Vice President Dick Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order on how the classified information was handled for the past four years, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.

U.S. government agency, the Information Security Oversight Office, was charged with safeguarding national security information, and was criticized by The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Thursday.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the committee, said Cheney's office claims it need not comply with the executive order because it is not an "entity within the executive branch."

"Your decision to except your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Waxman wrote in a letter to Cheney on Thursday.

Cheney's office declined to discuss what it called internal matters. "We are confident that we are conducting the office properly under the law," said spokeswoman Megan McGinn.