House Democrats on Thursday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney's proposal to abolish a government office charged with safeguarding national security information — and criticized him for refusing to cooperate with the agency.
Cheney's office — over the objections of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) of the National Archives — has exempted itself from a presidential executive order intended to safeguard national security information, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Under the order, executive branch offices are required to disclose how much material it has classified and declassified.
Cheney's office provided the information to the Archives in 2001 and 2002, then stopped. According to Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, Cheney's office claims it need not comply with the executive order because it is not an "entity within the executive branch."
"Your decision to except your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Waxman wrote in a letter to Cheney. Megan McGinn, a spokeswoman for the vice president, said Cheney's office was not breaking the law, but did not elaborate. "We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law," she said.
The ISOO has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resolve the legal dispute over whether the order applies to Cheney's office. So far, the Justice Department has not ruled on the issue.
J. William Leonard, director of the ISOO, said that after he sought advice from the Justice Department, Cheney's office recommended that the executive order be amended to abolish the ISOO. Leonard also disclosed that in 2004, Cheney's office blocked the archives from doing an onsite inspection of his office-- an inspection that is intended to ensure that classified information was being properly protected.
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