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White House reporters mum on Obama lunch, even as papers bac

Larrry

Well-known member
obamalunch.jpg


White House reporters are keeping quiet about an off-the-record lunch today with President Obama — even those at news organizations who've advocated in the past for the White House to release the names of visitors.

But the identities of the lunch's attendees won't remain secret forever: Their names will eventually appear on the White House's periodically updated public database of visitor logs. The White House posts them with a three-month lag, so records of August visits won't be available until late November. (Although, since many of those invited already work in the White House every day, their lunch visit may not register.)

The Obama White House began posting the logs in order to settle a lawsuit, begun under the Bush administration, from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which sought the Secret Service's White House visitor logs under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Bush White House argued that the logs were technically owned by the White House, which isn't subject to FOIA. CREW attacked that view in federal court, arguing that the logs are subject to FOIA both because they are created by the Secret Service -- not the White House -- and because the public has a right to know who the president and White House staffers are conferring with.

And guess who filed briefs supporting that argument? Virtually every newspaper that covers the White House.

The Washington Post filed an amicus brief in in February 2008 arguing that the names of White House visitors should be released, and it was joined by the Associated Press, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones, USA Today, the Hearst Corporation, the New York Daily News, the Newspaper Guild, the Society of Professional Journalists, and a host of other news outlets.

It's unclear, of course, whether reporters for any of those newspapers attended the lunch — because none of them will say. But it's highly likely that some, if not all, of the people who are now refusing to divulge whether or not they visited the White House for the Obama lunch work for newspapers that asked a federal court to compel the Secret Service to divulge a list of all White House visitors. It's understandable that reporters will not discuss what transpired in the off-the-record meeting, but several won't even confirm if they attended.

The Upshot reached out to several White House reporters whose news organizations joined the amicus brief , including the Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman, Reuters' Caren Bohan, the Washington Post's Michael Shear and USA Today's David Jackson (who also serves as president of the White House Correspondents Association). When reached, they all declined to comment.

Obama has met several times with columnists and television pundits for off-the-record lunches to discuss a variety of issues since becoming president. Today, he reached out to the White House beat reporters who file their papers' straight news stories.

But not every reporter jumped at the chance to attend. The New York Times was invited but decided against going to the lunch.

Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for the Times, told The Upshot that the paper appreciated the invitation but "politely declined because we'd like very much to talk on the record."

Baker said that his paper passed on the invite because conducting off-the-record meetings "becomes a substitute for on the record, and doesn't serve the goal of transparency." He added that "there's too much transaction in this town as it is that's not on the record."

The White House did not return a request for comment.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100812/pl_yblog_upshot/white-house-reporters-mum-on-obama-lunch-even-as-papers-back-transpareny
obamalunch.jpg
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
On his first full day in office, January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The President directed that FOIA "should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails." Moreover, the President instructed agencies that information should not be withheld merely because "public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears."



SEC Says New Financial Regulation Law Exempts it From Public Disclosure

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.


One year later, Obama’s requests for transparency have apparently gone unheeded.

In fact a provision in the Freedom of Information Act law that allows the government to hide records that detail its internal decision-making has been invoked by Obama agencies more often in the past year than during the final year of President George W. Bush.

Major agencies cited that exemption to refuse records at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, compared with 47,395 times during President George W. Bush’s final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Obama closes curtain on transparency
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
August 12, 2010

President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians.

Obama transferred "ethics czar" Norm Eisen to the Czech Republic to serve as U.S. ambassador. Some of Eisen's duties will be handed to Domestic Policy Council member Steven Croley, but most of them, it appears, will shift over to the already-full docket of White House Counsel Bob Bauer.

Bauer is renowned as a "lawyer's lawyer" and a legal expert. His resume, however, reads more "partisan advocate" than "good-government crusader." Bauer came to the White House from the law firm Perkins Coie, where he represented John Kerry in 2004 and Obama during his campaign.

Bauer has served as the top lawyer for the Democratic National Committee, which is the most prolific fundraising entity in the country. Then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., the caricature of a cutthroat Chicago political fixer, hired Bauer to represent the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In the White House, Bauer is tight with Emanuel, having defended Emanuel's offer of a job to Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., whom Emanuel wanted out of the Senate race.

Another Bauer client was New Jersey Sen. Robert "Torch" Torricelli back in 2001. When one Torricelli donor admitted he had reimbursed employees for their contributions to the Torch -- thus circumventing contribution limits -- Bauer explained, "All candidates ask their supporters to help raise money from friends, family members and professional associates."

Bauer's own words -- gathered by the diligent folks at the Sunlight Foundation -- show disdain for openness and far greater belief in the good intentions of those in power than of those trying to check the powerful. In December 2006, when the Federal Election Commission proposed more precise disclosure requirements for parties, Bauer took aim at the practice of muckraking enabled by such disclosure.

On his blog, Bauer derided the notion "that politicians and parties are pictured as forever trying to get away with something," saying this was an idea for which "there is a market, its product cheaply manufactured and cheaply sold." In other words -- we keep too close an eye on our leaders.

In August 2006 Bauer blogged, "disclosure is a mostly unquestioned virtue deserving to be questioned." This is the man the White House has put in charge of making this the most open White House ever.

Most telling might have been Bauer's statements about proposed regulations of 527 organizations: "If it's not done with 527 activity as we have seen, it will be done in other ways," he told the Senate rules committee.

"There are other directions, to be sure, that people are actively considering as we speak. Without tipping my hand or those of others who are professionally creative, the money will find an outlet."

This perfectly captures the Obama White House's attitude toward disclosure. Sure, the administration publish the names of all White House visitors, but, as the New York Times reported a few weeks back, White House folks just meet their lobbyists at Caribou Coffee across the street. Sure, they restrict the work of ex-lobbyists in the administration, but lobbyists who de-list aren't questioned.

And we've seen just a few of the e-mails former Google lobbyist, now Obama tech policy guru, Andrew McLaughlin traded with current Google lobbyists using his Gmail account, but who knows what else the White House whiz kids are doing to avoid the Presidential Records Act -- Facebook messages? Twitter direct messages?

Did I mention Bauer was a lobbyist? At Perkins Coie, Bauer lobbied on behalf of America Votes Inc., a Democratic 527 funded by the likes of the AFL-CIO and ACORN.

The Sunlight Foundation is also concerned about the fact the White House no longer has anyone whose job is transparency, as Eisen's job was. John Wonderlich, at SunglightFoundation.com, lists a few transparency promises on which the president hasn't followed through, including earmark transparency, a single Web site (Ethics.gov) with all ethics and accountability information, and better lobbying disclosure, among others.

As with his other reformer rhetoric, Obama's transparency is mostly smoke and mirrors.
 
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