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Vrijdag, 22 Juni, 2007

SCOTT SHANE
De New York Times

vier jaar, Ondervoorzitter Dick Cheney zich tegen routineonoplettendheid van de behandeling van zijn bureau van geclassificeerde informatie heeft verzet, en wanneer Algemeen Rijksarchief de eenheid die classificatie in de uitvoerende tak controleert had bezwaar, het voorgestelde bureau van de ondervoorzitter afschaffend de onoplettendheidseenheid, volgens documenten die gisteren door een Democratisch congreslid worden vrijgegeven.

Het Bureau van de Onoplettendheid van de Informatiebeveiliging, een eenheid Algemeen Rijksarchief, deed de kwestie op de Afdeling van de Rechtvaardigheid een beroep, die nog niet inzake de kwestie heeft beslist.

Vertegenwoordiger Henry A. Waxman, Onthulden de Democraat van Californië en de voorzitter van het Comité van het Huis voor de Hervorming van de Onoplettendheid en van de Overheid, M. De inspanning van Cheney om het onoplettendheidsbureau te sluiten. M. Waxman, die een belangrijke rol in de stappen-omhooggaande inspanningen door Democraten heeft gehad om het beleid van Bush te onderzoeken, schetste de kwestie in acht-pagina Donderdag een brief verzonden naar de ondervoorzitter en postte, samen met andere documentatie, op de website van de commissie.

De ambtenaren bij het Algemeen Rijksarchief en de Afdeling van de Rechtvaardigheid bevestigden de basischronologie van gebeurtenissen die in M. worden aangehaald. De brief van Waxman.

De brief zei dat na herhaaldelijk het weigeren om aan een routine jaarlijks verzoek van de archieven voor gegevens te voldoen over de classificatie van zijn personeel van interne documenten, het bureau van de ondervoorzitter in 2004 een inspectie ter plaatse van verslagen blokkeerde dat andere agentschappen van de uitvoerende tak regelmatig door gaan.

Maar het Algemeen Rijksarchief is een uitvoerende takafdeling die door een presidentiële aangestelde wordt geleid, en het wordt toegewezen om de gegevens over geclassificeerde documenten onder een presidentiële uitvoerende orde te verzamelen. Zijn Bureau van de Onoplettendheid van de Informatiebeveiliging is de archievenafdeling die op classificatie en declassification toezicht houdt.

„ik weet de ondervoorzitter met een ongekende geheimhouding wil werken,“ M. Waxman bovengenoemd in een gesprek. „Maar dit is absurd. Deze orde wordt ontworpen om geclassificeerde informatiebrandkast te houden. Zijn argument is werkelijk dat hij een geen deel van de uitvoerende tak is, zodat moet hij niet voldoen.“

Een spreekbuis voor M. Cheney, Megan bovengenoemd McGinn, „wij zijn zeker dat wij het behoorlijk bureau in het kader van de wet.“ leiden Zij daalde uit te werken.

Andere ambtenaren vertrouwd met M. De mening van Cheney zei dat hij en zijn rechtskundige adviseur, 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. Other White House offices, including the National Security Council, routinely comply with the oversight requirements, according to Mr. Waxman’s office and outside experts.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said last night, “The White House complies with the executive order, including the National Security Council.”

The dispute is far from the first to pit Mr. Cheney and Mr. Addington against outsiders seeking information, usually members of Congress or advocacy groups. Their position is generally based on strong assertions of presidential power and the importance of confidentiality, which Mr. Cheney has often argued was eroded by post-Watergate laws and the prying press.

Mr. Waxman asserted in his letter and the interview that Mr. Cheney’s office should take the efforts of the National Archives especially seriously because it has had problems protecting secrets.

He noted that I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president’s former chief of staff, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury and the F.B.I. during an investigation of the leak of classified information — the secret status of Valerie Wilson, the wife of a Bush administration critic, as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.

Mr. Waxman added that in May 2006, a former aide in Mr. Cheney’s office, Leandro Aragoncillo, pleaded guilty to passing classified information to plotters trying to overthrow the president of the Philippines.

“Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information,” Mr. Waxman wrote to Mr. Cheney.

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.

But starting in 2003, the vice president’s office began refusing to supply the information. In 2004, it blocked an on-site inspection by Mr. Leonard’s office that was routinely carried out across the government to check whether documents were being properly labeled and safely stored.

Mr. Addington did not reply in writing to Mr. Leonard’s letters, according to officials familiar with their exchanges. But Mr. Addington stated in conversations that the vice president’s office was not an “entity within the executive branch” because, under the Constitution, the vice president also plays a role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, able to cast a vote in the event of a tie.

Mr. Waxman rejected that argument. “He doesn’t have classified information because of his legislative function,” Mr. Waxman said of Mr. Cheney. “It’s because of his executive function.”

Mr. Cheney’s general resistance to complying with the oversight request was first reported last year by The Chicago Tribune.

In January, Mr. Leonard wrote to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales asking that he resolve the question. Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman, said last night, “This matter is currently under review in the department.”

Whatever the ultimate ruling, according to Mr. Waxman’s letter, the vice president’s office has already carried out “possible retaliation” against the oversight office.

As part of an interagency review of Executive Order 12958, Mr. Cheney’s office proposed eliminating appeals to the attorney general — precisely the avenue Mr. Leonard was taking. According to Mr. Waxman’s investigation, the vice president’s staff also proposed abolishing the Information Security Oversight Office.

The interagency group revising the executive order has rejected those proposals, according to Mr. Waxman. Ms. McGinn, Mr. Cheney’s spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Mr. Cheney’s penchant for secrecy has long been a striking feature of the Bush administration, beginning with his fight to keep confidential the identities of the energy industry officials who advised his task force on national energy policy in 2001. Mr. Cheney took that dispute to the Supreme Court and won.

Steven Aftergood, who tracks government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and last year filed a complaint with the oversight office about Mr. Cheney’s noncompliance, said, “This illustrates just how far the vice president will go to evade external oversight.”

But David B. Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who served in Justice Department and White House posts in earlier Republican administrations, said Mr. Cheney had a valid point about the unusual status of the office he holds.

“The office of the vice president really is unique,” Mr. Rivkin said. “It’s not an agency. It’s an extension of the vice president himself.”

See More:CIA 

Have Your Say: Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data
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