White House Blocks Visitor Log Request

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.

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Want to know if Gov. Bill Richardson met with the son of a friend and prominent fundraiser before the state decided to invest in a fund that ultimately cost New Mexico $90 million?

Good luck.

The Independent sought to view documents from the governor’s office from January through August 2006 that would have divulged with whom he had met in the months prior to the costly investment that benefitted the son of the governor’s friend to the tune of millions of dollars.

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Court to Decide if Court Records are Public Records

Two cases argued today before the Supreme Court of Washington present a significant question about public access to court records and could result in a major expansion of the state’s Public Records Act (chap. 42.56 RCW). The cases are Morgan v. Federal Way & Tacoma News, Inc., No. 81556-9 & Koenig v. Federal Way, No. 82288-3.

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