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

WASHINGTON — 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 attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

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