Dan Froomkin asks about Cheney's "Fourth Branch"
In today's "White House Briefing" column, Dan Froomkin asks "The Fourth Branch?" -- and provides a sampling of the reaction, the response and the commentary to what should be deemed an outrageous concept:
Peter Baker writes in Saturday's Washington Post: "The White House defended Vice President Cheney yesterday in a dispute over his office's refusal to comply with an executive order regulating the handling of classified information as Democrats and other critics assailed him for disregarding rules that others follow.
"White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Cheney is not obligated to submit to oversight by an office that safeguards classified information, as other members and parts of the executive branch are. Cheney's office has contended that it does not have to comply because the vice president serves as president of the Senate, which means that his office is not an 'entity within the executive branch.'
"'This is a little bit of a nonissue,' Perino said at a briefing dominated by the issue. Cheney is not subject to the executive order, she said, 'because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should.'
"Democratic critics said Cheney is distorting the plain meaning of the executive order. 'Vice President Cheney is expanding the administration's policy on torture to include tortured logic,' said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). 'In the end, neither Mr. Cheney or his staff is above the law or the Constitution.'"
Josh Meyer writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto "conceded that the lengthy directive, technically an amendment to an existing executive order, did not specifically exempt the president's or vice president's offices. Instead, it refers to 'agencies' as being subject to the requirements, which Fratto said did not include the two executive offices. 'It does take a little bit of inference,' Fratto said.
Fratto apparently couldn't explain why Cheney's office followed the rules until 2003 -- or why the National Security Council, among other White House offices, complies to this day.
David Jackson writes in USA Today: "If Vice President Cheney believes his office is not an 'entity within the executive branch,' then a House Democratic leader says taxpayers shouldn't have to finance his executive expenses."
fortunate timing?
The above series of articles followed closely on the report just released by the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight concerning the OVP and the letter sent by that committee's chairman, Henry Waxman, to Dick Cheney, and so public interest was already primed. Most fortunately timed, especially considering the lengthy preparation this series must have involved: the co-ordination of efforts, the interviews, the sorting through all the thousands of photos from WH cameras, etc. My favorite photo was of Powell stalking off in a dudgeon while Cheney smiled from behind the Presidents' desk in the Oval Office background. Whoever selected this photo has a real sense of photo-journalism. How apt to the article's content! A picture worth a thousand words!
No question, this article was almost well worth waiting for, however lengthy its preparation and so adding stall on top of stall as it did.
FOIA Provisions in 32 CFR 2800
Take a look at this FOIA provision in the CFR related to OVP security compliance. 32 CFR 2800 provides for FOIA compliance, and outlines specific procedures to release information related to 32 CFR 2800: The OVP Security Compliance Program:
(e) Mandatory review requests.
Requests from a member of the public, a government employee, or an agency, to declassify and release information will be acted upon within 60 days provided the request reasonably identifies the information. After review, the information or any reasonably segregable portion thereof that no longer requires protection, shall be declassified and released, except as provided in section 3–503, E.O. 12065, unless withholding is otherwise warranted under applicable law.
Ref:
http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title32/32-6.2.9.19.1.html
Talk About What OVP Must Follow: 32 CFR 2800
Focus Attention on Applicable OVP Security Standards
Action Alert
Please encourage the media to report information security standards OVP must meet.
Ask your media contacts: Is media delaying coverage of 32 CFR 2800 until OVP has time to 'explain away' 32 CFR 2800?
Issues/Concerns
The MSM is embracing an irrelevant comment:
"Josh Meyer writes in the Los Angeles Times: 'Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said.' "
Irrelevant. "The moon isn't made of cheese." So what. LA Times hasn't talked about what does apply to OVP in re security standards; nor focused attention on what information should be available per 32 CFR 2800 compliance programs.
Applicable Standard to VOP Document Retention
This does apply to OVP, making LA Times' Meyer comment irrelevant:
http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title32/32-6.2.9.19.1.html
This does not mean the OVP is or is not required to comply with any security guideline; or that the OVP is immune to any and all Executive Orders. For example, through 32 CFR 2800, this EO does apply to OVP: [Kw= "sections 1–201 and 3–103 of E.O. 12065 of June 28, 1978" ]
Ref:
http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title32/32-6.2.9.19.1.html
Will You Believe Your Lying Eyes; or Focus on Irrelevant OVP Denials and MSM Red Herring?
Sample: Clear OVP Letterhead Related to Security Requirements in 32 CFR 2800
Look at this PDF:
http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/pdfs/ec21oc91.054.pdfPropose this question to MSM: Is LAT asking us to believe the PDF at the link
A. doesn't say, "Office of Vice President";
B. is not a Security Indoctrination document linked with 32 CFR 2800; or
C. is not required to be kept on file by OVP legal counsel?
LA Times reports that a given EO "doesn't apply," yet 32 CFR 2800 specifically include EOs in the langauge.
A particular EO may or may not apply; but what standards do apply to the OVP security compliance program?
Here are some details at CREW Blog:
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/29175#comment-6818
suggestion
get a media type who can form these discussions into something that can be pasted into a standard "press release form". If the public can't digest this, you can assume not many of the press can.
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The Crack of Doom
Froomkin touches on the really significant matter: the W.Post series by Gellman and Becker, starting yesterday and continuing through today and tomorrow, on Dick Cheney's tenure as VP.
The significance? This series of articles was clearly done with the co-operation of bushco. It is the crack of doom for Cheney, who has apparently been excommunicated from bushco and is to be blamed for all failures. The articles array all the bushco loyalists against Cheney in a finger-pointing chorus with the obvious intention of fixing the blame for all the failures and crimes of the administration on Cheney and..Addington, of course.
The crack of doom for Cheney, but it signals the desperation of bushco, which only shucks a part of it's liabilities by tossing Cheney to the wolves, those hungry grey beasts.