Cheney: First Amendment doesn't apply to me

Attorneys for Vice President Dick Cheney said in a court filing that his official White House records are private and he alone will determine what records will be given to the National Archive and which will not. Cheney's filing is in response to a court filing made by Citizens for Ethics in Government (CREW) which is suing for the right to make the records public.

CREW is one of many fairly new non-profits that have been created in recent years to go after government officials who they believe are not following the law. Despite some critics who claim CREW is a progressive organization that chooses only to go after conservative politicians and causes, the non-profit has spurned many First Amendment cases in court and garnered a lot of media attention.

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dick Cheney's lawyers are asserting that the vice president alone has the authority to determine which records, if any, from his tenure will be handed over to the National Archives when he leaves office in January.

That claim is in federal court documents asking that a lawsuit over the records be dismissed. Cheney leaves office Jan. 20, potentially taking millions of records that might otherwise become public.

"The vice president alone may determine what constitutes vice presidential records or personal records, how his records will be created, maintained, managed and disposed, and are all actions that are committed to his discretion by law," according to a Dec. 8 filing by Cheney's office with the U.S. District Court.

Cheney is being sued by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that is trying to ensure that no presidential records are destroyed or handled in a way that makes them unavailable to the public.

The 1978 Presidential Records Act requires that all presidential and vice presidential records to be transferred to the National Archives immediately upon the end of the president's last term and charges the archivist with preserving and controlling access to presidential records. The law allows exceptions for personal or purely party records.