MaSaRa

Update, Bush moves presidency out of executive branch.

Joining Cheney in the exemption from an executive order that was supposed to cover the executive branch, the White House is now saying that the order was sposed to mean some are more equal than others, like those named Bush or Cheney. As reported in the LA Times:
"An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said." The oversight mentioned deals with national security issues. Like, say, when a CIA agent gets outed. More specifically: "The order aimed to create a uniform system for classifying, declassifying and otherwise safeguarding national security information. "

This has been a problem for years. Today I was reading some of the recently declassified CIA files on National Security Agency Declassified. In particular I was reading about the USS Liberty, an American spy ship shot up by the Israelis during the Six Day War. There is considerable controversy over whether Israeli force knew they were firing on a US flagged ship. Anyway, the declassified report talks about how misuse of classification labels interfered with the US Sixth Fleet response to the tragedy. The EO amended by Bush aims to fix this ongoing problem. But Bush and Cheney are now refusing to cooperate. Not surprising given this administration's penchant for classifying damn near everything as too secret for us to know.

If I could get Dubya to exempt us from the law of gravity, we might finally get those cool personal jet packs I've been promised all my life :p

posted by quash @ 9:07 PM