Investigative reporters who are looking for White House visitors more embarrassing than socialite gate-crashers will find a new tool from the Sunlight Foundation handy.

Half the battle was won when the Obama White House started releasing its visitor logs. But the information there — in its raw form — leaves few clues about who the visitors are and why they are visiting.

The Sunlight Foundation — the cyber-gods' gift to gumshoe reporting — has compiled all the logs into a database, and then linked each name to a series of background resources and search engines. This makes it easier to know who the visitors are.

See the online searchable database on Sunlight's site. [2]

So far, only September 2009 data is up. But more is coming. Standard warnings apply: verify visitor identity independently before using for publication.