Look, the problem with what she did is that it violates Alaska law.
But if the e-mail was from her Lieutenant Governor, and said: “Sarah, now that you’re running for VP, I think we should burn those X-rated pictures we took of ourselves that day we… you know… made our little one-time-only mistake. I have shredded the ones I kept, and I really think you should destroy yours too. Good luck!”
Now, that’s (a) clearly personal, (b) clearly legal, and (c) clearly would affect the Presidential race.
Sure, but don’t you agree that any email even tangentially related to the running of a public office should be sent through, and stored, on an official server? What if, later on, those pictures (or at least the mention of them) would be necessary for the resolution of some sort of lawsuit (such as if Palin was somehow sexually harassing the Lt Gov, which led to those pictures being taken)?
If the emails are stored on a non-official server, and she decided to delete them, those emails are (theoretically) gone. If they were, instead on an official server, they’re backed up. They can’t be accessed except by court order, but at least they’re still there.
Allowing a government official to pick and choose which emails are personal and which are official (when the email concerns any aspect of the office that official fills) is tantamount to allowing that official to destroy evidence, should a court order be necessary later on. It also saves HER ass, if there’s email that can help her in a future case.
If the emails are on the official server, there’s a backup. It’s illegal to destroy those backups.
If the emails are on a personal server, then the owner of the account can easily destroy those emails- barring backups done by the ISP, which require a separate subpoena to access, correct? And if the ISP has deleted those backups… well, that email is gone. That’s exactly WHY politicians are required to do all business on official servers, so that emails don’t get deleted… as Palin has done. We don’t know what those emails were really about, because they’re GONE.
Bricker, do you believe state employees should be sending personal emails on the taxpayer’s dime? If she’s at work shooting off personal emails using the state-paid computer system, I see that as a problem.
Do you believe state employees should all be given the discretion which emails are official and which are personal and private? That seems like a loophole worthy of a Keanu Reaves plot.
Do you agree or disagree with the Bush administration’s assertions that it is not required to turn over any emails whatsoever because every one of them falls under “national security” or “executive privilege?” They seem functionally equivalent with this personal/public email thing to me: “I can write anything I want to anybody I want, and the public doesn’t get to see it, if I say they can’t.”
With regard to using the Yahoo account as a private archiving system, I suppose it’s possible. I’ve never tried to set up automated forwarding. My naive assumption would be that all the messages will come with Fwd: in the subject headings. I understand that gmail can be used in this way, though, and it will even sound outgoing mail as though it came from your official account. Of course, my impression is that Yahoo mail isn’t in the same league with gmail as far as functionality goes. My girlfriend uses it and it seems to be a few generations behind the upgrade curve.
No freaking clue. I think that the following may be relevant, but I’m not any kind of lawyer, so trying to find statutes and penalties and the like is a bit beyond my ken. I did find the following:
AS 11.56.815 Tampering with public records in the first degree AS 11.56.820 Tampering with public records in the second degree
I have quoted them below. It looks like 11.56.815(b) might be readable to imply a very harsh penalty. I would note that you have to assume that the intent is “violates with the intent to conceal a fact material to an investigation or violates to conceal a fact material to the provision of services under …” rather than “violates with the intent to conceal a fact material to (an investigation or provision of services) under …” in order for this paragraph to apply. The cited laws (AS 47.10, .12, .17, .20 and .24) are all about child protection services type stuff.
I have no idea how the legal grammar works. Regardless, I would think that purposely sending official business emails through non-governmental accounts would count as concealing records.
The usual disclaimers apply: I am not a lawyer, nor am I licensed to practice medicine in this state. Some swelling is normal, but see a doctor if bleeding occurs. All rights reserved except those which are void due to being prohibited.
As it happens, I’m not a huge fan of Bricker, but…
he conceded immediately upon given solid evidence, without moving into dubious territory,
and,
when he was faced with shakier evidence, nobody pushed him hard to draw the reasonable conclusion that an investigation would be appropriate, or that something is malodorous.
So I call this one for Bricker. And it seems that Palin was once again acting inappropriately.
I disagree. Allow me to quote the “original claim” in question in its entirety:
Lightnin’ mentioned, at the end of his/her post (sorry for the ambiguity) that Gov. Palin shouldn’t have been using the email in the first place. You, Bricker, jumped to the conclusion that Lightnin’ was alleging that the governor was conducting official business in the account. However, your conclusion is not at all warranted by Lightnin’s statement. In fact, from the context of the post (quoted above), one could conclude that Lightnin’ believed that Palin shouldn’t be using the email because it was vulnerable to hacking, or because hacks into Yahoo are not diligently pursued.
All Lightnin’ maintained was that Palin shouldn’t have been using that Yahoo email address. No reason was given, and therefore your conclusion was inferred.
