The appeals court in Washington ruled that the White House Office of Administration is not an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act, allowing the White House to keep secret documents about an e-mail system that has been plagued with problems.

During its first term, the Bush White House failed to install electronic record-keeping for e-mail when it switched to a new system, resulting in millions of messages that could not be found. The Bush White House discovered the problem in 2005 and rejected a proposed solution.

A group known as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued to get documents about the office's electronic record-keeping, including reports analyzing system problems, plans to find the missing e-mails and create an improved system and records of any retained messages.

In response to court orders in the case, the White House disclosed that it has located nearly 3,500 pages of documents about problems with its e-mail system. But the Bush administration argued in this case for the first time that the office's records are not subject to public disclosure, even though it had responded to hundreds of other FOIA requests in the past decade and even included instructions on its Web site for filing them.