Victory for Transparency: White House will make visitor logs public

The Obama administration has offered more proof that it will let the sunshine in on the workings of government, announcing on Sept. 4 that it would release logs of visitors to the White House on a regular basis.

While the White House is calling the move a "voluntary disclosure policy," it comes after a nonprofit organization filed lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act to open up the records.

The nonpartisan watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), announced yesterday that with the change in policy, it has settled the four cases it initiated regarding access to the visitor logs: two against the Bush administration, and two against the Obama administration.

Of the two recent cases, one requested records of visits by coal company executives to the White House. CREW has learned that none of the 16 coal company executives listed in its FOIA request visited either the White House or the Vice President's Residence between Jan. 21 and July 31, 2009.

(The visits revealed under the other three requests include: 53 visits to the Bush White House by Texas-based lobbyist-cum-Bush/Cheney influence peddler Stephen Payne, multiple visits to the Bush White House by Christian religious leaders, and dozens of visits by health care executives to the Obama White House.)

The Obama administration had initially maintained the same argument put forth by the Bush-Cheney administration: that White House visitor logs were presidential and vice-presidential records, rather than agency records, and so not governed by Freedom of Information Act statutes, as well as being protected under a "presidential communications privilege."

The administration now says it will post its records of official visits to the White House web site, after a delay of around 90 to 120 days. The first release of information will come around the end of December.

Only visits after Sept. 15, 2009 will be made available, and the Secret Service will consider requests for earlier records if they are "narrow and specific." Certain "sensitive" visits, such as those by nominees to the Supreme Court, will be excluded, as will arrival and departure times of White House staff, as well as personal visits to the Obama and Biden families.

This is the first time in modern history that the White house visitor logs will be made available to the public on a regular basis. In a written statement, CREW executive director Melanie Sloan says, "The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise.

"The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House. In contrast, the Obama administration – by putting visitor records on the White House web site – will have the most open White House in history."

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Image: Official White House photo by Pete Souza, via The Official White House Photostream