From today's New York Times, an editorial supporting the new White House policy on visitor records, which was initiated by CREW:

Transparency doesn’t come easy in Washington, where deal makers and favor seekers prefer to work from the shadows. But the Obama administration is taking a major step into the sunlight with the presidential order to post online the thousands of White House visitors who come and go each month.

Dick Cheney fiercely indulged White House secrecy as vice president, most notoriously in refusing to name the corporate moguls who visited to create energy policy. But the Clinton administration was no less secretive about fund-raisers and other favored drop-ins.

The policy requires the routine posting of the Secret Service’s logs three to four months after White House visitations. Disclosure will name the visitor, who set up the meeting, where it was held and how long it lasted.

There are exceptions for national security and sensitive visitors, such as someone quietly under consideration for a Supreme Court nomination. But President Obama is promising citizens far more about “whose voices are being heard in the policy-making process.”

It took a court challenge by a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, to remind the administration of Mr. Obama’s campaign vows for a new era of openness.

ABC's Jake Tapper:

The move marks a significant policy change. The Bush administration refused to make public visitor's logs. Reporters and others had sought them during the Jack Abramoff scandal, and in Vice President Cheney's meetings with his energy task force. In 2006, the Secret Service and the Bush White House declared the logs off-limits to the public.

In January of this year, a federal judge ruled against the "presidential communications privilege" President Bush had invoked. The White House would have to make the visitors logs public, he ruled.

CREW had sought the logs to learn more about visits to the White House by conservative religious leaders and a Texas businessman and lobbyist accused of selling access to Bush administration officials in exchange for contributions to the pending George W. Bush presidential library.

CREW also served as a thorn in the Obama White House's side, earlier this year filing a lawsuit to force disclosure of meetings from officials of the pharmaceutical and clean coal industries with the Obama administration.

Yesterday, the Obama administration and CREW settled four ongoing cases regarding public access to White House visitor records.  The most significant development, however, is the commitment by the Obama administration to affirmatively post visitor records on-line on an ongoing basis, bringing a historic level of transparency to the White House.
 
CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan praised the White House stating:

The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise.  The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House.  In contrast, the Obama administration – by putting visitor records on the White House web site – will have the most open White House in history.  Because visitor records will now be available online, CREW dismissed its lawsuits. Providing public access to visitor records is an important step in restoring transparency and accountability to our government.  CREW is proud to have been part of this historic decision.

Yesterday’s agreement stems from lawsuits CREW filed after the Bush and later the Obama administration refused to provide White House visitor records in response to CREW’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  Visitor records are created by the Secret Service as part of its statutory responsibility to protect the president, vice president, their residences, and the White House generally.                  
 
In lawsuits for records of visits by Christian conservative leaders and lobbyist Stephen Payne, the Bush administration argued the records were presidential records, not agency records of the Secret Service, and therefore exempt from the FOIA’s mandatory disclosure requirements.  U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth disagreed, ruling twice that the records are subject to the FOIA and not within any of the claimed exemptions.  The government appealed those decisions to the District of Columbia Circuit Court.
 
After President Obama took office, CREW sought records of visits to the White House by health care and coal executives to determine the degree of their influence on health care and energy legislative proposals.  The government initially refused to turn over these records, but now has agreed to produce them, as well as the Bush era records, as part of the settlement.  In turn, CREW has agreed to dismiss all the pending litigation.

We'll have more on this shortly, but here's the question asked of President Obama last night by Christi Parsons from the Los Angeles Times -- and Obama's answer. The "watchdog group" in the question is CREW. We'll have more on the President's next:

Christi Parsons.

Q During the campaign, you promised that health-care negotiations would take place on C-SPAN. And that hasn't happened. And your administration recently turned down a request, from a watchdog group, seeking a list of health-care executives who have visited the White House to talk about health-care reform.

