Disclosing visitor logs

Friday, July 18, 2008 | 2:03 a.m.

Vice President Dick Cheney doesn’t want the public to know much about what he really does. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe he realizes we would be frightened out of our wits if we knew the whole truth.

Or maybe he is simply too embarrassed to come clean about the cast of characters he has met with behind closed doors.

In true cloak and dagger style, Cheney has stubbornly fought anyone who dares to file a Freedom of Information Act request to view his visitor logs, kept by the Secret Service.

Back in December we applauded a federal judge who ruled the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had a right to review those logs with respect to a group of conservative religious leaders who met with the vice president. Cheney and his cohorts in the Bush administration had argued that the logs were not subject to disclosure.

But the judge disagreed and stated the Secret Service should process the records request. The caveat was that the agency could withhold records under exceptions to the federal law.

We now have reason to be grateful once again because a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a July 11 decision, upheld the lower court ruling.

The rulings by both the lower court and the circuit court should send a strong message to the Bush administration that it cannot continue to assume everything it does is exempt from the public records law.

The public has a compelling right to know what its government is up to. Somehow, that message hasn’t been received by Cheney or President Bush, even though they are near the completion — thank goodness — of their second and last four-year terms in office.

The Freedom of Information Act has its weaknesses, to be sure. Many agencies still sit on records requests for months, if not years. But what the public doesn’t need is an arrogant White House administration that believes it is above the law.