Obama email flap: White House defends top officials' use of 'secret' accounts

White House spokesman Jay Carney defended the Obama Administration’s commitment to transparency after an Associated Press investigation showed that some of the president’s top political appointees are using “secret” government e-mail accounts in a bid to avoid unwanted messages.

“This is a practice consistent with prior administrations of both parties,” he said. Having alternate e-mail accounts makes "eminent sense,” the press secretary said. He told of having his e-mail made public by his predecessor, Robert Gibbs, shortly before Carney assumed his current position. "I changed it so I wouldn’t be inundated with … tons of e-mails and spam and the like.... But that is a very reasonable thing to do.” Carney disputed the AP’s use of the “secret label” for unpublished e-mail addresses. “The issue here is are these accounts – these work accounts – secret, and the answer is no, because they are subject to FOIA requests and they are subject to congressional inquiry, just like their public addresses,” he said. He added, “This administration has made significant strides in improving FOIA practices, compared with all of our predecessors…. [We] have disclosed more information, invoked FOIA exemptions less frequently, and answered more requests.” The issue is a sensitive one, given a memo President Barack Obama issued on his first full day in the White House pledging that his administration was "committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.” The document went on to say, "we will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration."