With the Obama administration’s announcement last week that it will release logs of visitors to the White House, the president is taking an unprecedented step toward his stated goal of a more transparent government.

As part of a settlement to lawsuits by a government watchdog group, the White House will begin posting names of visitors on whitehouse.gov later this year, with some exceptions. The list will be delayed by 90 to 120 days from the date of a visit so the Secret Service can clear it of security risks. Not all names will be disclosed: the administration will retain the right to withhold the names of “purely personal guests” of the Obamas, those visitors whose disclosure “would threaten national security interests,” and those who come for “particularly sensitive meetings” like a potential Supreme Court nominee, or presumably, folks attending the next beer summit.

“We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors to the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside,” President Obama said in a written statement. “Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process.” 

The new policy, which applies to tourist visitors to the White House too, reverses the previous presidential practice of keeping visitor logs a secret from the American people—part of the so-called executive privilege. The change was prompted by the Freedom of Information Act lawsuits filed by the nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington against both the Bush and Obama administrations to find out who attended key policy meetings.

In an interview with OhMyGov!, Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW, said she believes that the president and his administration are sincere in his desire for greater transparency.

“I give them the benefit of the doubt because I think the president recognized the disconnect between his campaign promises for open government and the continuing litigation against disclosure,” Weismann said.  “Their new policy goes much further than even we ever hoped.”

CREW began requesting information about White House visitor logs during the Bush administration. But administration lawyers balked, arguing those requests could be denied because visitor logs were “presidential records” not Secret Service records and thus were not subject to FOIA. Subsequent court decisions by U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth essentially said that argument was nonsense.

The rulings did not prevent the current administration from denying CREW information about coal industry lobbyists and health care industry lobbyists who visited the White House since January 20. The Obama White House has also continued to ignore a FOIA request by MSNBC for information on all visitors since the inauguration. Though the new policy on publicizing White House visitors does not take effect until Sept. 15, as part of the settlement the White House released to CREW some specific names sought in the lawsuit.

The administration says it will consider requests for information on visitor logs for the earlier dates only if they are very specific. Open government advocacy groups have raised concern over the exceptions built into the new policy, which bank on vague language like “purely personal guests” and “national security interest.” Between 70,000 and 100,000 people visit the White House each month, including tourists.

Francisco Grifo a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists said that the White House “can label meetings ‘particularly sensitive’ and then it does not have to tell us who they’re meeting with.”

But Anne Weismann of CREW told OhMyGov! that she believed that the Obama administration is making these promises in good faith.  “We suggested to the White House that the ‘particularly sensitive’ meeting exception would not go down very well.  But they promised to keep the intent very narrow and they have committed to releasing the number of names withheld under the exception,” she said.

If this proves to be a step towards more open government, it will be very welcome—and one that future administrations will be hard-pressed to reverse. And if it turns out to be an empty gesture?

“If it doesn’t turn out to be a sincere effort, then we will be the first to jump on them,” Weismann said. “I guarantee it.”