Obama Starting to Open Up White House Visitor Logs
From Jon Garcia — Want to see who's been visiting the "people's house?" Now you can with the click of a mouse. The Obama administration today posted some 25,000 visitor records from September on it's website, WhiteHouse.gov. If you know how to search an Excel spreadsheet, you can find who visited whom from Sept 16, 2009 to Sept 30, 2009. And it seems the White House plans on adding to the list on a monthly basis. (October records are due next month.) What about before September? The White House has also posted some visitor records dating back to the day Obama took office–but only if specific requests have been made for those records. The September records going forward represent blanket visitor logs from what the White House calls "WAVES" logs, the computer database used by the Secret Service to monitor who goes in and out of the White House Complex. There have been two previous visitor data releases, one in October and one in November, but they were much more limited in scope. All of those documents are now included in the updated listings available to the public. The White House is on a "transparency" roll this holiday season, making good on promises to make the White House more open. Yesterday they set up a system to fast track declassifying documents and making it harder to classify documents in the first place. — Jon Garcia
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The “people’s house” sounds horrible. Like the Peoples’ Republic of China or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The White House is the residence for our President and his family, and the work place for his staff. That’s enough. It isn’t “the people’s”.
Posted by: MayBee | December 30, 2009, 6:32 pm 6:32 pm
The “people’s house”?
Are we now the People’s Republic of America?
Posted by: The Audacity of Golf | December 30, 2009, 6:46 pm 6:46 pm
Are we now the People’s Republic of America?
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The continued attempts to frame the President as a communist. Cute but dumb.
Hard to tell out of which side of their mouths the Republicans and the right will drool. Is he a communist? Is he in the pocket of Goldman Sachs? The big capitalists? The communists? The poor people? The health insurance industry? The communist pharmaceutical industry?
Posted by: tierra | December 30, 2009, 7:10 pm 7:10 pm
Obama has stopped funding a long held program in california to hold illegals and be able to deport them. Obama has the money for pork to mark penn’s firm but can’t resource money to hold criminal illegals. Now California has had to release prisoners. I am in utter despair. Every day Obama makes bad security decisions with Napalitano and the MSM covers it up and chris mathews gets a thrill. The left has won and taken over this country.
Posted by: jason | December 30, 2009, 7:31 pm 7:31 pm
December 11, 2009
LOS ANGELES — Nearly 300 illegal immigrants who had committed serious crimes were deported or detained this week by federal agents in a demonstration of what immigration officials pledged was a new resolve to zero in on the most egregious lawbreakers. NY Times.
Posted by: tierra | December 30, 2009, 7:45 pm 7:45 pm
December 7, 2009
Predator drones, the unmanned aircraft used by the U.S. military in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones, will soon be employed to track illegal immigrants on the Mexico-California border. LA Times.
Posted by: tierra | December 30, 2009, 7:48 pm 7:48 pm
“The White House is on a “transparency” roll this holiday season, making good on promises to make the White House more open.”
I am thankful to the advocacy groups who held the administrations feet to the fire to make this happen. Liberals are often lampooned for not pulling together and marching in lockstep (like Republicans under Bush), but if two open government liberal groups hadn’t gone after Obama’s Whitehouse in court for these records where would we be now?
Posted by: jhw539 | December 30, 2009, 7:51 pm 7:51 pm
The old full body scanners show body parts. The new scanners only show outlines of the body, while pointing out suspicious areas.
If security is stepped up, the administration is attacked for taking away our freedoms. If security is loosened up, the administration is attacked for leaving us vulnerable to terrorism. Which one is it people? Republicans don’t even believe a right to privacy is contained in the Constitution.
I’m just thanking we’re going to finally be investing in high speed trains. You can’t fly a train into a skyscraper, causing it to collapse. If you don’t like the invasion of privacy that flying has become, then you’ll have another choice, thanks to the current administration.
Posted by: Paul | December 30, 2009, 7:53 pm 7:53 pm
Have you seen the “full body scanners” pictures on Drudge that Barack Obama is installing in Chicago O’Hare?
Obamacrat for Palin | Dec 30, 2009 6:33:58 PM
Really? Obama personally is installing them? I thought he was in Hawaii. Any citation for your hyperbolic paranoid ravings? (And the ability of these scanenrs was well known back when they were first introduced – under the Bush administration.)
Posted by: jhw539 | December 30, 2009, 7:53 pm 7:53 pm
There’s some suggestions that to make us safer, we need to install body scan machine at airports. I think a safer method would be to scan Mr. Obama’s thoughts so he will be forced not to lie.
Posted by: young_voter | December 30, 2009, 8:13 pm 8:13 pm
How many illegal aliens were granted free and complete medical care this week?How many were given free dialysis,free home nursing care, free medication and free surgery this week?I think that is a least as important as deporting a handful of felons.
Posted by: Nephron | December 30, 2009, 8:23 pm 8:23 pm
How many illegal aliens were granted free and complete medical care this week?How many were given free dialysis,free home nursing care, free medication and free surgery this week?I think that is a least as important as deporting a handful of felons.
