The nonprofit conservative group Judicial Watch has sued the U.S. Secret Service after the Obama administration again denied a request for copies of the list of visitors to the White House.
The records are being sought by journalists and public interest groups to help determine who is influencing White House policy on health care, the economy and a host of other issues.
Under the Obama policy, most of the names of visitors from Inauguration Day in January through the end of September will never be released. After the Secret Service and the White House denied a request for those records, Judicial Watch filed suit on Monday in federal court in Washington.
Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama White House argues that the visitor records belong to the White House, not the Secret Service. White House records are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, as agency records would be. Federal Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled twice during the Bush administration that White House visitor logs belong to the Secret Service, which creates and maintains them, and must be released.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34347510/ns/politics-white_house/In this case I agree with the "conservative group". Open government is essential. Regardless who they were talking to. Why should visitor records in a democracy be secret? And if anyone visits that truly needs to be kept secret for security reasons state secrets privileges cover it. So these are not being kept from the public for safety reasons or anything else. Just because the administration does not want the public to know who they meet with. Is that democratic?
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