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Banned
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Originally Posted by jorgelito
Host what would you suggest we as a voting public do to show our support beyond voting them in already? We, the people have voted the current Congress in. Waxman is/was my representative and I actually visited his office in DC last year. What else can we do besides vote? The only thing I can think of is writing letters, making phone calls and probably more importantly, talk about it on talk radio and in the op-ed pages. It seems to me that our reps pay more attention to the media waves than their actual constituents.
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Does anyone else get the feeling that, after ordering their lawyers to proceed in an unethical, untruthful, and anti-constitutional SOP for at least the last seven years, Bush, Cheney & Co. will order security personal, and maybe even the military, to pre-empt the more savvy among us, from countering them more aggressively, before we know what hits us? Do they seem, to you, to be well meaning officials who will foster, oversee, and respect the results of unfettered voting, less than 18 months from now...that they will uneventfully transfer power to legitimately elected successors?
The entire Cheney strategy is to avoid all accountability by having lawyers defend Cheney in court with the argument that he is a member of the executive branch and that he has executive immunity. Avoidance of other oversight is attempted by assertion of the contradiction that Cheney occupies a unique office that is a part of the legislative branch, not the executive.
Thug Gonzales has avoided ruling which branch Cheney is in....for the purpose of compliance with national security auditors....for the last six months, as Cheney has held off the audit inspection on the handling of classified info in his office, since 2002 !
Consider all of this, and then tell me that you are confident that NIST decided on it's own, in 2002, not to increase it's staff in order to conduct a timely investigation as to why WTC 7, a 49 story, steel frame structure that was not hit by an airliner on 9/11/2001, collapsed completely into it's own footprint, less than seven hours after the collapse of WTC 1 and 2, and that it is "routine" that the <a href="http://wtc.nist.gov/media/WTC7_Approach_Summary12Dec06.pdf">NIST report</a> determining how and why WTC 7 collapsed, has still not been finished or released, nearly five years after it collapsed.....
....and then post why you believe that the 2000 presidential vote in Florida was legitimate, and that the 2004 presidential vote legitimately contradicted exit poll results. <b>If you want to pressure the executive branch, and Cheney, too...to comply immediately with subpoenas of investigating house and senate committees, for email record and the testimony of named officials....including what should be the frequent and routine testimony of Secretary of State Rice before oversight committees, which she has so far refused to do.....consider travelling to DC and surrounding executive branch and DOJ and Dept. of State offices, sitting down and chaining yourselves to each other and to nearby fixtures, and refusing to move until the officials in those buildings cooperate with our elected representatives legitimate and overdue, oversight requests!</b>
Quote:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...06/ai_n8970966
Senate barely confirms Olson solicitor general
Human Events, Jun 4, 2001
On May 24, by a 51-to-47 vote, the Senate confirmed the nomination of Ted Olson to be solicitor general of the United States. Olson, who had strong support from conservatives, is most noted for successfully arguing the Republican side in Bush v. Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court last winter. The solicitor general represents the United States is cases before the Supreme Court.....
....Sen. Russ Feingold (D.-Wis.), who had supported other controversial Bush nominees such as John Ashcroft and John Bolton, opposed Olson. <b>Feingold said: "Mr. Olson testified that the solicitor general owes the Supreme Court `absolute candor and fair dealing:</b> I think that nominees owe Senate committees that same duty when they testify at nominations hearings. I do not think that Mr. Olson met that standard."....
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<b>Representing Cheney in 2004, Solictor General Theodore Olson apparently lied to the Supreme Court...TWICE declaring to the nine justices that Cheney's 2001 energy committee consisted "only [of] participants were members of the executive branch...:</b>
Quote:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_a...pts/03-475.pdf
Page 1
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X
RICHARD B. CHENEY, VICE
:
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
:
STATES, ET AL.,
:
<h2>Petitioners</h2>
:
v.
: No. 03-475
UNITED STATES DISTRICT
:
COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF
:
COLUMBIA, ET AL.,
:
Respondents.
:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X
Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
The above-entitled matter came on for oral
argument before the Supreme Court of the United
States at 10:01 a.m.
APPEARANCES:
THEODORE B. OLSON, ESQ., Solicitor General,
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; <h2>on
behalf of the Petitioner. </h2>
<b>From page 10:</b>
QUESTION: General Olson, would you
9 clarify why we are dealing with the merits. I
10 thought, and correct me if I misunderstand this, that
11 the merits will have to be resolved in the first
12 instance by the court below. If we find that there
13 is jurisdiction, if we agree with you, for example,
14 that this discovery should not have been allowed,
15 then why should we take the first view of the merits
16 of this case?
17
GENERAL OLSON: It seems to me in the
18 context of this case, Justice Ginsburg, that once
19 jurisdiction is acknowledged, the context of the
20 case, the administrative record, which specifically
21 contains within it the Presidential directive which
22 created the advisory committee only to include
23 members of the executive branch. <b>The report of the
24 committee, which specifically identifies as members
25 only members of the executive branch</b>, and the
1 affidavit or declaration that's on file from the
2 deputy director, <h3>which said that the only
3 participants were members of the executive branch,
4 and the presumption of reliability, of regularity
5 that the Court consistently, U.S. vs. Armstrong is
6 one case, the Court consistently, absent clear
7 evidence to the contrary, accords executive branch
8 action -omg</h3>
9.....
