes

A massive piece in Sunday's Washington Post reveals the true extent of secrecy Vice President Dick Cheney requires.

So clandestine is the Vice President's work that he has created a new secret document designation: "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI."

That's not all: the piece also reveals that Cheney keeps 'man-size' Mosler safes on hand for "workaday business" and has destroyed all Secret Service visitor logs, in addition to already refusing to comply with a national security directive issued by President Bush, which RAW STORY first reported earlier this week.

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

"Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency," the Post article says. "Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs."

more at:
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Cheneys_secrecy_far_greater_than_reported_0623.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. I think he's just afraid of fluoridated water.

[bobthedrummer]

2. He's been eliminating original documents about what we've saved

for instance your archived thread from 5-23-2007

"Looking for links to news stories about Afghanistan, Bin Laden, Taliban, pre 9/11"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x949535

[Ezlivin]

29. It's all about "preserving the precious bodily fluids"

This administration makes "Dr. Strangelove" look rational and comforting.

[progressoid]

35. Purity of Essence

[LiberalFighter]

3. When that scumbag dies there better not be one Democrat attending his funeral

or providing anything good to say about him.

[kurth]

7. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, and renting of garments around the world

NOT.

[live love laugh]

28. "renting of garments"??? bwahahaaaaaa

What garments do you think they will rent? Tuxes are a popular garment rental item. :rofl:

[Harry Monroe]

43. I think that was supposed to be "rending"

But it was funny as is

[TwilightGardener]

38. Rending?

[aquart]

8. Hopefully, we'll be breaking into those safes and ransacking his office.

[Lasher]

12. I might visit his grave someday.

I'll be sure to drink lots of beer right before I go.

[LiberalFighter]

15. Make sure you sterilize the ground with bleach

[formercia]

36. I wouldn't contaminate my piss

with his remains.

[Truth2Tell]

23. Just an independent from CT.

[bahrbearian]

46. I can Imagine that asshat sobbing and blubbering over the cript.

[bobthedrummer]

4. "A DU collaborative investigation: National Energy Policy Development Group/NEPDG"

archived thread started 3-18-2007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x440721

[City Lights]

5. Enough already. Time for the Dems to play this card:

[kurth]

6. Is he living inside the safe?

[Harry Monroe]

44. Nah, the "man-sized" safes...

...are for the bodies of those who cross Emperor Palpatine Cheney.

[Theduckno2]

9. Man-size safes and yet Valerie Plame's name made it into print.

I guess "workaday business" is more important than the name of a covert agent.

Maybe if the public is made aware of all the secrecy surrounding the Office of Vice-President, an office of little governmental importance, they will be resentful of his excesses.

I, on the other hand, am way past just being resentful.

[kurth]

10. It's online now:

Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."

"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/

[tularetom]

11. Maybe Geraldo can open the safes after Darth croaks

[Jonathan50]

13. Funny story about safes and secresy

Richard Feynman (see my sig) was part of the Manhattan project developing the a bomb at Los Alamos.

The commanding general there was very paranoid and ordered a special, very large safe for his office.

Feynman had a hobby of lockpicking and safecracking and decided to see if he could crack the generals special safe..

Safes are usually delivered with a standard combination common to all of the same model, and the purchaser then resets the combination to his own wishes.

Feynman happened to know the standard combination for the generals special safe and he just casually tried it one day while the general was out of the office..

Needless to say, the combination worked and Feynman opened the safe in about thirty seconds.

So much for paranoid security, eh?

It wouldn't surprise me if Dickweed hasn't changed the combo on his safe either..

[DS1]

34. Feynman had cracked it

and then got confirmation from a locksmith after the guy had forgotten the combination. Of course, Feynman couldn't help, because that would have exposed his ability to crack the thing in the first place.

If I recall correctly.

[formercia]

50. I was duty Officer one evening

I went into the Division Chief's office to find his Crypto safe wide open. Rather than write him up, I called his wife and told her when he gets home from his 50 mile commute, to turn around and come back to the office, because I wasn't leaving his office until he inventoried every item in there and signed off on it. Needless to say, it never happened again.

[originalpckelly]

14. I think it's fairly obvious who is in control of this country, or at least the illusion of control.

The law is coming for you Mr. Cheney, you will have your day in court, because that's how we do things here in America.

[Kablooie]

16. Sorry, your wrong. That's how we DID things. We sit and do nothing nowadays.

[originalpckelly]

22. Do. The law's catching up with Mr. Cheney.

You can't outrun natural truth.

299,999,999 to 1, I like them odds.

[SteelPenguin]

30. Yeah it's sad isn't it

I would have sworn that once upon a time in our country Cheney's actions would have pretty much caused weekly, if not daily, massive protests surounding the white house, in the mall, around the VP mansion, etc.

Now even the opposition party says impeachment is off the table.

