The Washington Post asked for two years of White House visitor logs in June but the Secret Service refused to process the request. Government attorneys called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."

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"'the degree to which lobbyists and special interest representatives may have influenced policy decisions of the Bush administration' and the ongoing CIA-leak case investigation" prior to midterm elections. establishes a very important precedent supporting the news media's ability to quickly obtain information under FOIA when the circumstances justifying expedited processing can be established," said David Sobel, the Post's attorney for this case.

Injunctions have often been used by judges in FOIA cases to block the release of records while an issue is under review by the court. But in this case, the court used an injunction to order the Secret Service to immediately begin responding to the newspaper's public information request.

"The ability of requesters to obtain preliminary injunctions is critical to making the right to expedited processing truly effective," Sobel said.