So, why do you think the President is blocking access to the Visitor Logs

Why did "the most open and transparent government in history" change their mind and fight to keep them secret? The only thing transparent about this government seems to be all the leaks. I find that strange.

I don't agree with some of the words used in this article but it does make you wonder why the flip-flop again.

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Obama Secrecy Gambit over Visitor Logs Succeeds in Court

“A president that doesn’t want Americans, under law, to know who his visitors are is a president who doesn’t want to be accountable.”

That’s what I said in a statement to the press in response to a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which found that U.S. Secret Service’s White House visitor logs for people visiting the president’s office are not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The disappointing ruling came in a Judicial Watch lawsuit against the United States Secret Service.

As you know, Judicial Watch has been fighting through three presidential administrations – Clinton, Bush and Obama – to force the release of White House visitor logs. Along the way we’ve been both threatened and offered what essentially was a bribe to give up the fight. Always we refuse.

Why so persistent? Here’s how I explained it in my press statement, which contemplates the harmful ramifications of the decision and signals Judicial Watch’s intent to fight on:

“The appellate court decision punches another hole in the Freedom of Information Act, the law which allows Americans to know what their government is up to. We are strongly considering an appeal.

“The legal gymnastics in this unprecedented decision shows that President Obama is not the only one willing to rewrite laws without going through Congress. And this legal fight, in which President Obama is fighting tooth and nail against full disclosure under law of his White House visitors, further exposes his big lie that his administration is the most transparent in history.”

It came on January 21, 2009, the day after assuming office. President Barack Obama then told his senior staff and cabinet members: “Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

On September 4, 2009, the Obama White House upped the ante even further, proclaiming to the press: “Today, the President took another important step toward a more open and transparent government by announcing a historic new policy to voluntarily disclose White House visitor access records.” He added, “Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process.”

See this link:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Opening-up-the-peoples-house

And what have we gotten instead? Nothing but lying, obfuscation and stonewalling. Just ask our investigators – the best in the business – who must endure one trick after another, day after day, all intended to keep the activities of the Obama administration secret.

Obama administration officials hide behind bogus claims of “national security.” They manipulate the FOIA process. They send useless, completely redacted documents in response to requests. They claim no records exist at all, only to subsequently “find” them when courts intervene. They shift requests between agencies in a ridiculous shell game intended to drag out the process. And on and on and on.

With respect to the White House visitor logs, the administration made the ludicrous argument that government records are not government records at all. And the court, in an act of judicial activism, essentially rewrote FOIA law and bought it.

JW’s pursuit of the White House visitor logs has been a particularly important undertaking for the organization. Because these records go to the heart of the problem with respect to the rampant influence peddling that goes on in this city. Who has the ear of the president and what do they want? These records help answer this question.

In the case of the current administration, JW has demonstrated time and time again that radical leftist special interest groups from La Raza to the ACLU to the NAACP are zipping in and out of the Obama White House making their demands known, helping to craft policies that impact the country, and usually not for the better.

If the appellate court decision is allowed to stand, the Obama administration will have succeeded in turning the Freedom of Information Act on its head. Visitors to the Oval Office will come and go under an impenetrable cloak of secrecy. And Obama and his successors will be able to cut backroom deals with shadowy characters far removed from the essential element of public scrutiny. That is what’s at stake.

As Politico’s White House correspondent Josh Gerstein wrote in his report on the decision, “The ruling is also a defeat for an array of major news organizations, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and CREW. In amicus briefs, they asked the appeals court to uphold the lower court decision and find that the access records are subject to processing under FOIA.”