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Cheney Secrecy Case Goes to High Court
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By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A nearly three-year fight over privacy in White House policy-making is going before a Supreme Court known for guarding its own secrecy.
Justices were being asked by the Bush administration Tuesday to let it keep private the records of Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s work on a national energy strategy.
The White House is framing the case as a major test of executive power, arguing that the forced disclosure of confidential records intrudes on a president's power to get truthful advice.
At the Supreme Court, which will rule before July, the administration finds a last hope in a dispute that began in July 2001 when a government watchdog group sued over Cheney's private meetings. The case has never gone to trial, but a federal judge ordered the White House to begin turning over records two years ago.
The Bush administration has lost two rounds in federal court. If the Supreme Court makes it three, Cheney could have to reveal potentially embarrassing records just in time for the presidential election.
Watchdog group Judicial Watch and the environmental group Sierra Club (news - web sites) want the task force papers made public to see what influence energy industries had in outlining national energy policy.
The Sierra Club accused the administration of shutting environmentalists out of the meetings while catering to energy industry executives and lobbyists.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson told the justices in court filings that no energy industry officials participated improperly in meetings. He maintains that forcing information about the sessions into the open violates the separation of powers among the branches of government.
The Supreme Court also is known for private meetings.
"The court utilizes the process of confidential deliberation just as the executive branch does. Memos are drafted, deliberations occur and drafts of opinions are circulated — all behind closed doors," said Kris Kobach, a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. "In both branches, deliberation is more candid, honest and valuable if it sometimes is sheltered from public scrutiny."
Martin Shapiro, a Supreme Court expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said while the court engages in private consultation, "the justices are used to themselves making decisions on the basis of what they hear from two sides publicly."
The case requires the court to clarify a federal open-government law.
All nine members were hearing arguments, despite a controversy over a hunting trip Cheney took with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites), an old friend, weeks after the high court agreed to hear Cheney's appeal.
Scalia, the vice president and two of Scalia's relatives flew together on a government jet to Louisiana for the duck hunt at a camp owned by an oil rig services executive.
"If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined," Scalia wrote in rejecting the Sierra Club's request that he disqualify himself
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Two things are important to me here.
1. No matter WHO the elected official is they still work for us, the people, and should be held answerable to us with only one exception and that is defense situations that if known could damage us. Seeing as how Energy policy is NOT a top secret defense ANYTHING that affects the people should be made public.
To those righties that post telling me to shut up and that this is the right of the President, I ask, if Clinton had done this would not have Limbaugh and the GOP led congress ordered an independant council?
Besides there is nothing political in believing that I as a taxpaying citizen have the right to know how and why policy is made by my elected government officials, whether they be city, county, state, or federal. That having closed door policy making meetings with only the representatives of the companies that profit most by the policy that is made should be investigated and most definately made public?
2. This perhaps scares me more than the precedent the judgement would set if the records are allowed to be remained sealed. That is the fact that Scalia will not recuse himself of this case. Politics aside, it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Scalia has close personal ties to Cheney and therefore could influence his decision. Especially when Cheney is one of the litigant parties.
If this were to happen in any other court there would be a mistrial called and rightfully so. If this were Clinton and he had gone hunting and such with a Justice, the right would be screaming foul and demanding that the Judge be taken off the bench, not just recused.
This country is based on a representative democracy but when it comes to the truth it is in fact an oligarchy, in that how the Supreme Court rules on issues is how we are governed. Therefore, when something this serious and precedent setting comes up a justice with close ties to a litigant should recuse him/her self and not comment or use his power in any way on the subject.
This is not a point of politics this is a point of protocol, and to allow these types of closed door, secret policy making meetings to occur is to totally take away the power, respect and voice of the people.