Judge Orders Release of WH Logs Sought By 'Wash Post'

I found this off Americablog, so I went back to the source of the information. The original source is Editor and Publisher:

WASHINGTON A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election season debate over lobbyists' White House access.

The Washington Post asked for two years of White House visitor logs in June but the Secret Service refused to process the request. Government attorneys called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled Wednesday that, by the end of next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least identity them and justify why they are being withheld.

The newspaper sought logs for anyone visiting Cheney, his legal counsel, chief spokesman and other top aides and advisers.

The Secret Service had no comment on the ruling Thursday. In court documents, government attorneys said releasing the documents would infringe on Cheney's ability to seek advice.

"This case is about protecting the effective functioning of the vice presidency under the Constitution," attorneys wrote.

A lawsuit over similar records revealed last month that Republican activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, key figures in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal landed more than 100 meetings inside the Bush White House.

The Post cited those records, which were released to the Democratic Party and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as evidence that the documents should be released.

It is interesting how the Bush administration is continuing their claims that visitor logs must remain secret because they "infringe on Cheney's ability to seek advice." This administration exists in a veil of secrecy--we're not supposed to know who talked to the top leaders and policymakers in the Bush administration. We're not supposed to know who talked to Vice President Cheney, or President Bush. We're certainly not supposed to know what discussed in these secret meetings--Remember Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force? And yet while we're not suppose to know who said what to whom in this administration, we're suppose to accept whatever policies and actions this administration takes for the benefit of this country and our own protection.

I will say this. I'm curious to see what is in those logs.