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I submit that this executive branch has forfeited it's <b>"presumption of reliability, of regularity that the Court consistently, U.S. vs. Armstrong is one case, the Court consistently, absent clear evidence to the contrary, accords executive branch action "</b>..
Quote:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/ar..._cid=rss:site1
Cheney Tangles With Agency on Secrecy
By Chitra Ragavan
Posted 2/8/07
An important legal ruling is pending over Vice President Cheney's refusal to disclose statistics on document classification and declassification activity. The Information Security Oversight Office, which is responsible for the policy and oversight of the government's security classification system, has asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to direct Cheney's office to disclose these statistics.
Cheney's office provided the information until 2002 but then stopped doing so, J. William Leonard, the director of ISOO, told U.S. News. At issue is whether the office of the vice president is an executive branch entity when it comes to supporting the activities of the president and the vice president. The reporting requirements for disclosing classification and declassification activity fall under a presidential executive order.
"Basically the definition says that any entity of the executive branch that comes into possession of classified information is covered by the reporting requirements," says Leonard. "I have my understanding of what the executive order requires, and I'm going to the attorney general to ascertain if my reading of the executive order is correct."
However, Megan McGinn, Cheney's deputy press secretary, says the vice president's office is exempt.
"This matter has been thoroughly reviewed," McGinn told U.S. News, "and it has been determined that reporting requirements do not apply to the office of the vice president, which has both legislative and executive functions." Under the Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate.
But advocates for release say the vice president is shirking accountability......
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/wa...erland&emc=rss
June 22, 2007
Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data
By SCOTT SHANE
For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested abolishing the oversight unit, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman.
The Information Security Oversight Office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, disclosed Mr. Cheney’s effort to shut down the oversight office. Mr. Waxman, who has had a leading role in the stepped-up efforts by Democrats to investigate the Bush administration, outlined the matter in an eight-page letter sent Thursday to the vice president and posted, along with other documentation, on the committee’s Web site.
Officials at the National Archives and the Justice Department confirmed the basic chronology of events cited in Mr. Waxman’s letter.
The letter said that after repeatedly refusing to comply with a routine annual request from the archives for data on his staff’s classification of internal documents, the vice president’s office in 2004 blocked an on-site inspection of records that other agencies of the executive branch regularly go through.
But the National Archives is an executive branch department headed by a presidential appointee, and it is assigned to collect the data on classified documents under a presidential executive order. Its Information Security Oversight Office is the archives division that oversees classification and declassification.
“I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview. “But this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe. His argument is really that he’s not part of the executive branch, so he doesn’t have to comply.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, Megan McGinn, said, “We’re confident that we’re conducting the office properly under the law.” She declined to elaborate.
Other officials familiar with Mr. Cheney’s view said that he and his legal adviser, David S. Addington, did not believe that the executive order applied to the vice president’s office because it had a legislative as well as an executive status in the Constitution. Other White House offices, including the National Security Council, routinely comply with the oversight requirements, according to Mr. Waxman’s office and outside experts.
Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said last night, “The White House complies with the executive order, including the National Security Council.”
The dispute is far from the first to pit Mr. Cheney and Mr. Addington against outsiders seeking information, usually members of Congress or advocacy groups. Their position is generally based on strong assertions of presidential power and the importance of confidentiality, which Mr. Cheney has often argued was eroded by post-Watergate laws and the prying press.
<b>Mr. Waxman asserted in his letter and the interview that Mr. Cheney’s office should take the efforts of the National Archives especially seriously because it has had problems protecting secrets.
He noted that I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president’s former chief of staff, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury and the F.B.I. during an investigation of the leak of classified information — the secret status of Valerie Wilson, the wife of a Bush administration critic, as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.
Mr. Waxman added that in May 2006, a former aide in Mr. Cheney’s office, Leandro Aragoncillo, pleaded guilty to passing classified information to plotters trying to overthrow the president of the Philippines.
“Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information,” Mr. Waxman wrote to Mr. Cheney.</b>
In the tradition of Washington’s semantic dust-ups, this one might be described as a fight over what an “entity” is. The executive order, last updated in 2003 and currently under revision, states that it applies to any “entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.”
J. William Leonard, director of the oversight office, has argued in a series of letters to Mr. Addington that the vice president’s office is indeed such an entity. <b>He noted that previous vice presidents had complied with the request for data on documents classified and declassified, and that Mr. Cheney did so in 2001 and 2002.
But starting in 2003, the vice president’s office began refusing to supply the information. In 2004, it blocked an on-site inspection</b> by Mr. Leonard’s office that was routinely carried out across the government to check whether documents were being properly labeled and safely stored.
