Based on the revelations garnered from CREW's lawsuit seeking records of visitors to the residence of Vice President Dick Cheney, The New York Times blasted Cheney's penchant for secrecy in an editorial yesterday:

Americans are accustomed to Vice President Dick Cheney’s waiting out a terrorist threat in a “secure undisclosed location.” Now it seems that Mr. Cheney wears the cloak of invisibility in secure disclosed locations.

The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.

This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.

The Times editorial states Dick Cheney "has privatized the job of vice president of the United States."  But, it's not a private job.  Dick Cheney is a public servant.  And, CREW wil continue to challenge Cheney's consistent efforts to prevent the nation's laws from applying to him.

No doubt, Vice President Cheney does want to "conduct public business in private."  But CREW is not just letting that happen.  The controversy surrounding Cheney's effort to prevent access to the visitor records continues to grow -- as does the outrage: 

Vice President Dick Cheney, whose penchant for secrecy is well known, has eliminated any public record of his guests and their visits. His office has directed the U.S. Secret Service to turn over the visitor logs so they can be treated in effect as classified documents. No copies can be kept. According to declarations filed May 25 in a lawsuit, the directive was initiated in 2001 and quietly reiterated nine months ago as the Washington Post and a public interest group were trying to track appearances by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

It is not for social niceties that Cheney claims "exclusive control" over the names of his guests. The man who could often be found only in "undisclosed locations" after 9/11 likes to conduct public business in private. He fought off the General Accounting Office when it sought the names of oil, coal and utility lobbyists with whom Cheney had met privately to discuss the energy policy that he was fashioning for the Bush Administration — a practice ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is trying to pry open Cheney's hidden world in a lawsuit seeking Secret Service records of visitors to the White House and vice presidential residence. The group's chief counsel, Anne Weismann, told TIME that such logs would help illuminate the kind of outsiders who influence national policy.

Since Freedom of information laws do not apply to the White House, Cheney's office had the logs turned over to the White House every month, thus protecting them under the Presidential Records Act. A vice presidential aide argued in a court filing last week that the guest lists should remain off-limits because they could reveal "sensitive information regarding the inner workings and deliberations" of Cheney's office and provide a "roadmap" to his decision-making.

Nonsense, says Weisman, who notes the request seeks only names of visitors, not the substance of their discussions. "This Vice President has been given an extraordinary amount of power and authority," she said. "The more authority you're going to invest in an office, the greater the need there has to be for transparency in some degree of public accountability."

A very good question indeed:

Here's the letter that Vice President Cheney's lawyer sent to the Secret Service:

In response to CREW's lawsuit over access to what should be public records, we learned that Vice President Cheney's lawyer told the Secret Service that visitor logs were his records, not theirs. That meant Cheney could prevent any public access. Before you read the AP article, know CREW's position according to our counsel, Anne Weismann: "The latest filings make clear that the administration has been destroying documents and entering into secret agreements in violation of the law."

A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states.

The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's lawyer says logs for Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act.

Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president.

The Justice Department filed the letter Friday in a lawsuit by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney at his official residence.

The newly disclosed letter about visitors to Cheney's residence is accompanied by an 18-page Secret Service document revealing the agency's long-standing practice has been to destroy printed daily access lists of visitors to the residence.

Separately, the agency says it has given Cheney's office handwritten logs of who visits him at his personal residence.

Because of pending lawsuits, the Secret Service says it is now keeping copies of all material on visitors to Cheney's residence. According to the Secret Service document, Cheney's office has approved the agency's retention of the records, while maintaining they are presidential records subject to Cheney's control.

"The latest filings make clear that the administration has been destroying documents and entering into secret agreements in violation of the law," said Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel.