Breaking News: Judge Lets Secret Service Hide White House Visitor Logs
Source: National Security Archive
Published: Jul 27, 2018
Edited by Lauren Harper
Washington, D.C., July 27, 2018 - Federal Judge Katherine Failla agreed with government lawyers and is allowing the Secret Service to hide the White House visitor logs in a FOIA lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The visitor logs - 5.99 million records worth - were routinely released by the Obama administration, with no harm to national security or personal privacy.
Judge Failla, of the Southern District of New York, relied on a 2013 D.C. Circuit ruling in finding that the visitor logs for core White House offices are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, although she agreed that certain other parts of the Executive Office of the President are covered.
The Secret Service has already admitted during the course of the lawsuit that it maintains no records system for tracking the president's visitors at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties, meaning anyone - foreign lobbyists and otherwise - can pay for access to the president without being vetted or recorded.
The only record the government has released so far in response to the FOIA suit is one document, totaling two pages, concerning the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - this after telling Judge Failla and the plaintiffs that DHS would produce all the visitor logs.
Read more: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/foia/2018-07-27/breaking-news-judge-lets-secret-service-hide-white-house-visitor-logs
= new reply since forum marked as read
I guess it's just none of our business. 
to open these up and finally relented. In fact per this -
September 4, 200911:11 AM ET
The new occupant of the White House had long promised to be much different from the previous occupant, but one issue continued to nag at critics: its refusal to release the names of those visiting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
After eight years of George W. Bush, President Obama pledged what he called a new era of transparency. But when watchdog groups such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sought to obtain the logs of those visiting the White House -- say, by executives of coal companies -- the administration balked. No longer.
Today, President Obama -- in what his press office described as "another indication of his commitment to an open and transparent government" -- announced that records of White House visitors will be released, and that each month, records of visitors from the previous 90-120 days will be made available online.
<...>
Still, it's the first time in history an administration has agreed to release this information. Often, the White House found itself defending its policy in court; the Bush administration, for example, refused to release the names of those from the oil and gas industry who may have visited the White House to discuss energy policy.
https://www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2009/09/obama_reverses_course_will_rel.html
When it came to these demands - White guys? No problem. Black guy? The sky has fallen OMG!11!!!! And they continued to go after him.
