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

Posted by BeauHD on from the not-as-transparent-after-all dept.

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."

13 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Open.gov by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did anyone feel it was ever "open" ?

  2. Obama was an exception, not Trump by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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.

    1. Re:Obama was an exception, not Trump by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There were three past presidents that could reasonably be expected to have a transparency website. Clinton is arguably grandfathered in because he largely predated mainstream internet usage. Dubya is a war criminal, so that leaves Obama, who had a decent but very much inadequate start.

      We should be very insistent that transparency is a one-way ratchet, as sunlight is a very effective disinfectant.

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    2. Re:Obama was an exception, not Trump by tsqr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you're that much of a coward to not suffer the consequences of your actions, what else are you trying to hide?

      Why does this have a familiar ring to it? Oh, yeah. It's the essence of the "If you haven't done anything wrong, why is your privacy so important to you" argument.

    3. Re:Obama was an exception, not Trump by Raenex · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You quoted Judicial Watch 2 times. They aren't a reliable source.

      Your disparaging assessment as an Anonymous Coward with no evidence to support your claim is unreliable. He also linked to a Huffington Post article, well ok it was by Andrew Breitbart, but that article links to a New York Times article:

      "Here at the Caribou on Pennsylvania Avenue, and a few other nearby coffee shops, White House officials have met hundreds of times over the last 18 months with prominent K Street lobbyists -- members of the same industry that President Obama has derided for what he calls its "outsized influence" in the capital.

      On the agenda over espressos and lattes, according to more than a dozen lobbyists and political operatives who have taken part in the sessions, have been front-burner issues like Wall Street regulation, health care rules, federal stimulus money, energy policy and climate control -- and their impact on the lobbyists' corporate clients.

      But because the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors' log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the "most transparent presidential administration in history." "

  3. Re:This is better than what Obama did by Aqualung812 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trump will release full visitor logs five years after the current term ends.

    Sure he will. Right after he released his tax returns.

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  4. $70k? by Enigma2175 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, we're saving $70,000 over 4 years. Why would you even say something if it's such a low figure? Seriously, it's 0.000000018% of the budget. That's like a guy that makes $100k trumpeting the fact that he saved $0.0018. Less than 2/10s of a penny. I'm sure nobody expected anything different from this president, when your whole reason for getting elected is so your family and friends can loot the treasury "openness" isn't high on your agenda.

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    Enigma

    1. Re:$70k? by sh00z · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you want to get upset, get upset about the cost of those golf weekends. We the taxpayers are paying seven figures for each of Trump's golf weekends. Guess where the money for the hotel rooms for His Orangeness and the Secret Service entourage are going. That's right, into Trump's pockets!

    2. Re:$70k? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the website stops 1 Tomahawk missile from being fired, it's paid for itself several times over. The problem isn't that there's an attempt at financial responsibility. It's that the only time some people seem to care is when it's something useful, and never when it's a corporate handout or war profiteering.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    3. Re:$70k? by Dutchmaan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Oh, so $70,000 is meaningless to you? I think savings is important wherever you can find it."

      I'm just going to say "Mar a Lago" and "go fuck yourself"... and leave it at that.

  5. Re: Good, it saves money by sh00z · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $70,000 is one HOLE of golf at Mar-a-Lago on any given weekend (using the standard $3M/trip metric, and assuming he plays two rounds).

  6. Re: This is better than what Obama did by darthsilun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not suddenly important. It's been important all along. Trying to claim otherwise is one of those Alternate Facts that Kellyann likes to blather about.

    I couldn't care less if he used a loophole. Actually, I do care – I want a loophole too. Or I want his loophole closed. What I really care about though is that he might have sources of income that would indicate he has conflicts of interest. We already do have laws that prohibit conflicts of interest by executive branch members. Google "emoluments" for more info. While some claim those laws don't apply to the president, no court has yet ruled on it, and every president going back to at least Reagan has both released his taxes and put his assets into a blind trust to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest.

    In the end, it's about how it looks. And Trump just looks bad for refusing to do those things. And a lot of other things too.

  7. Re:Once again, Hillary did not win. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Furthermore, as the politifact link says, despite purchasing the extraction rights as part of a larger deal, they they never acquired export rights. So all that uranium was never at risk of leaving the US anyway.

    But holy shit the lies about that so-called scandal are deafening. Almost like there was a vast conspiracy to bamboozle the american public.