White House

Federal appellate court judges Tuesday voiced their concerns that releasing White House visitor logs to an advocacy group could release sensitive information held by the president.

“What if the president met with possible appointees to a position?” Circuit Judge Merrick Garland asked. “They would be revealed. Or what about a unique visitor that would be so sensitive that their name alone would reveal why they were there?”

A federal judge in New York recently halted enforcement of a controversial section of an anti-terrorism bill that the court found harms First Amendment rights. Plaintiffs to the case included noted activists, journalists and a member of Icelandic parliament who argued the law had a chilling effect.

The White House is moving forward with a plan that will invite people to create online identities in order to streamline the online transaction process, combat identify theft and reduce the amount of personal information available on the Internet.

Information access groups are watching developments to see if the new system will have any negative affects on public access to information, particularly government-held information that identifies individuals.

The Obama administration is continuing to argue that White House visitor logs are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, despite other district court holdings saying otherwise.

White House press correspondents have been asked to stop the practice of citing anonymous government sources in their work, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told CNN on Sunday, The Hill reported.

Gibbs finds no reason why reporters cannot find attributable sources in the administration and talked about a policy where officials will not comment on stories where there are anonymous sources used.

Members of the White House press corps continue to voice their frustrations that the Obama administration has chosen to bypass traditional news conferences in favor of prime time interviews and question-and-answer sessions on the Internet, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports.

Mere weeks after the White House began publishing select visitor logs online, the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has sued the U.S. Secret Service for access to still-unreleased visitor logs under the Freedom of Information Act.

The White House on Friday published nearly 500 visitor records online that detail visits made in the months from Obama's inauguration until the end of July, The Washington Post reported.

The records were in response to 110 specific records requests made in September and were released nearly two months before the White House is set to begin publishing visitor logs online each month.

Tension between the White House and Fox News continued to mount this week after broadcast bureau chiefs in Washington refused to go along with the Obama’s administration’s attempt to squeeze Fox News out of an interview.