Federal Court sides with Cheney over retention of VP records.

• Position: GOVERNMENT RECORDS - Brief article

In January, a federal judge ruled that former Vice President Dick Cheney has broad discretion in determining which records created during his eight-year tenure must be retained. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that, absent any evidence that Cheney's office failed to safeguard records, it is up to the former vice president to determine how he deals with the material.

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"Congress drastically limited the scope of outside inquiries related to the vice president's handling of his own records during his term in office," the judge said in a 63-page opinion, which also noted that the Presidential Records Act (PRA) "provides only narrow areas of oversight."

The ruling stemmed from watchdog groups' fears that Cheney had impermissibly limited the scope of the PRA, which requires all presidential and vice-presidential records to be transferred to the National Archives immediately upon the end of the administration's term and gives the U.S. archivist the responsibility to preserve and control access to presidential records.

Cheney has taken the legal position...