Dick Cheney Is Hoist On His Own Secrecy Petard

The CIA on Thursday denied former Vice President Dick Cheney’s March 31 request to the National Archives and Records Administration for classified intelligence documents regarding the effectiveness and necessity of torture. Why? Because of an executive order made by President George W. Bush intended to complicate and overrule the Mandatory Declassification Review process. Oops.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton filed Executive Order 12958, an order intended to make the government more transparent...But Clinton was overruled by Executive Order 13292, signed by President George W. Bush on March 25, 2003. It amended the Clinton executive order, giving the Vice President essentially the same authority as the President in the classification process, and adding a number of exemptions to reject declassification requests:

{See lots of legal stuff on Farhan's post at link.}

What’s the conflicting litigation holding Cheney up? According to the letter rejecting Cheney’s request:



...So, long story short, the documents Cheney wants declassified cannot be declassified because there is already a FOIA request to have the documents declassified, now that sounds like good old-fashioned Bush administration logic!