Nephron | Dec 30, 2009 8:23:40 PM
If you really thought that important, why don’t you research it and tell us? Why do you just make sleezy insunuations? Why not actually come with some facts, some reality to support your hatred of all thing Obama (since we know illegals were never given any medical treatment by a Republican government)? Of course, that would require reality to match your opinion – a pretty tall order.
I suppose in your utopia a car crash victem would be left to die on the street if they didn’t have their passport, birth certificate, and insurance(or credit) card in hand.
Posted by: jhw539 | December 30, 2009, 8:30 pm 8:30 pm
Glad to see the CEO of Acorn was at the White House before the release of all the sting videos. Have to show a little gratitude to the organization who helped steal, I mean, win the election.
Posted by: Walter | December 30, 2009, 8:42 pm 8:42 pm
Have to show a little gratitude to the organization who helped steal, I mean, win the election.
________________________________
Stealing an election is when you have thugs break into a room where a recount is taking place attempting to force the recount to stop – like the Republicans did in Florida.
Posted by: tierra | December 30, 2009, 9:08 pm 9:08 pm
“Have to show a little gratitude to the organization who helped steal, I mean, win the election.”
It’s funny how much right-wingers hate it when people in the inner-cities vote.
Posted by: Skip | December 30, 2009, 9:13 pm 9:13 pm
Sorry Skippy and Tierra, I’m talking about the democratic primary.
Posted by: Walter | December 30, 2009, 9:31 pm 9:31 pm
The “people’s house” sounds horrible. Like the Peoples’ Republic of China or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The White House is the residence for our President and his family, and the work place for his staff. That’s enough. It isn’t “the people’s”.
Posted by: MayBee | Dec 30, 2009 6:32:48 PM
I agree, MayBee. It isn’t the “people’s house” at all. When a bill like the healthcare bill gets “shoved” through by backroom meetings and deals that are nothing short of unconstitutional, even though poll after poll shows the American public does not want the bill to pass, it’s a joke to speak of it as the “people’s house”. The people are not being represented. Lobbyists, bigwigs, banks, unions… the players are being represented, not us.
It seems the liberal bloggers on these posts want to do nothing more than bash Bush and his policies. I’m not one to take up for him…he made his mistakes for sure. But Obama was supposed to be a total turn around, a new era, new hopes and ideas. Instead we get the same ol’ same ol’. It’s just politics as usual. I despise Jeremiah Wright, but I will agree with him on one statement he made regarding Obama. He said shortly after the bruhaha about his church came out that Obama was a “politician” and doing “what politicians do”. Truer words have never been spoken.
Posted by: Shoe | December 30, 2009, 9:46 pm 9:46 pm
“I’m talking about the democratic primary”
Uh huh.
Posted by: Skip | December 30, 2009, 9:59 pm 9:59 pm
“…wait, that would be YOUR party..
mjishernameo | Dec 30, 2009 9:55:43 PM
Actually, that would just be more paranoid Republican exageration. By that paranoid standard, McVeigh’s blowing up of the federal building proves that ALL conservatives are at war with the US. Or Adkisson’s murders of liberals who were ‘destroying the country’ is proof that Hannity fans are dangerous mass murderers.
“Adkisson stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets…”
Sound familar?
Posted by: jhw539 | December 30, 2009, 10:20 pm 10:20 pm
Stealing an election is when you have thugs break into a room where a recount is taking place attempting to force the recount to stop – like the Republicans did in Florida.
————-
Never happened. Lie.
Posted by: mjishernameo | December 30, 2009, 10:21 pm 10:21 pm
Breitbart is claiming the records show that on September 2nd ACORN CEO Bertha E. Lewis made an appointment to visit the White House on September 5th at 12:30, unless it was another Bertha E. Lewis, like that “other” Jeremiah Wright.
This was at least several days before President Obama pretty well disavowed any knowledge of ACORN, so it must have been some OTHER Bertha E. Lewis.
Posted by: Bob | December 30, 2009, 10:49 pm 10:49 pm
“Adkisson stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets…”
____________________________________
This is what can happen with all the fear mongering and hate mongering from the right. Pray it doesn’t.
Posted by: tierra | December 30, 2009, 11:13 pm 11:13 pm
Republicans, they’re just so wacky,
now Hawaii is ‘foreign’ and even more amazing,
it’s different from Texas… can’t hide anything from sharp republicans like this guy.
Former Mitt Romney spokesman Kevin Madden:
‘You have to also remember the fact that the president being on vacation in Hawaii, it’s much different than being in Texas. Hawaii to many Americans seems like a foreign place’.
Posted by: XX | December 30, 2009, 11:29 pm 11:29 pm
The White House logs reflect the continued influence of the labor unions: A senior official for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Anna Burger, was one of the most frequent visitors to the president himself. Andrew “Andy” Stern, SEIU president is still a frequenst visitor.
The Obama administration’s wish to unionize TSA employees is well known and worth keeping up debate. TSA needs to be able to move quickly, union bureaucracy would impede that ability.
Most interesting visitor, ACORN’s Bertha E. Lewis. She made her appointment just three days before her visit to the White House on Saturday, September 5th at 12:30pm, moved up to 10am.
