Activists assert secrecy is Cheney's hallmark
Say he has led efforts to curtail flow of information
WASHINGTON -- Criticism rained down on Vice President Dick Cheney this week for failing to disclose his hunting accident to the public for a day, but advocates of open government said the episode was nothing new. For five years, they said, Cheney has led the Bush administration's efforts to curtail the flow of government information.
From fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the public from seeing records of his energy task force, to withholding briefings on the domestic spying program from most members of the congressional intelligence committees, Cheney has made his penchant for secrecy a hallmark of how he and the administration do business, specialists say.
Cheney has argued that post-Watergate attempts to rein in the presidency went too far, and that his efforts to restrict access to information are aimed at restoring the balance of power. But critics point to the secrecy surrounding his hunting accident to suggest that Cheney is as much concerned about shielding his own actions as he is about upholding presidential authority.
''The way he dealt with [the accident] by not telling the public is just another example of his actions, which make clear that being accountable is not the vice president's highest priority," said Rick Blum of openthegovernment.org.
Shortly after taking office in early 2001, Cheney put together a task force to develop the administration's energy policy. After reports that industry executives from companies such as
Yesterday, Judicial Watch investigation director Chris Farrell said he saw a link between Cheney's demand to keep the energy task force records private and his secretive handling of the hunting accident.
''I think that Cheney has a view of the White House that is substantially more powerful and imperially detached than prior administrations," Farrell said. ''There is no concern or regard for the notion that the public has an interest in the activities of the most senior government officers."
Cheney's taste for non-disclosure long predated his hunting accident. In contrast to President Bush, Cheney's schedule is often unknown. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cheney began regularly disappearing to a ''secure, undisclosed location" -- an underground military compound in a Pennsylvania mountain.
''One rarely knows where the vice president is at any given moment, let alone what he is doing," said Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
In an e-mail yesterday, Jennifer Mayfield, a Cheney spokeswoman, said she objected to the premise that Cheney has been secretive, saying it ''does not comport with reality" and adding that he ''makes public appearances on a frequent basis."
But in a recent interview with US News & World Report, Cheney said his experiences working as chief of staff for President Gerald R. Ford fostered his drive to free the executive branch from constraints. ''I think in terms of the general proposition of the importance of a strong executive," Cheney said. ''That's something I've believed for a long time, certainly at least back to the Ford years: the feeling I had then, and I think it's been borne out by history, that in the aftermath, especially of Vietnam and Watergate, that the balance shifted, if you will, that, in fact, the presidency was weakened, that there were congressional efforts to rein in and to place limits on presidential authority . . ."
Larry Noble, the director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said that Cheney's goal is to prevent Congress, the press, and the public from performing oversight by denying them information they can use to evaluate the administration's actions.
''This administration and Cheney take the most restrictive view of what they have to release and who they have to talk to," Noble said. ''The overriding philosophy is that the public doesn't have a right to know what is going on, and it applies to everything from an accident on a hunting trip all the way up to how we make our energy policy."
By any measure, government secrecy has soared since Bush and Cheney took office. The number of documents stamped ''classified" each year is at record levels. Mid-level officials who used to be free to speak to reporters are now forced to transfer all inquiries to public affairs offices, who sometimes block what they have to say.
Last month, for example, James Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, said the Bush administration tried to gag him from talking about global warming after he called for immediate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
''This administration seems to have a desire to keep things secret if it doesn't support their predetermined policies," said Lexi Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists. ''This is happening across the board."
In 2001, the administration ordered officials to deny all Freedom of Information Act requests unless there was a specific legal mandate to release a document, reversing a Clinton administration policy.
The administration has also resisted Congress. It refused to turn over legal memos analyzing the limits of Bush's wartime powers to order torture and surveillance.
It also shielded documents about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
And until this month, the administration kept Bush's domestic spying program secret from most members of the intelligence committees.
The law mandated briefing all the members, but Cheney -- who conducted the briefings -- only informed the committee's leaders.
Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte was pressed to reveal who got to decide that only congressional leaders would be briefed about the program.
''The president and the vice president decide," Negroponte said.