Mr. Addington did not reply in writing to Mr. Leonard’s letters, according to officials familiar with their exchanges. But Mr. Addington stated in conversations that <b>the vice president’s office was not an “entity within the executive branch”</b> because, under the Constitution, the vice president also plays a role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, able to cast a vote in the event of a tie.
Mr. Waxman rejected that argument. <b>“He doesn’t have classified information because of his legislative function,” Mr. Waxman said of Mr. Cheney. “It’s because of his executive function.”</b>
Mr. Cheney’s general resistance to complying with the oversight request was first reported last year by The Chicago Tribune.
<b>In January, Mr. Leonard wrote to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales asking that he resolve the question. Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman, said last night, “This matter is currently under review in the department.”
Whatever the ultimate ruling, according to Mr. Waxman’s letter, the vice president’s office has already carried out “possible retaliation” against the oversight office.</b>
As part of an interagency review of Executive Order 12958, <b>Mr. Cheney’s office proposed eliminating appeals to the attorney general — precisely the avenue Mr. Leonard was taking. According to Mr. Waxman’s investigation, the vice president’s staff also proposed abolishing the Information Security Oversight Office.</b>
The interagency group revising the executive order has rejected those proposals, according to Mr. Waxman. Ms. McGinn, Mr. Cheney’s spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Mr. Cheney’s penchant for secrecy has long been a striking feature of the Bush administration, beginning with his fight to keep confidential the identities of the energy industry officials who advised his task force on national energy policy in 2001. Mr. Cheney took that dispute to the Supreme Court and won.
Steven Aftergood, who tracks government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and last year filed a complaint with the oversight office about Mr. Cheney’s noncompliance, said, “This illustrates just how far the vice president will go to evade external oversight.”
But David B. Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who served in Justice Department and White House posts in earlier Republican administrations, said Mr. Cheney had a valid point about the unusual status of the office he holds.
“The office of the vice president really is unique,” Mr. Rivkin said. “It’s not an agency. It’s an extension of the vice president himself.”
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....and again...just a month ago....lawyers defending Cheney against Valerie Plame's civil suit against him, argue that he has immunity....absolute, executive immunity:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...v=rss_politics
Judge Told Leak Was Part of 'Policy Dispute'
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 18, 2007; A03
Attorneys for Vice President Cheney and top White House officials told a federal judge yesterday that they cannot be held liable for anything they disclosed to reporters about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV....
......The lawyers said any conversations Cheney and the officials had about Plame with one another or with reporters were part of their normal duties because they were discussing foreign policy and engaging in an appropriate "policy dispute." <h3>Cheney's attorney went further, arguing that Cheney is legally akin to the president because of his unique government role and has absolute immunity from any lawsuit.</h3>
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates asked: "So you're arguing there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- these officials could have said to reporters that would have been beyond the scope of their employment," whether the statements were true or false?
"That's true, Your Honor. Mr. Wilson was criticizing government policy," said Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division. "These officials were responding to that criticism.".....
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....and if Cheney has opted out of the executive branch....has his office moved to an undisclosed, "fourth branch" status, or is it instead, under the auspices of the US Senate, or is it....and he....simply unaccountable to any oversight?
Quote:
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/29166
CREW ASKS “IS THE VICE PRESIDENT CREATING A FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT?”
22 Jun 2007
Washington, DC – In light of new revelations that Vice President Cheney is claiming that his office is not subject to an executive order governing the handling of classified information because as president of the Senate he has both legislative and executive duties, CREW asks if Vice President Cheney is attempting to create a fourth branch of the government?
Under his argument, if Mr. Cheney is not subject to executive branch security requirements, surely he must be subject to Senate rules.
To safeguard sensitive information, in 1987 the Senate created the Office of Senate Security, which is part of the Secretary of the Senate. The Security Office’s standards, procedures and requirements are set out in the Senate Security Manual, which is binding on all employees of the Senate.
So, if Mr. Cheney is a member of the Senate, he must adhere to the following:
•a requirement that any of his staff needing access to classified information undergo a security clearance and complete written non-disclosure agreements;
•physical security requirements, that the Security Office is empowered to implement, including any necessary inspections;
•investigations of suspected security violations by employees, such as the security violation committed by Scooter Libby when he unlawfully disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, then a covert CIA operative.
In addition, Mr. Cheney and his staff would be subject to investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, which has the responsibility to investigate allegations of improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate, including violations of law and the rules and regulations of the Senate.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said Mr. Cheney’s arguments raise new questions:
“Since there is no fourth branch of government to which Mr. Cheney could belong, by claiming the Office of the Vice President is within the legislative branch does Mr. Cheney agree that he is subject to Senate security procedures?”
“Mr. Cheney’s office refused to describe its 2003 classification activities to the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), but is he now willing to describe them to the Senate Security Office?”
“If Mr. Cheney does not believe that NARA’s Information Security Oversight Office can conduct on-sight inspection of Mr. Cheney’s office to see how sensitive material is handled, does he agree that the Senate Security Office can conduct such an inspection?”
***
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions......
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Last edited by host; 06-24-2007 at 12:44 AM..
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