Secret Service to stop deleting White House visitor information

In a court filing Tuesday in the lawsuit Public Citizen filed against the Secret Service, Justice Department lawyers said the Secret Service would temporarily end its disposal of visitor logs after the records are transferred to a White House records repository, Politico reported.

“Although not necessary to preserve the requested records, the Secret Service has stated that it will retain copies of all WAVES [Worker and Visitor Entrance System] and ACR [Access Control Records System] data during the pendency of this litigation, and Secret Service has suspended auto-delete functions,” Julie Straus Harris, a lawyer for the Justice Department wrote in the most recent filing.

According to the report, records retained by the Secret Service are subject to Freedom Information Act requests and can be disclosed to the public in a timely manner, but those belonging to the White House are subject to the Presidential Records Act, under which a president can keep documents away from the public until five years after leaving office.

Public Citizen is asking the Secret Service for visitor logs for four agencies in the White House complex: the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Council on Environmental Quality.

The four agencies use the same appointment and access system as the White House, which is run by the Secret Service, and are within the scope of FOIA.

Public Citizen asked a federal judge to grant a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction telling the Secret Service to stop turning over records to the White House Office of Records Management while their lawsuit against the agency continues.

But the Justice Department said the injunction is unnecessary because the Secret Service said it will stop auto-deleting its records.

Public Citizen filed its lawsuit against the Secret Service last week.