From the Christian Science Monitor:
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Washington - Is Vice President Dick Cheney's office an executive branch agency? Or is it a Washington hybrid that works for both the executive and legislative branches of the US government? That's the underlying issue in a new controversy over Mr. Cheney's lack of cooperation with a government office charged with safeguarding national security information....At issue is the work of the Information Security Oversight Office – a small part of the National Archives whose job it is to oversee the government-wide security classification system.
As part of that work, the office collects data on how much US material is classified and declassified. Per a signed presidential executive order, agencies of the executive branch are required to hand this information over.
Cheney's office provided this information in 2001 and 2002. Then it stopped...
Administration officials say Cheney's office is exempt from the executive order, since it has both executive branch and legislative functions. Per the US Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate, and may vote to break ties in that chamber...
Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California rejected this assertion as absurd. Representative Waxman is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the classification matter. In general, Waxman has been a thorn in the side of the White House since the Democrats gained control of Congress.
"The vice president can't unilaterally decide he is his own branch of government and exempt himself from important, commonsense safeguards for protecting classified information," said Waxman on June 22.
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The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0626/p02s01-uspo.html?page=3
How do you respond to such absurdity? You fight nonsense with nonsense...Here's a crazy Japanese video:
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