Ability to access comments gathered by White House questioned

Open government advocates have criticized the Obama administration for removing some public comments it collected on a site developed for the presidential transition and fear the practice means the White House might stop making some citizen input accessible on its site. The 1978 Presidential Records Act requires the Executive Office of the President to archive most online public dialogues for historical purposes. But the administration is under no obligation to host the data on a Web site during President Obama's four-year term. It shut down parts of Change.gov, a Web site the presidential transition team created before Obama took office, which gathered public input on policies as well as provide other information. But the public expects ongoing access to the original comments from online brainstorming sessions that the administration conducts with citizens, including those collected during the transition, said government transparency advocates and critics of the administration.