Also the TARP inspector general recently said that your White House is withholding too much information on the bank bailouts. So my question for you is, are you fulfilling your promise of transparency in the White House?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, on the list of health-care executives who visited us, most of the time, you guys have been in there taking pictures. So it hasn't been a secret. And my understanding is, we just sent a letter out providing a full list of all the executives. But frankly these have mostly been at least photo sprays, where you could see who was participating.

With respect to all the negotiations not being on C-SPAN, you will recall in this very room that our kickoff event was here, on C- SPAN. And at a certain point, you know, you start getting into all kinds of different meetings. Senate Finance is having a meeting. The House is having a meeting. If they want those to be on C-SPAN, then I would welcome it. But I don't think there are a lot of secrets going on in there.

And the last question was with respect to TARP. I -- let me take a look at what exactly they say we have not provided. I think that we've provided much greater transparency than existed prior to our administration coming in. It is a big program. I don't know exactly what's been requested. I'll find out, and I will have an answer for you.

As noted in the post below, the Obama administration has denied our request for White House visitor records, specifically for health care executives.  Despite promises of transparency, the Obama administration is using the same arguments proferred by the Bush administration.

So, we doing the same thing we did during the last administration. We're suing the Obama administration. Again.  We already had to sue for the names of coal executives who visited the White House, too.

Today, CREW is filing a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security based on the refusal of the Secret Service to provide CREW with White House visitor records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Our lawsuit and the accompanying materials can be found here.

CREW is seeking records of visits by top health care executives in an effort to learn the extent to which these industry players may have influenced the administration’s health care policy. Simultaneously, CREW is requesting emergency relief in the form of a preliminary injunction compelling the Secret Service to process the request on an expedited basis, in view of the great public interest and debate on health care policy and the pressure on Congress to pass legislation before the August recess.

As the Los Angeles Times reported, in response to CREW’s FOIA request, the Obama administration has taken the same position as the Bush administration that the records are presidential, not agency records, and that they are exempt from release because of the possibility in some instances they could reveal information protected by the presidential communications privilege. Although the White House suggested it was reviewing its policy on the release of visitor logs last month when CREW filed a similar complaint based on its request for records of visits by top coal company executives, it has to date refused to make even a discretionary release of any of the requested records. Every court to rule on the issue so far has concluded the visitor records are agency records that must be disclosed under the FOIA.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said:

Right now, the White House and Congress are debating colossal changes to the American health care system and taxpayers have a right to know who is sitting at the table influencing decision-makers. Unfortunately, the administration is refusing to release the names, preferring backroom politicking to transparency.

And, we were promised transparency. Repeatedly.

CREW wants to know who from the health industry has been visiting the White House. That doesn't sound like a heavy lift, since we were promised transparency. But, the Obama administration has denied our request using the same arguments proferred by the Bush administration. That doesn't seem to fit the definition of transparency. And, we'll go to court to get the visitor records, just like we did during the Bush years. From the LA Times:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.

The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the "presidential communications privilege."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics said it would file suit against the Obama administration as early as today. The group already has sued the administration over its failure to release details about visits from coal industry executives.

A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said, "We are reviewing our policy on access to visitor logs and related litigation.

As a candidate, President Obama vowed that in devising a healthcare bill he would invite in TV cameras -- specifically C-SPAN -- so that Americans could have a window into negotiations that normally play out behind closed doors.

Having promised transparency, the administration should be willing to disclose who it is consulting in shaping healthcare policy, said an attorney for the citizens' group. In its letter requesting the records, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics asked about visits from Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans; William Weldon, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson; and J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Assn., among others.

"It's extremely disappointing," said Anne Weismann, the group's chief counsel. Obama is relying on a legal argument that "continues one of the bad, anti-transparency, pro-secrecy approaches that the Bush administration had taken. And it seems completely at odds with the president's commitment . . . to bring a new level of transparency to his government."

An editorial in today's Miami Herald takes notice of the lack of transparency in the Obama administration.  That's a disturbing trend noticed by CREW as well:

As a candidate for president, Sen. Barack Obama vowed to run an open government. He reiterated that pledge on Inauguration Day: ''Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,'' he said.

