paulsol the Righteous wrote:
There is a Executive Order that requires 'all agencies of the executive branch' of the administaration to make availiable data concerning the amount of classified and de-classified documents to the Information Security Oversight Office – a small part of the National Archives whose job it is to monitor the government-wide security classification system.
This hinges on what was intended by "all agencies". I would assume that means various departments under the various cabinet positions which deal with classfied materials. So like the FBI, CIA, NSA, DoD, etc...
Without you perhaps having some source of information other then hearsay, it's pretty much impossible to know for sure, but at a guess I'd say that an individuals office within the whitehouse itself is not necessarily considered an "agency".
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Cheneys' office stopped providing the info after 2002.
Again. Source on this information? Was he doing it before? To whom? Was this done in a vacuum? Or perhaps had something to do with the reshaping of how intelligence and classified materials are handled as a result of the formation of the Homeland Security Department. It's not like the VPs office is actually empowered to do anything directly. They may interact with other agencies, but then those documents would appear and be reported because the other agencies were involved.
It's not like the VP has his own super secret squad of Jack Bauer clones doing his evil bidding. Ok. Not that you or I know of anyway... ;)
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Cheney's office says they exempt from the executive order, since it has both executive branch and legislative functions.
Well. He is the President of the Senate. He holds the tie breaker vote. Thus, he (and his office) would be involved in legistlative matters as part of the normal day to day job. In fact, that's really one of the major duties of the VPs office. To act as a direct link between the President and Congress. It would not surprise me if a significant majority of paper that passes through that office is legistlative in nature, not executive.
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On June 22, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the executive order didn't intend Cheney's office to be treated as an administration agency.
Ok. Do you have any reason to believe that this is false? Again. It would help terrifically if you actually knew something concrete about the executive order rather then just hearsay.
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Alberto Gonzales has been asked to rule on the matter (last January) and has yet to do so.
Asked by whom? You make this sound like it's some ominous thing and there's some kind of conspiracy going on. If it's not illegal, then what is there to "rule on" (he's not a judge though, so this is a poor choice of words)? What was Gonzales supposed to do? Have a complete investigation into something that's not illegal so that he can hold a press conference declaring it to not be illegal just so he can satisfy some nutjob leftwinger's strage fantasies about how the law should work?
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Apparently ,Cheney, in response to this controversy, has suggested that the Information Security Office be abolished.
Apparently? Um... Can we be a bit more definative then this? At this point, you're just rummormongering. And doing it poorly at that. I can make up stories about horrible things that someone in government might be doing right now too...
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So. Is the VP part of the Executive branch of the Government, or is he a sort of autonomous off-world DarkStar entity that operates outside the laws of the nation?
False dilema. First off, as I pointed out, the VP *is* technically a member of the Senate, and certainly does deal with legistlative issues (has to). It's one of the few (perhaps *only*) Constituationally mandated duties the VP has (except to take over as President in case of incapacitation).
Secondly, since you haven't established what was meant by "agencies", you can't say that the VPs office is in anyway covered under that executive order. Thus, your wonderfully contrived "or else he's doing something evil!!!!" argument is both silly and irrelevant.
You might want to start with the executive order. Then see how the order is applied. Then figure out whether the VPs office is covered. And then you might just want to ask the president how he feels about it. See. It's an "executive order". Not a law. The president is not bound by it. Can't be. He can pick and choose how it's applied to. It's his order, by his authority. The only one who can demand that someone comply is the president. I'm reasonably certain that if he wanted or intended for Cheney's office to comply with that order, Cheney's office would be complying.
Or do you not really understand what an Executive Order is?