White House to reveal visitor names

[Pirate Smile]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to change White House policy by releasing the names of thousands of visitors whose comings and goings traditionally are kept secret by presidents.
President Obama's announcement scheduled for today follows a lengthy legal review. The policy change would resolve four lawsuits filed by a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), against the Obama and Bush administrations seeking details on White House meetings.

Until now, Obama had followed the Bush policy of keeping visitor logs secret. News organizations and watchdog groups had sought to make the records public to show who was influencing administration policy on health care, financial rules and other issues.

"We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history," Obama said in a prepared statement. "Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard."

The new policy would begin in mid-September. Electronic visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service would be released three to four months after visits are made. The disclosure would include who set up the meeting, where it was held and for how long. Specific requests for visits before Sept. 15 would be dealt with individually.

Exceptions would be made in cases of national security, extreme confidentiality — such as a visit by a future Supreme Court nominee —and strictly personal visits to the first family, including daughters Malia and Sasha.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-09-04-white-house-visitors_N.htm

[Demeter]

1. I Guess this is Progress

as long as the next Bush cannot undo the policy.

[rucky]

2. CREW does it again!

[krkaufman]

12. I definitely appreciate those people. n/t

[Ignis]

37. CREW and ACLU don't get enough credit for all they do.

Looks like I need to get out the old checkbook for a donation again.

:patriot:

[sabrina 1]

41. They are the only people worth donating to

And a few others, like Kucinich eg. The DNC doesn't need our money, they are well paid by Big Corps. But the ACLU and orgs. like CREW are doing the work our Reps ought to be doing.

I remember when the first awful photos of detainees surfaced, shackled like animals on a plane, and felt sick that this country was responsible (of course it got way worse but we were not conditioned to the cruelty back then) immediately the ACLU, NOT anyone in our government, objected and dozens of Constitutional lawyers went to work trying to protect the rights of those victims, many we now know, just handed over by bounty hunters for money to fill Dick Cheney's torture chambers.

It was what gave me hope that the entire country had not been transformed into some medieval Monarchy. They didn't have much success in the beginning as the country was frozen with fear, but they never gave up trying. If only Congress had been willing to do the same thing.

[Ignis]

42. That was a telling moment, wasn't it?

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: Where's the outrage from the media, from my fellow citizens, from our elected officials? But even in the face of that deafening silence, it was extremely gratifying to see the ACLU fill the vacuum. It made every single of my donations worthwhile.

[FSogol]

3. Good news. n/t

[Soylent Brice]

4. excellent move.

[druidity33]

5. well, that's positive. nt.

[progressoid]

6. How about release the names from the last 9 years.

[ProSense]

11. Um

agreed.

[Chef Eric]

13. Right! What we need is a retroactive disclosure. nt

[ProSense]

14. Retroactive disclosure

you got.

[happygoluckytoyou]

17. i got your retro RIGHT HERE>..... big oil....big pharma....

[ProSense]

21. What? n/t

[KansDem]

29. Sure, if we can have "retroactive immunity" for those involved in the illegal handover of phone...

records, then we can have "retroactive disclosure" of those seeing the President. :woohoo:

[Qutzupalotl]

33. Working link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8626066&mesg_id=8626066
:hi:

[progressoid]

35. YAY!!

Thanks!

[Vidar]

7. Good move toward transparency. Bravo Obama.

[Usrename]

36. Not really. The records they turned over are redacted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6464964&mesg_id=6464964

[robo50]

8. The first and only time this became an issue is when Bush and Cheney made it one.

Of course, most visits to the White House can and should be known to the public. The only time this stopped was when Bush/Cheney were cooking the books on national security and selling our best interests as a nation to the oil companies, banks, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. George W Bush sold our souls to the devils that walked in the doors of the White House.

Then, we have the 24/7 news cycle folks who have run out of things to talk about, don't have the intellectual chops to talk meaningfully about the issues, or treat the White House visitor's list like a red carpet at the Oscars, or otherwise confound and confuse the viewers.

[Sub Atomic]

9. Bush/Cheney decided to make the logs secret shortly after Jimmy Jeff was outed

as a male prostitute and not a real reporter.