Nearly six months later, advocates of open government are still waiting for the president to fulfill this promise. Compared to the Bush presidency, this administration is doing better. But what President Obama has done, compared to what he said he would do, are two different things, thanks in part to the unequivocal language he used and the expections he raised.

Ended Ashcroft order

The president deserves credit for taking action on his first day in office to rescind a 2001 memo by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft giving agencies broad legal cover to reject public disclosure requests. He also revoked an executive order signed by former President George W. Bush in 2001 that limited release of former presidents' records, and replaced it with new language aimed at more transparency.

Ending unnecessary secrecy, however, has apparently proven tougher than the president expected. He has come down on the side of keeping the public uninformed in a variety of decisions that, as a candidate, he might well have scorned.

One of the most troubling instances occurred last month, involving White House refusal to turn over White House visitor logs by coal industry executives. An organization called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a lawsuit, saying the Obama White House is essentially embracing the Bush administration position on the secrecy of the comings and goings of visitors to the executive mansion.

This makes for a murky transparency policy.

An editorial in yesterday's Virginian-Pilot supports CREW's effort to obtain White House visitor records.  We're not the only ones who expect the Obama administration to live up to its commitment to transparency -- not to adopt Bush-era policies:

President Barack Obama, who made a pledge to bring greater transparency to government during his administration, needs to implement that philosophy at the door to his new home.

In a disturbing echo of his predecessor's approach to public records, the Obama administration recently rejected two requests for access to White House visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service.

MSNBC had asked for a list of all visitors since Jan. 20, and the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had requested logs of visits by coal company executives. In response to the rejection, CREW has filed a lawsuit in federal court.

Administration officials say they're reviewing the policy on visitor logs but, for now, they're adhering to the Bush-era stance that the official record of visitors is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

There's no need to review the policy. A federal judge has twice rejected claims by the Bush administration, laid out in a 2006 memo to the Secret Service, that the visitor logs are off-limits to public view.

Rather than honor those rulings, the Obama administration apparently is contemplating another court appeal based on arguments similar to those put forth by his predecessor.

As reported below, the Obama administration denied CREW's request for access to White House visitor logs.  So, we're suing.

CREW is filing a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security based on the refusal of the Secret Service to provide CREW with White House visitor records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). CREW sought records of visits by top coal executives in an effort to learn the extent to which these individuals may have influenced the administration’s energy policy.  Our complaint can be found here.

Taking the exact same position as the Bush administration, the Obama administration claimed the records are presidential, not agency records, and otherwise exempt in their entirety because of the possibility in some instances they could reveal information protected by the presidential communications privilege.

We've been down this road before -- and won.  In prior litigation U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth agreed with CREW that the records are agency records that must be disclosed under the FOIA. That decision was issued January 9, 2009.  At the time, our counsel, Anne Weismann said:

CREW’s victory today reaffirms the public’s right to know what the government is doing. We are pleased that the judicial branch has ripped the cloak of secrecy away from the White House and we hope the incoming administration takes heed of the court’s decision and ensures Secret Service records are available to the public.

Well, the incoming administration sided with the old one.  So, back to court.

This doesn't strike us as very transparent or very accountable.  Because, it's not.  And, it's certainly not change.  We fought this same battle with the Bush administration:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn't have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

Despite President Barack Obama's pledge to introduce a new era of transparency to Washington, and despite two rulings by a federal judge that the records are public, the Secret Service has denied msnbc.com's request for the names of all White House visitors from Jan. 20 to the present. It also denied a narrower request by the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought logs of visits by executives of coal companies.

CREW says it will file a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

"We are deeply disappointed," said CREW attorney Anne L. Weismann, "that the Obama administration is following the same anti-transparency policy as the Bush administration when it comes to White House visitor records. Refusing to let the public know who visits the White House is not the action of a pro-transparency, pro-accountability administration."