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White House wins ruling in e-mail case

WASHINGTON - The White House's Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and can keep records of what could be millions of lost e-mail messages from the public, an appeals court ruled yesterday.

WASHINGTON - The White House's Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and can keep records of what could be millions of lost e-mail messages from the public, an appeals court ruled yesterday.

The unit of the president's office performs only operational and administrative tasks and does not qualify for FOIA disclosures under federal law, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled.

Because the Office of Administration provides only support services, it "lacks substantial independent authority and is therefore not an agency under FOIA," the panel said in its decision involving the open-records law.

The ruling is a setback for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. The policy group has been seeking records on millions of White House e-mail messages created in 2003-05 during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The e-mail messages were probably lost after being recorded on backup tapes that were routinely overwritten, a White House official said last year. A federal judge in January ordered the administration to search all White House computers and turn over any of the lost e-mail it found.

Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act in 1966 to provide public access to certain categories of government records. The act requires federal agencies to disclose information upon reasonable request, and the Office of Administration had complied with FOIA requests for four decades before yesterday's ruling, according to court documents.

CREW's executive director, Melanie Sloan, said her group was unlikely to appeal. But she said CREW and other advocacy groups sent a letter recently to the Obama administration urging that it have the Office of Administration comply with FOIA requests.

"Transparency and accountability start at home," she said.