By Michael A. Fletcher, The Washington Post, June 4, 2007

4 Jun 2007 // So you thought that maybe, just maybe, Vice President Cheney [1] was mellowing in his controversial campaign to reestablish executive powers and prerogatives that he feels had been eroded since Watergate. Okay, so you didn't think that. And you were right not to.

A Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's counsel, Shannen W. Coffin, to the Secret Service [2] that surfaced last week made clear that Cheney intends to exercise "exclusive control" of the logs showing who is visiting him or his staff at the White House [3] compound or at the vice presidential residence at the Naval Observatory.

In the letter, Coffin reiterated Cheney's position that the vice president's office should be the sole keeper of the visitor logs and the Secret Service should not. Other administrations have relinquished the records in the face of congressional investigations.

But the Bush administration's policy puts the visitor records out of reach of the Freedom of Information Act and off-limits to reporters and interest groups trying to determine who is meeting with the vice president or his staff.

The logs instead are classified as presidential records and would be available only to researchers once the administration has receded into history. The private group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed suit seeking the logs to determine the influence of religious conservatives.

"What is the vice president's office trying to avoid making public?" asked Anne Weisman, CREW's chief counsel.

The White House calls its position a matter of principle, saying in a court declaration that it is aimed at preserving "the effective functioning of the vice presidency under the Constitution." To release the information, it says, would "impinge on the ability of the OVP to gather information in confidence."

Countered Weismann: "I think they really are taking this to a new extreme in terms of their unwillingness to reveal any of the inner workings of the White House and what goes on when, after all, they are doing the people's business."