Still sorting through recent Peter Yost report(s) (AP) which proclaim
White House Visitor Records Closed
Federal News Radio
ABC News
White House, Secret Service agreed to designate visitor records as non-public
Happened to notice the Secret Service website in a search for info, and decided to take a visit on the off-chance they'd have something online.
Main site shows...
PRIVACY POLICY...
Thanks for visiting the Secret Service website and reviewing our privacy policy! Our privacy policy is plain and simple. We collect NO personal information like names or addresses when you visit our website. If you choose to provide that information to us it is only used to fulfill your request for information.
We do collect some technical information when you visit to make your visit seamless. The section below explains how we handle and collect technical information when you visit our website.
Information Collected and Stored Automatically
When you browse, read pages or download information on The Secret Service's website, we automatically gather and store certain technical information about your visit. This information never identifies who you are. The information we collect and store about your visit is listed below:
The Internet domain (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access our website;
The type of browser (e.g., Netscape, Internet Explorer) and operating system (Windows, Unix) used to access our site;
The date and time you access our site;
The pages you visit; and
If you linked to the Secret Service website from another website, the address of that website.
This information is only used to help us make the site more useful for you. With this data we learn about the number of visitors to our site and the types of technology our visitors use. We never track or record information about individuals and their visits
continued
...Site Security
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs commercial software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
link would be provided but the Secret Service will track Net the Truth Online from now on...
http://www.google.com/search?q=secret+service+logs+not+public&hl=en&lr=&start=20&sa=N
If you visit the Secret Service site make sure to visit the FOIA page. Had high hopes for obtaining info about the White House visitor logs... seriously, I thought they'd surely display their side of why they agreed to the memorandum of understanding.
Interesting section: Know Your Money, the history of it - almost all there except for the real reason for the Great Seal.
Least they could have done was provide a link to Myths and Misinformation
About the Great Seal of the United States.
U.S. Secret Service Forced to Release More White House Logs Detailing Abramoff Visits
Available on Judicial Watch’s Internet Site, www.judicialwatch.org
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that the United States Secret Service has released to Judicial Watch new logs detailing additional visits of corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff to the White House. The documents were released late Friday afternoon. Judicial Watch had filed a “motion to compel” with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on May 17 after the Secret Service failed to comply with an April 25 court order to release all official logs detailing the Abramoff visits without redaction. The new logs are available on Judicial Watch’s Internet site, www.judicialwatch.org. (Pages 47 and 53 provide the clearest representation of the visits.)
The first set of documents released to Judicial Watch on May 10 indicated that Abramoff only made two visits to the White House on March 6, 2001 and January 20, 2004. The new documents show an additional seven data entries concerning Abramoff appointments on the following dates: March 1, 2001; March 6, 2001; April 20, 2001; May 9, 2001; May 17, 2001; December 7, 2001; and December 10, 2001. According to the cover letter accompanying the documents, “The…data reflect appointments involving Jack Abramoff, but do not necessarily reflect actual visits to the White House Complex.”...
http://www.judicialwatch.org/abramoff-july7.shtml
White House, Secret Service agreed to designate visitor records as non-public
Posted 1/5/2007 5:44 PM ET
By Pete Yost, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House complex are not subject to public disclosure.
The Bush administration didn't reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall. The White House is using it to deal with a legal problem on a separate front, a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Last year in the Abramoff scandal, the Bush administration, in response to three lawsuits, provided an incomplete picture of how many visits Abramoff and his lobbying team made to the White House.
The task of digging out Abramoff-White House links fell to a House committee that collected the lobbyist's billing records and e-mails. The House report found 485 lobbying contacts with presidential aides over three years, including 10 with top Bush administration aide Karl Rove.
As part of its security function of protecting the White House complex, the Secret Service uses the log information to conduct background checks on people prior to daily appointments and visits.
The memorandum of understanding is an unusual step because it deals with an unsettled area of law.
Federal courts will ultimately decide whether records identifying White House visitors and who they are going to see are under the legal control of the Secret Service or are presidential records publicly releasable solely at the discretion of the White House.
The Bush administration's agreement with the Secret Service "at a minimum will serve to postpone a final resolution of who these records belong to," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "This memo reflects the Bush administration's view of American government, which is that the people's business should be conducted behind closed doors."
In the mid-1990s, a conservative group, Judicial Watch, obtained Secret Service entry logs through a lawsuit.
Secret Service records played a significant role in the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s, supplying
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-05-whitehousevisitors_x.htm?csp=34
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 5, 4:07 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public.
The Bush administration didn't reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall. The White House is using it to deal with a legal problem on a separate front, a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.
In a federal appeals court filing three weeks ago, the administration's lawyers used the memo in a legal argument aimed at overturning the judge's ruling. The Washington Post is suing for access to the Secret Service logs.
The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_visitors
Secret Service Reveals More Abramoff Visits
By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON Jul 7, 2006 (AP)— The Secret Service on Friday revealed four more visits to the White House in 2001 by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including one to see a domestic policy aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2166642
Case 1:06-cv-01737-RMU Document 7 Filed 10/19/2006 Page 1 of 25
Page 25
25Opinion was previously issued on October 18, 2006. RICARDO M. URBINAUnited States District JudgeCase 1:06-cv-01737-RMU Document 7 Filed 10/19/2006 Page 25 of 25)
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