An important legal ruling is pending over Vice President Cheney's refusal to disclose statistics on document classification and declassification activity. The Information Security Oversight Office, which is responsible for the policy and oversight of the government's security classification system, has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to direct Cheney's office to disclose these statistics.
Cheney's office provided the information until 2002 but then stopped doing so, J. William Leonard, the director of ISOO, told U.S. News. At issue is whether the office of the vice president is an executive branch entity when it comes to supporting the activities of the president and the vice president. The reporting requirements for disclosing classification and declassification activity fall under a presidential executive order.
"Basically the definition says that any entity of the executive branch that comes into possession of classified information is covered by the reporting requirements," says Leonard. "I have my understanding of what the executive order requires, and I'm going to the attorney general to ascertain if my reading of the executive order is correct."
However, Megan McGinn, Cheney's deputy press secretary, says the vice president's office is exempt.
"This matter has been thoroughly reviewed," McGinn told U.S. News, "and it has been determined that reporting requirements do not apply to the office of the vice president, which has both legislative and executive functions." Under the Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate.
This little controversy has been growing since last June, when the vice president's office refused to provide any statistics to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) since 2003:
n its 2005 report to the president released last month, the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a branch of the National Archives, provides a quantitative overview of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified and declassified documents. But the vice president’s input consists of a single footnote explaining that his office failed to meet its reporting requirements for the third year in a row.
[....]
In 2003 – around the time Cheney’s office stopped reporting to the ISOO – the Bush administration affirmed and expanded the vice president’s classification powers through a revision of Executive Order 12958, the same order mandating the yearly ISOO assessment. The amended order explicitly granted the vice president unprecedented authority to classify information "in the performance of executive duties," including the ability to label information "secret" and "top secret" on par with the heads of federal agencies and the president himself.
Critics also note another legal shield compounding the vice president’s reticence about how he handles secrets: Cheney enjoys general immunity from the Freedom of Information Act, which empowers members of the public with a process for demanding the release of government documents.
And of course, Cheney's office continues to spin that they are above any law:
Though not the only government entity to shrug off the reporting duties, Cheney’s office is unique in that it has actually issued a public justification for its non-compliance. Cheney’s office argued on Monday that its dual role in the federal government places it above the reporting mandate.
"This matter has been carefully reviewed, and it has been determined that the reporting requirement does not apply to [the Office of the Vice President], which has both executive and legislative functions," Lea McBride, a spokesperson for Cheney’s office, told The NewStandard.
Cheney’s press aides declined to specify to TNS how the office’s legislative role effectively exempted it from the executive order, or why the office had complied prior to 2003.
What do you expect from a totalitarian dictator?
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