As vice president during 9/11, Cheney is at the center of an enduring debate over US spy powers

By ERIC TUCKER and DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dick Cheney was the public face of the George W. Bush administration’s boundary-pushing approach to surveillance and intelligence collection in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks .

An unabashed proponent of broad executive power in the name of national security, Cheney placed himself at the center of a polarizing public debate over detention, interrogation and spying that endures two decades later.

“I do think the security state that we have today is very much a product of our reactions to Sept. 11, and obviously Vice President Cheney was right smack-dab in the middle of how that reaction was operationalized from the White House,” said Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor.

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