Judge rules for White House in e-mail controversy

[Mugu]

AP via Yahoo

WASHINGTON - A federal judge ruled Monday that a White House office that has records about millions of possibly missing e-mails does not have to make them public.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says the Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, enabling the White House to maintain the secrecy of a lengthy internal paper trail about its problem-plagued e-mail system.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed against the administration by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private group that has been trying to find out the extent of the White House's e-mail problems for more than a year.

The functions of the Office of Administration "are strictly administrative," Kollar-Kotelly ruled. Kollar-Kotelly said the Office of Administration has no authority over others in the executive branch and that the office is exclusively dedicated to providing services to the Executive Office of the President.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080616/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail;_ylt=Ah8sv2RtZI_L8cQydpugqWayFz4D">Complete article

[Parche]

1. Ah

I think that anything the Whitehouse does is public property, last time I checked, they were
elected by the people, and they represent us?

:shrug: :hi:

[midnight]

2. Can't imagine this is the last we will hear about this.

The functions of the Office of Administration "are strictly administrative," Kollar-Kotelly ruled. Kollar-Kotelly said the Office of Administration has no authority over others in the executive branch and that the office is exclusively dedicated to providing services to the Executive Office of the President.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Another ruling from Judge Kollar-Kotelly...

Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.

The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.

--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/08/AR2006020802511.html">Washington Post