LEGAL/SECRET SERVICE: “The Secret Service has agreed to stop erasing White House visitor log data while a lawsuit demanding public access to some of the information goes forward.
Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing Tuesday [8-22-17] night that, pending resolution of the case, the Secret Service will suspend its practice of disposing of the information after it is transferred to a White House records repository…
Who holds the information can have a pivotal impact on the public’s ability to access the data in a timely way. Records held by federal agencies like the Secret Service are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, which can result in relatively timely disclosures, at least in some cases.
However, files belonging to the White House offices most directly involved in advising the president are subject instead to the Presidential Records Act. That law allows a president to keep most of his records from the public eye until five years after he leaves office, with some records off limits for 12 years.
Public Citizen filed suit against the Secret Service last week for access to records of visitors to four agencies in the White House complex whose records are typically subject to FOIA: the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality. They share the same Secret Service-run appointment and access system as core White House offices but have other legal duties that bring them within the scope of FOIA.”
-Josh Gerstein, “Secret Service agrees to stop erasing White House visitor log data,” Politico, Aug. 23, 2017 09:52am