What was he doing on all of those overnight visits to the WH anyway?

:crazy:

[brewens]

25. We have to assume he was working..

and we know what his occupation was. Remember the stink about Clinton auctioning off the Lincoln Bedroom? I wonder which bedroom Jeffy was using for his "office"? And who were his clients?

[Sub Atomic]

28. What is it with the Bush family and male prostitutes?

[No Elephants]

10. Traditiona;? I thought Bush was the first to claim the logs were secret.

[Igel]

38. Yes and no.

The Secret Service maintained the logs, and didn't disclose the information. The WH had to claim nothing, and, I think, claimed nothing.

The SS policy was changed--perhaps by administrative fiat, perhaps by Congressional mandate--so the WH took over jurisdiction, and, at that point made its claim.

So, yes. Traditionally secret. Bush II was, I think, the first to claim the logs were secret. Amazing how sometimes both narratives are correct.

[kristopher]

15. Does tying this action to a settlement in lawsuits make it binding on future pres.?

I've speculated here that the reason Obama litigated this was to make the transparency policy binding on his successors.

Does anyone know if that is a result of this settlement?

[Deep13]

16. "Specific requests for visits before Sept. 15 would be dealt with individually."

Huh.

[ooglymoogly]

18. Traditionaly????...*^$#&#%^)_+ kr nt

[xchrom]

19. good. -- though this bothers me a lot.

'The new policy would begin in mid-September. Electronic visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service would be released three to four months after visits are made. The disclosure would include who set up the meeting, where it was held and for how long. Specific requests for visits before Sept. 15 would be dealt with individually.'

[high density]

20. I guess good things come to those who wait

I had hoped the delay was simply the lawyers getting their ducks in a row, and it seems that is the case.

[AllyCat]

22. I thought he already said he would NOT do this after saying he would...

I'm confused!

[Turbineguy]

23. This proves it!11

Obama is a communist.

[RufusTFirefly]

24. "White House continues refusal to make public information public"

That's what the headline should really say. None of this "traditionally" B.S. And the pre-Sept. 15 loophole is troubling to say the least. "Individually" means they'll release the non-incriminating stuff and keep the other stuff under wraps. This is different from Cheney's Energy Task Force stonewalling how, exactly?

I didn't vote for a PR firm. I voted for a government accountable to the public that elected it.

(This is by no means a dig against CREW though. Thank you CREW!)

[Orsino]

26. This should be a lesson to us.

Everything we elected him to do? We still have to make him do it.

But he is listening. :thumbsup:

[yellowcanine]

31. I see the lesson as: Obama will keep his promises but he is going to make sure he does everything

the right way. That means researching the possible unintended consequences before simply changing something. I for one prefer this to the Clinton approach of sometimes jumping without looking - for example, the gays in the military fiasco which probably ended up giving us a worse policy in the form of "Don't Ask, don't tell" than what Clinton might have gotten had he followed a more measured approach to changing the previous policy.

[pinto]

27. kick

:kick:

[droidamus2]

30. Interesting

Support him all the way on this but it is interesting that recently I saw where Republicans were calling Obama and the Democrats hypocrites because we had complained about Bush not releasing the names and Obama wasn't either. Gee could it be that the Republicans knew they were reviewing the policy and decided to get their jabs in before he had a chance to make any changes? Nah, they wouldn't do that would they?

[notesdev]

32. I wonder

what would qualify as "extreme confidentiality"? Would, say, a visit by a major campaign donor be covered by that clause? A visit by a lobbyist? Will this policy also be subject to "waivers" as was the no-lobbyists-in-government policy?

This doesn't look like transparency to me. It looks like a head fake - they'll tell us everything that it does no harm for us to know, but anything important is potentially exempt.

I think we deserve to know about everybody who meets with and has special opportunities to influence policy through our President.

[louis-t]

34. "traditionally kept secret"????

Not until Gannon/Guckert started visiting to meet his "friend" in the WH.

[Stinky The Clown]

39. I wanna see the last nine years ...... from jan 20, 2000 to today.

[earth mom]

40. Sad and disgusting that they had to be sued to do it. nt