So no, the original claim you quoted was NOT definitive and certain. You even somewhat acknowledge this in your initial response, when you ask “Why is that?”
A Gov’t employee is allowed moderate personal use, at least in the Feds and where I work. Don’t know about AK. But a Federal Judge ruled it about the same as reading the newspaper at work.
This is not “Tampering with public records”. In CA it could be a minor violation of the Brown act. IANAL, etc.
The question isn’t whether sending personal emails from work is legal, the question is whether sending official emails not from work is legal.
Also, I don’t think the Brown act says what you think it does. To wit, it requires that public meetings be public and that officials must provide transcripts, access, et cetera. Cite.
California does have a public records act, and there’s a pamphlet about it here. (Warning, pdf) It indicates that electronic records are covered. So in California the public is allowed to request emails of officials dealing with official business, the same is true in Alaska. Those emails, in order to be made available to the public, must be archived by the state. I don’t see how using private accounts and not archiving the emails sent on those accounts can be anything but concealing records, but that’s just me.
This whole situation reminds me of a similar tactic the White House used a few years ago. They sent thousands of emails concerning official government business using email accounts from servers owned by the RNC. Then when FOIA requests were made for those emails, they were unable to be recovered. From a transparency perspective, this is a dangerous path.
From a security perspective this practice is dubious, at best. For one thing, it is ridiculously easy to hack into someone’s free email account, as we have seen. For another, it means that official state business is being routed through a private companies servers. There are two obvious issues with this. The first is that, since the private company does not know that it is being used to host sensitive documents, they may not have the type of security that those documents warrant. The second obvious issue is that there are standards for dealing with sensitive information including who is allowed to access it. By routing this information through a private company, you are giving up control of who can see the information. For example, confidential ethics investigation materials.
I did look up the terms of service from Yahoo mail, and it appears that they don’t claim ownership of your emails, which is a plus.
Your question, perhaps but not Fish’s question to whom I had replied " Originally Posted by Fish View Post
Bricker, do you believe state employees should be sending personal emails on the taxpayer’s dime? If she’s at work shooting off personal emails using the state-paid computer system, I see that as a problem.
If you’re having “meetings” not in thepublic eye, the Brown act comes in. Meetings are rather loosely defined, and it could include email correspondence in certain cases. I deal with the Brown act on a regular basis and have been slightly chided by Cousel on this so I sorta know what I am talking about.
Yes, but it depends on how the records are kept. If there are no records, then that’s not “concealing records”. If Palin’s email records were summoned, and she destroyed her Yahoo emils dealing with them, then perhaps it could be “concealing records”. As it is, it doesn’t seem to be as there is no Official investigation about this nor anything in the blogs etc. You see to be more or less alone in your legal hypothesis and like you said- you’re not a lawyer.
I bow to your superior knowledge on the Brown act. I read the following:
to mean that personal emails or conversations would not be covered.
As far as concealing/destroying records goes, there are servers which automatically log all official correspondence; Palin seems to have done an end-run around that logging system. I’m not the only one who thinks this runs afoul of the Public Records Act.
Simply as a matter of enforceability, if you have a law that says that all records must be availabel, then not recording things which ought to be recorded is functionally the same as saying “nuh uh, you can’t have them” or “they don’t exist” when someone asks. I found the concealing/destroying statutes because an AP reporter mentioned them in her request for public records letter.
For those who sometimes suggest that we liberals/Democrats never confess to problems within our on political circles, the young man’s father is a Tennessee State Legislator.
The UT student allegedly took advantage of his mental acuity to break into her email and post the contents on a website, so I have read. He should be held responsible for any damage he might have done – and so should others. I have a great contempt for those who misuse or abuse their powers.
The username adds a bit of irony, don’t you think?*
Here’s the deal with the presumption of innocence. It’s a concept that mostly applies to juries considering a defendant’s guilt. At a bail hearing, guilt or innocence is not at issue–it’s about making sure the defendant shows up for trial, and there’s no jury.
While the Supreme Court has noted that the presumption of innocence would be meaningless without the right to bail. Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1 (1951): http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=342&invol=1 It’s clear from *Boyle *and other cases that the presumption does not apply substantively at a bail hearing. E.g., *Boyle *(“The right to release before trial is conditioned upon the accused’s giving adequate assurance that he will stand trial and submit to sentence if found guilty.”) And see, State v. Green, 275 So. 2d 184 (La. 1973) (“[T]he presumption of innocence is a guide to the jury. If it were absolute and operative at every stage of a prosecution, the defendant could never be jailed until conviction. It does not prevent arrest. [Citations.] There is little relationship between the right to bail and the presumption of innocence. The presumption of innocence is operative and protects against conviction, not against arrest (which is taking into custody)”).
