Judicial Watch has been joined by major media outlets and organizations to have the White House visitor logs released. Some of the groups joining Judicial Watch are Bloomberg, L.P.; CBS Broadcast Inc.; Dow Jones & Company Inc.; Gannett, Co. Inc.; The McClatchy Company; The National Association of Broadcasters; National Freedom of Information Coalition; National Public Radio; The Newspaper Guild; The Radio Television Digital News Association; The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; The Washington Post; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW); Openthegovernment.org; Electronic Frontier Foundation; and the Project on Government Oversight.
The Obama Administration has been fighting to keep the information secret for some time. Last August 17, Judge Beryl Howell ruled against the Obama administration, deciding that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Obama administration struck back by appealing the decision, which forced the matter into the hands of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Secret Service (No. 11-5282)).
On May 8, 2012, an amicus curiae brief was filed by Bloomberg, et al., claiming that the Obama administration was trying to “evade the congressional mandate of FOIA”:
The Media Amici are particularly concerned that reversal of the decision below may encourage federal agencies to seek to place millions of documents outside of FOIA’s ambit based on no more than their say-so, even in the face of express statutes and judicial orders directly to the contrary. Permitting such an end-run around FOIA would significantly reduce the quantity and quality of information available to the media and, consequently, to the public at large, severely undermining the goal of an informed public that sits at the core of our democracy … Media Amici respectfully urge this Court to affirm the District Court’s ruling…and reject the Secret Service’s repeated efforts to evade the congressional mandate of FOIA. Any other decision risks inviting a degradation of the rights of the media and the public to access government information, ultimately reducing confidence in governmental institutions.
The media amici group said the Obama Administration’s views “would effect a complete end-run around FOIA” and that their stance was “radical” and would make FOIA a “dead letter.”
Judicial Watch’s president, Tom Fitton, was gratified to be joined by the heavy hitters of the media:
We are grateful that so many reputable media institutions and open government organizations are joining our legal campaign against the Obama administration to uphold our nation’s FOIA transparency law and force the release of White House visitor logs. The Obama administration has a sham policy of voluntarily releasing select White House visitor logs, while shielding hundreds of thousands visitor logs from public view. President Obama has made a mockery of his transparency promises to the American people.
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