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To: TimF who wrote (268)	2/28/2002 7:59:10 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

I can't find an official citation, although I daresay there's one somewhere. And I'm certainly not an expert on US constitutional law, LOL. But I've seen a lot of articles like this (and I believe the main US media - NYT, NBC etc - have fact-checkers to be sure of just this kind of thing...): But it was not until 1974 that the Supreme Court recognized the legal doctrine of executive privilege. Since then, courts have consistently interpreted the doctrine to protect the confidentiality of only a narrow band of high-level deliberations involving the president or at most his closest advisers. truthout.com According to the General Accounting Office, the administration doesn't have a leg to stand on concerning executive privilege. After all, Cheney wasn't acting in the official capacity of vice president when he headed President Bush's energy task force. David Walker is head of the GAO. "This is not about the vice president's constitutional position," Walker said in Monday's edition of The New York Times. "It's about his capacity as chairman of the national energy policy development group. From Day 1, this has not had anything to do with the constitutional position of the vice president. I know they want to present it that way because they think people will be more sympathetic, but that's not factually accurate." amarillonet.com the doctrine of executive privilege — the president's* prerogative to keep confidential what he says to his aides and what they say to him.* msnbc.com Interestingly, from that article we see that Cheney should be familiar with the (mis)use of executive privilege - he was a staffer for Nixon <g> exemption of the executive branch of government, or its officers, from having to give evidence, specifically, in U.S. law, the exemption of the president from disclosing information to congressional inquiries or the judiciary encyclopedia.com And a 'legal view' - which seems to make it wider, but specifically not applicable as Cheney claims it: The administration has been arguing that the records of the National Energy Policy Development Group are protected from public disclosure by virtue of "executive privilege." According to the U.S. Supreme Court, this privilege may exempt the group from releasing internal governmental advice, recommendations and opinions that are part of the deliberative, consultative, decision-making processes of the government. The purpose of extending this privilege to federal executives is to protect the quality of agency decisions by encouraging open, frank discussions on policy matters between subordinates and their chiefs, to prevent premature disclosure of proposed policies before they are finally adopted and to prevent public confusion by disclosure of reasons and rationales that were not in fact the actual reasons for the agency's actions. However, the privilege is only applicable to "interagency or intra-agency memorandums or letters." It does not apply to documents submitted by individuals and groups from outside the government. Furthermore, although the privilege is recognized under FOIA, there is no similar privilege within FACA. fcw.com