Is the Obama WH attempting to claim White House visitor logs ARE NOT subject to Freedom of Information request?

Question

I honestly don't care what you think of Judicial Watch as an organization. (they describe themselves as "a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.")

THE POINT: Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information request to see White House visitor logs. The Secret Service claims White House visitor logs are not subject to Freedom of Information requests and so they are not releasing them.

Now this is the same president who vowed to CHANGE the stonewalling and secretive techniques of the Bush administration and be more TRANSPARENT?? WHY can't the White House release visitor logs????????????????????????????????????????

http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2010/apr/obama-justice-department-tells-court-shield-white-house-visitor-logs-full-disclosure-a

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that the Obama Justice Department advanced the erroneous claim in an April 21, 2010, court filing that Secret Service’s logs of White House visitors are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). As Judicial Watch noted in its original complaint filed on December 7, 2009, this claim “has been litigated and rejected repeatedly” by the courts.

The Justice Department filing comes in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit seeking records for all visitors to the White House from January 20, 2009, to the present. On February 22, 2010, Judicial Watch filed a “Motion for Partial Summary Judgment” in its lawsuit, noting that the rule of law and court precedent do not support the position of the Obama administration:

"At issue here is whether Secret Service visitor logs are agency records subject to the Freedom of Information Act ('FOIA'), 5 U.S.C. § 552. To date, every court that has reached this issue has concluded that the requested documents are agency records and must be processed in response to a properly submitted FOIA request. As no disputes of material fact exist as to the nature of the records, summary judgment as to this straightforward legal issue should be entered now."

Answer 1

Common logic would dictate that we the people own the White House and thus, have every right to know who's there.





Our President doesn't care about transparency it was just a flashy sound bite to get votes.

Answer 2

Did you omit this section: "embracing a criminal place taken by the Bush administration". Or This: The Bush administration fought on the comparable criminal floor for various years in a case it extremely is now till now the U.S. courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. White homestead press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that, using fact of team's lawsuit, the tips's place of work is premiere a evaluate into regardless of if to uphold the previous administration's coverage of no longer freeing the logs. He did no longer have a time physique for whilst that evaluate could be performed. Gibbs suggested the objective is "to uphold the belief of open government" and bigger transparency that Obama campaigned on. yet he additionally suggested that the difficulty of upholding precedent from previous presidents is a attention. and you left this out: "The long-working controversy over protecting the identities of vacationers to the White homestead and to the indoors maximum place of residing of the vp is wrapped up interior the influencing peddling scandal concerning now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff. interior the spring of 2006 whilst distinctive communities have been attempting to verify the dates of Abramoff's White homestead visits, the White homestead and the secret provider quietly signed an contract preserving the secret provider logs figuring out travellers to the White homestead at the instant are not open to the generic public. 4 months later, vp Dick Cheney's place of work advised the secret provider in a letter that focused visitor information for the vp's very own place of residing "are and shall proceed to be project to the unique possession, custody and administration" of the place of work of the vp. the communicate over Cheney in contact visits by relatively some conservative religious leaders to the vp's place of residing."

Answer 3

Surely, you are not suggesting that the "most transparent" administration is blocking a FOIA request - *sarcasm*

Answer 4

that can mean ONLY one thing...he does not want anyone to know WHO is coming to the White House...as far as i know Andy Stern ,the commie SEIU head,has the record for most visits...and i am sure bill ayers ,and Van Jones are in there too...









if he has nothing to hide,why keep it a secret?