Trump Administration Kills Open.Gov, Will Not Release White House Visitor Logs (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: It will never be said that the Trump presidency began with a presumption of openness. His pre-election refusal to release his tax returns set a bit of precedent in that regard. The immediate post-election muffling of government agency social media accounts made the administration's opacity goals um clearer. So, in an unsurprising move, the Trump administration will be doing the opposite of the Obama administration. The American public will no longer have the privilege of keeping tabs on White House visitors. TIME reports: "The Trump Administration will not disclose logs of those who visit the White House complex, breaking with his predecessor, the White House announced Friday. White House communications director Michael Dubke said the decision to reverse the Obama-era policy was due to 'the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.' Instead, the Trump Administration is relying on a federal court ruling that most of the logs are 'presidential records' and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act." So, to further distance himself from the people he serves (and the people who elected him), Trump and his administration have shut down the transparency portal put in place by the previous Commander-in-Chief: "White House officials said the Administration is ending the contract for Open.gov, the Obama-era site that hosted the visitor records along with staff financial disclosures, salaries, and appointments. An official said it would save $70,000 through 2020 and that the removed disclosures, salaries and appointments would be integrated into WhiteHouse.gov in the coming months."

Comments

Obama was an exception, not Trump

[iMadeGhostzilla]

"Mr. Trump’s policy is a return to the one followed by presidents who preceded Mr. Obama." (NYT). No mention of that in the summary.

Re:Obama was an exception, not Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama Fails on Government Transparency

“The American people were promised a new era of transparency with the Obama administration. Unfortunately, this promise has not been kept. To be clear: the Obama administration is less transparent than the Bush administration.”

US gov't sets record for failures to find files when asked

The Obama administration set a record for the number of times its federal employees told disappointed citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn't find a single page requested under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a new Associated Press analysis of government data.

In more than one in six cases, or 129,825 times, government searchers said they came up empty-handed last year. Such cases contributed to an alarming measurement: People who asked for records under the law received censored files or nothing in 77 percent of requests, also a record. In the first full year after President Barack Obama's election, that figure was only 65 percent of cases.

The White House Guess List: How Obama Pulled a Fast One on the American People -- in the Name of "Transparency"

The White House is still holding back "tens of thousands" of visitor logs, according to congressional testimony last week by Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, who also added that "the Obama administration is less transparent than the Bush administration."

We also know that some of the most important presidential visitors don't even walk into the White House. The administration meets K Street lobbyists at Caribou Coffee, and holds secret meetings in Jackson Place townhouses where there are no visitor logs.

The visitor logs that have been released are problematic, because they are simply lists of names, with no way to verify whether a specific name belongs to a particular person.

Laws and Regulations........

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone please point me to the law or regulation requiring a sitting president or president-elect to release his or her tax returns?

Can someone please point me to the law or regulation that requires our government or government officials to maintain social media accounts?

Can someone please point me to the law or regulation that requires the executive branch to make White House visitor logs available for public review?

If you are going to be upset that they are no longer willingly providing this information, then perhaps the best thing to do would be to pass a law requiring them to do so. For those unfamiliar with our process here in the US, that would involve action from the legislative branch. Contact your legislative representatives and demand they do something if you are really that upset.

It really seems most people who would complain about the shuttering of open.gov let their outrage get the best of them before they finished the article, as it clearly states, "and that the removed disclosures, salaries and appointments would be integrated into WhiteHouse.gov in the coming months.". Ergo, all that information is going to be retained, its just moving locations.

Re:This is better than what Obama did

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, tax returns are not presidential records. Secondly, from the summary, which starts with a negative tone but includes a few tidbits at the end:

"the removed disclosures, salaries and appointments would be integrated into WhiteHouse.gov in the coming months"

It seems they mostly ended the contract to host open.gov. Perhaps the contractor was an Obama friend, who knows.

Of course, we can't know the truth just yet since both the White House and the press (ex. Techdirt) have no credibility.

Re:Coal Mines unusable...

[Tablizer]

Plus, mining is gradually being automated. The conveyor carts and trucks will probably be the first to be automated, some already so.

There's also progress in direct dirt-and-rock mining bots. Although they use some AI, they are also assisted remotely for the times the AI gets confused. One remote operator can assist several bots.

Blaming lopsided trade deals with other countries for job loss has some merit, but is a fading threat compared to automation. T is fighting yesterday's battle.

Re:Open.gov

[PopeRatzo]

The O admin kept telling us those logs were useless and inaccurate anyhow.

The Obama administration released the visitors log in its entirety.

Here it is, in csv format.

Re:Once again, Hillary did not win.

[dbIII]

Hillary is no longer relevant.
No ties to Russia? So those bank loans and all the rest don't count? I think Trump has a bridge to sell to you if you are that gullible.

Re:Once again, Hillary did not win.

[RatPh!nk]

You mean the uranium deal regarding Russia’s nuclear power agency when it bought a controlling interest in a Toronto-based company? Which owns mines, mills and tracts of land in Wyoming, Utah and other U.S. states equal to about 20 percent of U.S. uranium production capacity (not produced uranium)? When Clinton was secretary of state, but didn’t have the power to approve or reject the deal and the State Department was only one of nine federal agencies that signed off on the deal, and only President Barack Obama had the power to veto it? That uranium "scandal"?

I tried to look up "Clinton campaign contributions". But mostly got Breitbart and FoxNews.....oh! and the ever accurate "shadowproof.com"

Of course Trump doesn't have annnny connections to Russia except "ornate gold" - I think in particular he FBI, NSA, CIA and both House and Senate Intelligence committees are investigating this love, in fact. Nothing at all there....probably

Re:$70k?

[AmiMoJo]

He did actually promise not to play any golf while in office... At this point I'm not even sure it's worth mentioning though, because literally everything he does was condemned by his earlier self on video or in a tweet.

Re: Good, it saves money

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy literally campaigned on not golfing.
Yet another promise broken.

"Because I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to play golf. Believe me! Believe me. Believe me folks."
08/08/2016

“I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” Trump, 69, tells ITK. "I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off.”
TheHill.com 06/23/15