Last month, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the White House Office of Administration was no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act.  While never explicitly subject to FOIA, in the past the Office of Administration has always complied with FOIA regulations.  Even George W. Bush, who is often criticized as being the most secretive preident in decades, allowed FOIA requests to the White House.  But within hours of the Court's ruling on May 19th, the Obama Administration had already added the following note on the White House website:  "The Office of Administration, whose sole function is to advise and assist the President, and which has no substantial independent authority, is not subject to FOIA and related authorities."  We at Judicial Watch were not surprised.  Since the beginning of this year, we had sent five requests to President Obama, both to his transition team and to the White House.  None of them were ever answered.

On January 7, 2009, I had sent a FOIA to Obama's Transition Team and learned that my request had been rerouted to the White House.  When two months had gone by with no response or acknowledgement, I decided to call the White House and ask what was going on.  First, staff members denied they had ever received my request, and when I pointed out that I could prove they had (certified mail is a very useful thing), they said they'd have to get back to me.  Needless to say, they didn't.  When I kept calling, still with no results, the White House finally responded, not to me or my colleague, who also had pending requests, but to our boss.

In a letter dated April 21, 2009, a member of Obama's Counsel wrote to our director of Investigations & Research Department essentially asking him to tell us to stop contacting the White House.  The letter reads, "We are in receipt of two letters from your organization...(1) a letter dated January 7, 2009 from Tegan N. Millspaw; and (2) a letter dated January 16, 2009 from Jenny Small.  Please note that...the "Transition" is a seperate legal entity from the White House.  Requests to the Transition should be addressed to its counsel, Mr. Robert Bauer at Perkins Coie LLP."  Conveniently, the documents in Mr. Bauer's care were deemed not to be subject to FOIA. 

The requests Judicial Watch sent directly to the White House were completely ignored, and only a month after we submitted our final request the Appeals Courty decided that the White House wasn't subject to our requests, or anyone else's, at all.  As alarming as this decision is, it looks like it may just be the tip of the iceberg.  Most recently, access to the White House visitors logs was refused, even though the information was kept by the Secret Service amd under federal law, should have been available under FOIA.  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) had requested the logs and on June 16th they filed a lawsuit to obtain the records. 

The Freedom of Information Act has never been particularly easy to use, and although government transparency is often promised, promises are worthless without the actions to back them up.  When a reporter asked Press Secretary Gibbs whether Obama's administration still strives to be more transparent than its predecessors, Gibbs responded, "I think we ran on that."  But in less that four months, Obama's administration has become the least open one in recent memory.  It is astonishing to see how quickly Obama's promises regarding freedom of information have fallen through.  In only five months, we have gone from an administration that promised to be the most transparent in recent history, to now having to sue the government to obtain what little transparency we have.  And while none of this is surprising, it is extremely disappointing.