Editorial: Logging In

31 Dec 2007 // When the federal Freedom of Information Act finally won overwhelming support in Congress 41 years ago, it reflected, an Illinois congressman said, that Americans had become aware of "the threat involved in government secrecy" because of a "continuing tendency toward managed news and suppression of public information that the people are entitled to have."

That insight came from then-Rep. Donald Rumsfeld.

President Bush's defense secretary has since moved on. Not so the suppression of information or the threat it poses to good government. In fact, the administration repeatedly has concocted new ways of keeping Americans in the dark.

But on Dec. 17, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth roadblocked one end-run around FOIA, ruling that visitor logs generated by the Secret Service at the White House and the vice president's residence must be disclosed to the public.

FOIA requires federal agencies -- except for the president and his advisers, Congress and the federal judiciary -- to make available voluminous information, unless it falls within specified categories such as classified documents, personnel records and internal litigation memos.

In 2006, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Judicial Watch and The Washington Post filed FOIA requests for visitor logs to find out how often visitors such as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and influential conservative religious leaders went to the White House and the vice president's residence. Lawsuits resulted when the records weren't turned over.

The litigation revealed, among other things, that the White House and Secret Service had an agreement that the visitor records would be considered presidential records, which aren't subject to FOIA requests.

But Lamberth cut through the subterfuge. "These visitor records at the White House Complex and Vice President's Residence are created (or obtained) and controlled by the Secret Service and are therefore 'agency records' under our circuit's case law," he wrote in a 40-page ruling.

He rejected arguments that disclosing the logs would interfere with sensitive policymaking. "Knowledge of these visitors would not disclose presidential communications or shine a light on the president's or vice president's policy deliberations," he wrote. "It seems unlikely that visitor records will often pose a bona fide risk of improper disclosure."

Ruling in one of CREW's cases, Lamberth ordered the Secret Service to release records about visits by nine people, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Paul Weyrich.

The dispute over records of Abramoff's visits remains pending. The administration probably will appeal the order, just as it did a 2006 ruling that Vice President Dick Cheney's visitor logs had to be made public.

But history isn't -- and shouldn't be -- on the side of secrecy. Clinton visitor logs brought out the truth about White House visits by former intern Monica Lewinsky, Democratic Party donors Johnny Chung and Charlie Trie, and others whose connections embarrassed the administration.

Maybe that's why the Bush administration wants to keep the records under wraps -- and all the more reason why that shouldn't happen.