Courts Allow Obama to Keep White House Visitor Logs Secret

Hypocricy: the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.


Excerpts from the White House web site:

"Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government...

...This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person."

[link to www.whitehouse.gov]


Video conference with President Obama published to the Web on Feb. 14, 2013:



Obama: "This Is The Most Transparent Administration In History... [0:36]

...Every visitor that comes into the White House is now part of the public record. That's something that we changed. [0:44]"

'COURTS ALLOW OBAMA TO KEEP WHITE HOUSE VISITOR LOGS SECRET'

When Barack Obama came to office he promised that he would have the most ethical, most transparent presidency in American history. This month the Obama administration won a court judgment to allow Obama to keep the White House visitor log a secret from the American people.

On August 30, a federal appeals court decided that the White House visitor logs are not "public information" and therefore not subject to the disclosure requirements required by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The vote was not close, either. It was a 3-0 decision allowing Obama to keep visitor log sheets secret for up to 12 years after he has left office--as is the case with many presidential records.

Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a native Chicagoan and 1997 Bill Clinton appointee who became chief judge on Obama's watch, insisted that he took his cue from Congress itself.

In his decision, Garland said that with FOIA, "Congress made clear that it did not want documents like the appointment calendars of the president and his close advisors to be subject to disclosure."

This is a blow to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch that has been pursuing the release of the visitor logs.

Upon release of the decision, Judicial Watch President, Tom Fitton, said, "Decisions like this turn the Freedom of Information Act from a transparency law to a secrecy law."

Garland maintained that opening the logs to immediate public scrutiny would represent a "serious intrusion" into the president's daily operations.

Garland's opinion on the logs coincides with that of the George W. Bush administration, as well.

In 2008 when Obama first came to office, administration flack John Podesta said that Obama would implement the "strictest ethics rules ever applied" to the White House.

But almost immediately upon taking office Obama began to break his own rules. Only weeks passed, for instance, before he broke his "rules" on hiring lobbyists, a proscription against which was one of his most insistent campaign claims.

I always thought the White House belongs to the American people, and that they would have been entitled to this information regarding who is visiting.

His birth certificate and college transcripts were getting lonely.