As vice president during 9/11, Cheney is at the center of an enduring debate over US spy powers
November 4, 2025
Dick Cheney was the public face of the 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 was at the center of a public debate over the laws of detention, interrogation and spying that endures more than two decades later. President Donald Trump is now relying on a legal doctrine created during Cheney’s time in office, which authorized the U.S. military to attack, detain or kill enemy combatants, to go after suspected drug smugglers in Latin America.