On the heels of last week's revelation that Vice President Dick Cheney is apparently not a part of the executive branch, David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, sent a letter to Sen. John Kerry regarding the VP's status. Kerry yesterday sent a letter to Cheney's office asking for clarification regarding why Cheney was claiming that he was exempt from Executive Order 12958, signed by President Clinton in 1995 and amended by President Bush in 2003. (Read the exchange at Wired Threat Level blog.)

Addington claims that the executive order "makes clear that the Vice President is treated like the President and distinguishes the two of them from 'agencies.'" Last week, the White House claimed that the vice president and the president were exempt from oversight under Executive Order 12958, using the logic that, since the Office of the President and Vice President are not "agencies," they are not required to submit to inspections by the Information Security Oversight Office.

Is this true?

First of all, omission in U.S. law does not equal legality. If President Clinton, who actually wrote 95% of this order (Bush's 2003 amendment amounted to about a paragraph's difference, none of which had anything to do with the content in question), wanted to omit the president and vice president from inspection requirements, he would have written it in there.

Second, § 6.1(b) of the order defines "agency" as

any ‘‘Executive agency,’’ as defined in 5 U.S.C. 105; any ‘‘Military department’’ as defined in 5 U.S.C. 102; and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.

If you skip ahead to 5 U.S.C. 105, you'll discover that it defines an "executive agency" as "an Executive department, a Government corporation, and an independent establishment." Backtrack to 5 U.S.C. 104, and you'll find that an "independent establishment" is "an establishment in the executive branch (other than the United States Postal Service or the Postal Rate Commission) which is not an Executive department, military department, Government corporation, or part thereof, or part of an independent establishment."

So, the presidency is an "independent establishment" because it is (1) in the executive branch, and (2) is not the Postal Service, an Executive department, military department, or Government corporation. And even if they weren't independent establishments, both the president and the vice president "[come] into the possession of classified information" and are therefore subject to oversight.

Turns out the president and vice president, contrary to their own wrong interpretations of the law, are subject to oversight by the Information Security Oversight Office.