On September 21st (after Congress voted to cut off funding following the released videos of ACORN turning a blind eye to prostitution and giving advice on hiding ill gotten gains), Obama was asked about ACORN and he claimed, “Frankly, it’s not something I’ve followed closely.”
Posted by: The Audacity of Golf | December 31, 2009, 9:09 am 9:09 am
“Republicans, they’re just so wacky,
now Hawaii is ‘foreign’ and even more amazing, it’s different from Texas… can’t hide anything from sharp republicans like this guy.”
Note that many Americans (educated within the Dem/liberal-dominated public educational systems) don’t even know that New Mexico is a state (NM Magazine carries a regular column called “One of Our Fifty is Missing” with stories about how NM is confused with being part of Mexico – NM is also the only state that carries “USA” on its license plates).
Having lived in Hawaii, trust me, it’s MUCH different from Texas in many ways. It’s also among the most isolated populated island chains in the world.
Posted by: tjp612 | December 31, 2009, 11:24 am 11:24 am
That’s right Skippy, the Democratic Primary. Didn’t you pay attention to the caucus fraud perpetrated by ACORN officials or did you just vote in the general election? I don’t even know what you’re talking about in terms of inner city and voting as if that would have been enough to win the election outright.
Posted by: Walter | December 31, 2009, 11:27 am 11:27 am
“The White House is on a “transparency” roll this holiday season, making good on promises to make the White House more open.”
Does this mean an end to the Friday evening and holiday news dumps of information the WH does not wish to circulate broadly among the public? This is a regular practice with this WH.
Posted by: tjp612 | December 31, 2009, 11:27 am 11:27 am
Note that many Americans (educated within the Dem/liberal-dominated public educational systems)
______________________________________
Those poor, pathetic, ineffective Republicans – even though they’ve held office many times throughout the years, they haven’t been totally ineffective in improving education.
Poor little things.
Posted by: tierra | December 31, 2009, 1:39 pm 1:39 pm
Posted by: tierra | Dec 31, 2009 1:39:41 PM
Exhibit A in the case that public education is failing in its misson to educate Americans.
Posted by: tjp612 | December 31, 2009, 4:16 pm 4:16 pm
You can scroll through the list of records on the White House site OR you can download the raw data. Interestingly, the full download uncovers almost 30,000 records, including many from outside the mid-September time-frame detailed on the White House site. In other words, only the records from the specific two week time period are viewable on the White House site. Many other visitor records were released today…they are just much harder to find.
Like, for example, the visitor records for Bertha Lewis.
According to the visitor logs, on September 2nd Bertha E. Lewis made an appointment on to visit the White House on September 5th at 12:30. (We usually need to plan further ahead to get our hair cut.) On the evening of the 4th, that appointment was cancelled so Bertha could move her appointment earlier, to 10am.
And it doesn’t seem to have actually been a work visit, as her appointment indicates she was visiting the Residence within the White House. Also, September 5th was a Saturday. Nice.
In addition, the record notes that she was to receive a STAFF TOUR, which are different-and more special-than the regular Group Tours available to others.
Ms. Lewis doesn’t seem to have returned to the White House after this visit. Of course, just 5 days after this visit, James O’Keefe would release the first video of his undercover journalism on the systemic corruption within ACORN.
After the firestorm that erupted from O’Keefe’s reporting, President Obama was asked by Fox News for his opinion on the scandal. Despite long-standing ties to ACORN, Obama acted almost as if he’d never heard of the group.
Of course, at that point, it had been…several…days…since ACORN’s CEO was in the Residence at the White House. Who can keep up?
Of course, it is possible that this isn’t ACORN’s Bertha Lewis. After a previous dump of visitor records listed the name, Jeremiah Wright, the White House said, ‘oh, that was a different Jeremiah Wright.’ The media, of course, said, ‘okay,’ and never followed up. So, maybe the Bertha Lewis listed here isn’t the CEO of ACORN. Just another Bertha Lewis who gets special weekend access to the White House Residence, complete with an extra-special staff tour. Sure, possible, but we’d love to see a bookie’s odds on that.
Posted by: bdaman | December 31, 2009, 5:43 pm 5:43 pm
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS
We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS
We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS
And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
Posted by: 'Un-American' | December 31, 2009, 6:55 pm 6:55 pm
Quite an odd headline for this post, don’t you think? Especially as it is contradicted by the content. I wonder what the headline writer was thinking?
Posted by: Flash Override | January 1, 2010, 6:21 pm 6:21 pm
“Stealing an election is when you have thugs break into a room where a recount is taking place attempting to force the recount to stop – like the Republicans did in Florida.
————-
Never happened. Lie.”
Actually it did happen.
See Brooks Brothers riot in which republican aides and staffers pretended to be angry voters angrily demanding the recount cease. FoxNews was there in their capacity as the propaganda arm to cover it.
Posted by: Ryan C | January 4, 2010, 7:43 pm 7:43 pm
Very nice thank you for the brief explanation.
Posted by: sesli sohbet | April 2, 2010, 4:14 am 4:14 am