White House to Announce New Policy Disclosing Visitors to White House

[jefferson_dem]

White House to Announce New Policy Disclosing Visitors to White House
September 04, 2009 7:03 AM

President Obama will announce today that the White House will regularly make public the names of visitors to the White House.

“For the first time in history, records of White House visitors will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis,” President Obama will say in a statement “We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside. Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process.”

Officials say that every month they will post on-line records of visitors from the previous 90-120 days.

There will be exceptions made for national security reasons or other meetings that White House considers "necessarily confidential....such as a visit by a possible Supreme Court nominee."

But otherwise, records of every visitor who comes to the White House for appointments, tours, or to conduct business will be released.

Kudos for the new policy came from Melanie Sloan, the executive director of the good government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which earlier this year filed a lawsuit to force disclosure of meetings from officials of the pharmaceutical and clean coal industries with the Obama administration.

“Today the Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise," Sloan said. "The Obama administration will have the most open White House in history. Providing public access to visitor records is an important step in restoring transparency and accountability to our government.”

<SNIP>

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/white-house-to-announce-new-policy-disclosing-visitors-to-white-house.html

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Great! Will they start from Day 1 to catch us all up from the very beginning? nt

[jefferson_dem]

2. Gee...

I dunno. Maybe between hand-wringing fits you can use "the google" to see if the policy will be retroactive.

Some. People. Will. Never. Be. Satisfied. :hi:

[ipaint]

3. No, the logs aren't released until 3-4 months have passed.

"The new policy would begin in mid-September. Electronic visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service would be released three to four months after visits are made. The disclosure would include who set up the meeting, where it was held and for how long. Specific requests for visits before Sept. 15 would be dealt with individually."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-09-04-white-house-visitors_N.htm

Looks like visits before the Sept. 15th can still be withheld.

[Ian David]

4. Why won't Obama show us his penis? n/t

[Zynx]

5. The fact that 80% of his term won't be covered isn't enough when the existing policy is none?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. Why be secretive about the first 20%

When multiple incredibly important issues were being discussed and legislated?

The answer my friend is obvious - because it will be chock-a-block full of lobbysist, bankers, insurance and pharma insiders, Max Baucus, and assorted and other sundries pushing their various agendas with very little input from (I'm guessing) from the more liberal, people's agenda sorts.

They obviously HAVE the lists of White House visitors from Day 1, so they are making a conscious choice to not release those days.

[Jennicut]

6. Good, being secretive does not instill confidence in government

[rocktivity]

8. Not only that, but they're releasing the Bush-era logs, too

which I hope includes the Cheney's energy meetings!

Suddenly, the Rethugs have something more important to worry about--not to mention the for-profit healthcare negotiation execs. And since it's based on a court ruling, he can't be blamed...Kid Rope-A-Dope strikes again!

:headbang:
rocktivity

[KingFlorez]

9. Good, transparency is necessary

This one less things the nutters can attack him for.