Vice President Dick Cheney is taking arrogance and secrecy to a rather ridiculous level.
He has refused to comply with a presidential order regulating the handling of classified national security information at all federal agencies. He says his office is not an executive branch agency and therefore he doesn’t have to comply with the order that attempts to ensure top-secret information is properly secured. It’s a spurious argument.
Just where in government does Cheney think the vice president’s office resides, given that it’s funded under the executive branch and he travels on Air Force Two? He claims it is “attached to” the legislative branch, since he also serves as Senate president, and that it has a unique dual function in both the executive and legislative branches.
If he’s serious, then he needs to follow the Senate’s stricter rules on handling classified information. And maybe Congress ought to take Sen. Dianne Feinstein up on her suggestion that money for the vice president’s office be held up until Cheney can decide whether or not it’s in the executive branch.
It’s ironic that Cheney has been a strong advocate of policies that have weakened the privacy rights of Americans in the name of national security – warrantless wiretaps are a case in point – while he has taken his own privacy rights to a new level.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said that Cheney also has disobeyed an executive branch ethics rule requiring him and his employees to disclose travel paid for by special interests. He won’t even disclose who some of his publicly paid employees are.
Cheney needs to allow oversight of his office’s classification system. It makes a mockery of that system if the vice president doesn’t comply.
A House committee released documents last week saying that Cheney’s staff has blocked efforts by the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office to enforce a key component of the presidential order to conduct on-site inspections of the vice president’s office. Waxman said that Cheney or his top staffers tried to abolish the oversight office this year after its director tried to force Cheney’s office to comply with the executive order.
Waxman also said Cheney’s office has had a history of leaks of classified information. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was among two Cheney staffers prosecuted in the alleged illegal disclosure of classified information.
The White House is defending Cheney, saying the executive order didn’t apply to him – or to the president’s office, for that matter. It’s the wrong message to send.
Both Cheney and Bush should be leading by example, not exempting themselves from rules they want to apply to everyone else.
