"Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify
information?" Vice President Cheney was asked yesterday by Fox News'
Brit Hume.
"There is an executive order to that effect," replied the Vice
President.
This was a simple answer to a straightforward question, but the matter
is actually a bit more complicated.
The executive order in question is E.O. 13292 on classified national
security information, issued by President Bush in March 2003:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html
It states in section 1.3 that "The authority to classify information
originally may be exercised only by: (1) the President and, in the
performance of executive duties, the Vice President; (2) agency heads
and officials designated by the President in the Federal Register..."
Remarkably, the phrase "and, in the performance of executive duties,
the
Vice President," which dramatically elevates the Vice President's
classification authority to that of the President, was added to the
executive order in 2003.
Prior to that, the Vice President only had classification authority
comparable to that of an agency head, having been delegated such
authority in a 1995 presidential order:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/oca.html
So much for classification authority. What about declassification?
Declassification authority is defined in Section 6.1(l) of E.O. 13292.
It is granted to: "(1) the official who authorized the original
classification...; (2) the originator's current successor in
function;
(3) a supervisory official of either; or (4) officials delegated
declassification authority in writing by the agency head or the senior
agency official."
So the Vice President has authority to declassify anything that he
himself classified. He also clearly has authority to declassify
anything generated in the Office of the Vice President, which he
supervises.
But is the Vice President, like the President, "a supervisory
official"
with respect to other executive branch agencies such as the CIA? Did
the 2003 amendment to the executive order which elevated the Vice
President's classification authority also grant him declassification
authority comparable to the President's?
"The answer is not obvious," said one executive branch expert on
classification policy.
xponent
Cheneys Got A Gun Maru
rob
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