Palin Administration ordered to preserve emails
From Sunshine Review
11 October 2008
Anchorage Superior Court Judge Craig Stowers has ordered the Palin administration to preserve all emails dating back to December 4, 2006. They must also "immediately undertake efforts" to retrieve emails and attachments from Yahoo and other private emails accounts that were used to conduct state business. The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed by former state employee Andee McLeod.[1]
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[edit] Open Records Request
Earlier this year, McLeod submitted an open records request for copies of emails from Palin aides Frank Bailey and Ivy Frye. From this she discovered that the Governor was routinely using a private email account to conduct state business, while the aides occasionally did as well.
Last June McLeod received four boxes of heavily redacted email records. In refusing to turn over more the 1,000 emails, the administration cited executive privilege.[2] In turn, on October 1, McLeod sued Palin to preserve all emails related to state business from all accounts, as well as emails from her husband Todd.
[edit] Private Accounts
MeLeod stated that government employees normally use the state system since it is more secure and can be archived - "For the governor not to have done so is beyond my understanding. The only thing I can figure out is yeah, she wanted to keep things secret."[3]
Governor Palin had at two accounts with Yahoo and at least one other private account. One of these accounts was hacked into, as it did not have the safeguards of the state system.
[edit] 21st Century Technology
Assistant Attorney General Mike Mitchell said that this is the first case in the nation where the issue of how public records laws deal with 21st-century technology such as BlackBerrys. He said the state is rushing to comply with the order and retrieve as many of the emails as possible, but that they do not know right now just how many of them still exist.
