Administration Releases More Visitor Logs

On Friday, the Obama administration released another set of visitor logs [1].  The list of 110 White House guests was compiled from public requests and includes names such as Brad Pitt, Jesse Jackson, and several business leaders.  This release is a positive step toward building a system of government transparency that is responsive to the public interest but we would still like to see the administration go further with this effort.

This is, of course, a welcome addition to its transparency efforts that goes beyond its promise [2]to release visitor logs created after September 15, 2009.  The administration’s willingness to release any portion of the visitor logs is a change from its initial position and certainly a break from the stances held by prior administrations.

The timing of the release was rather poor.  The White House put the documents on the internet late Friday afternoon after the daily news cycle and just before the holiday weekend.  While there is nothing necessarily sensational about the release the timing hampers the public’s awareness of the information release.

Moreover, the list only contains just over a hundred names of what is probably hundreds of thousands of people who have visited the White House.  The list only includes the names of individuals who the public has inquired about to date.  While public requests are one way to gauge the public interest in these matters, it is not a solid test.  Many are reluctant or don’t know how to request this information from the government.  Further, such a test does not take into consideration the public’s interest in broad issue areas such as visits made by industry lobbyists for healthcare or the coal industry.  While these issues have been heavily reported in the news media the administration’s release largely concerns celebrity visits and specific lobbyists.  Releasing information in this manner gives us only part of the picture.

Further, it is difficult to search and understand just what data is being presented.  The column headings are vague as to the information they contain.  The government does not define what a “UIN” is or explain what is meant by “Access Type.”  When the data initially went online Friday, the search function on the White House site was not working but this has since been fixed and is a positive sign that the administration is willing and able to improve upon how it releases information to the public.  The release of the information on the White House site [3]is less manipulable than the copy of the log the administration posted to Socrata [1], a social data network.

Meanwhile, visitor logs continue to be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act until their release as public records is mandated either by Congress or the courts.  Until then, it seems that the release of visitor logs, usually considered by presidents to be presidential records, will be at the discretion of the president.  Thus, future administrations retain the authority to shut down this disclosure policy at any time.

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