Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data
New York Times, June 22, 2007
For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested abolishing the oversight unit, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman.
Mr. Cheney says he is not part of the Executive Branch so he doesn't need to follow the established guidelines. Guidelines not only put into place by previous administrations as Executive Orders [Mr Bush last updated it in 2003] but also backed up by Congressional law AND reinforced by the U.S. Constitution!
His argument?
Other officials familiar with Mr. Cheney’s view said that he and his legal adviser, David S. Addington, did not believe that the executive order applied to the vice president’s office because it had a legislative as well as an executive status in the Constitution.huh? Even Congressional committees abide by oversight of classified documents.
The counter-argument?
In the tradition of Washington’s semantic dust-ups, this one might be described as a fight over what an “entity” is. The executive order, last updated in 2003 and currently under revision, states that it applies to any “entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.”
J. William Leonard, director of the oversight office, has argued in a series of letters to Mr. Addington that the vice president’s office is indeed such an entity. He noted that previous vice presidents had complied with the request for data on documents classified and declassified, and that Mr. Cheney did so in 2001 and 2002.
If the vice-president is the first person to succeed should the president die or be replaced, then of what branch of the government is he part? He doesn't rule on laws. He doesn't make laws; he only breaks tied votes in the Senate. Are there more than three branches? Did I miss something in the scores of History and Political Science classes I took?
oh, wait. The branch Cheney must be part of is the politburo.
No, wait again. Czarist Russia didn't have a politburo. It must then be the Okhrona - the Czar's Secret Police.
now that makes sense. doesn't it?
just asking...
1 comment:
January 2009 won't be the end of the damage this administration has done, and I'm pretty sure that your Russian allusions will pale by comparison.
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