[frogcycle]

17. fuckers gonna self-destruct

he's such a paranoid megalomaniac, this publicity is gonna push him over the top.

think Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men"

he's gonna be standing in his office doorway like George Wallace on the schoolhouse steps, screaming "i am the king! you can't do this to me!" when the men in white coats come for him.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

18. Get him out NOW! Enough already. Arrest his ass.

[Bolo Boffin]

19. Jeez, what a story.

The man is a menace.

[flyarm]

20. DOES ANYONE REMEMBER REPORTS HERE ABOUT A SHREDDING COMPANY OUTSIDE HIS HOME IN DC??

does anyone remember that story or have a link??

thx..fly

[Emit]

24. I do recall a story at Huffington Post about that

Is this the one?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/comments/2006/10/30/32832

Here's more from 10/30/06:


A Wonkette reader snapped this photo on of a document shredding truck headed to Dick Cheney’s compound at the Naval Observatory on Oct. 19. Perhaps coincidentally, the truck is operated by the same company the Secret Service contracted with for “Pickup & Destruction Of Sensitive Waste Material.”




http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/200601030_shredding_truck_was_heading_to_cheneys/

[Cass]

40. Yep, here's a pic and story from Wonkette...

http://www.wonkette.com.nyud.net:8090/assets/resources/2006/10/shred-thumb.jpg
Spotted on 10/19, by an eagle-eyed Wonkette reader: The Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory.

Fun fact: Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services has been contracted by the Secret Service for our Executive Branch’s record-not-keeping needs.

The present contractor providing Pickup & Destruction of Sensitive Waste Material services is Mid Atlantic Shredding Services and the current rate is $0.095 cents per lbs.
You better get crackin’, Dick — that evidence won’t destroy itself!

http://wonkette.com/politics/dick-cheney/shreddin-with-dick-211028.php

[RufusTFirefly]

21. At Request of Wellstones, Cheney Will Not Attend Memorial

At Request of Wellstones, Cheney Will Not Attend Memorial
By JODI WILGOREN

MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 29 — Complying with a request from the sons of Senator Paul Wellstone, Vice President Dick Cheney will not attend tonight's memorial service for the senator, his wife and his daughter, who were killed in a plane crash on Friday, the White House said.

New York Times

I often thought the Wellstone boys were telling us something...

[Flying Dream Blues]

51. Me, too. nt

[bobthedrummer]

25. When Bush and Cheney made their appearance before the 9/11 Commission in 2004

they went in together with "no public access, no oath, no record" of what was said.

They ordered that "no stenographer" be present as this archived page from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press page detailed (scroll down to the entries for April 28, 2004, second entry)
http://www.rcfp.org/behindthehomefront/archive/2004_04.html

[Major Hogwash]

48. So there was no record of them appearing - how will future generations feel about that?

They'll look back on this time in history and say "what the fuck were those people thinking? Weren't there any patriots left by that time?"!!

[me b zola]

26. k&r

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

27. They are making the case for impeachment

I read the entire article. It is extremely long and extremely damning. Destruction of the Secret Service logs is only the beginning. This is a four part series. The discussion of its contents are going to make for excellent hearings, hopefully impeachment hearings.

[cassiepriam]

42. Bush might let it happen. Will take the heat off of him.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

31. He ordered destruction of logs? Why the hell would he do that?

That sort of behavior kinda' denotes GUILT, doesn't it?

Are whistle-blowers finally finding the courage to come forward and take this monster down?

One can ONLY hope.

[Miss Chybil]

32. It incenses me that Cheney has such a penchant for his own privacy while trampling on ours.

With every sentence I read of this article the more I believe he deserves to be in jail.

[DS1]

33. so we've got a paranoid fuck with his hand up the ass of an idiot puppet

great

[Grandrose]

45. Hilarious!

Too funny for words!!!:spray: :rofl: :yourock:

[democrat2thecore]

37. Ashcroft screamed at Cheney

"Rude to the Vice-President" someone in the article said. Whoever thought Ashcroft would be remembered with nostalgia after the Gonzalez messes.

Ashcroft wouldn't comment. The article says, "Asked recently about the confrontation, Ashcroft replied curtly: "I'm just not prepared to comment on that." I see a tell-all book maybe coming from him some day. He's obviously afraid of these guys.

[Cass]

39. Cheney's stealth behavior is completely unacceptable.

This man works for the American people and its damn well time someone reminded this clod of that fact.

The WP story referenced and linked to by Raw Story is astonishing. He won't disclose how many people on his staff or their names; won't disclose visitors; created a new classified document designation for his stuff; treats unclassified materials as secret sensitive information thereby restricting access to it; exempts himself from archival oversight. Jebus Christmas!! This is really beyond the pale. If this behavior is allowed to continue without consequence we are screwed.

[cassiepriam]

41. Wonder if we will ever find out all that he has been hiding.

[whopis01]

47. Top Secret/SCI is nothing new

Cheney didn't create that as a new secret document designation. That security level has been around a long time. It isn't even difficult to find job offerings that require the applicant to already have that level of access before applying.

[bobthedrummer]

49. Maybe Deborah Palfrey "visited" too as an outcall for other "visitors"? kick