Gmail isn't suitable for public records - Roanoke.com
Gmail isn't suitable for public records Christian Trejbal Douglas White wanted to exercise his right as a citizen to see some public records. What he found is that some Blacksburg town officials, like many others in the New River Valley, tread a fine line between open government and secrecy. White lives just outside the Blacksburg town limits, close to a proposed workforce housing project along Harding Road. He and many of his neighbors do not like the project for a host of reasons. The project's prospects do not look particularly promising right now, what with all the thumb twiddling the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors has been doing in secret meetings. That will not stop White and his neighbors from keeping up the fight until it dies officially. He recently requested all e-mails about the project sent or received by current and former town council members, staff and a member of the Storm Water Taskforce. Knowing is half the battle, as G.I. Joe used to say. State law says e-mails are public documents like any other official government business. When officials discuss something digitally, it is the same as if they had sent letters by snail mail. The public may review that correspondence. The town should have been able to answer White's request easily. Some technology staff member runs a quick search for "Harding Road," "Workforce Housing" and a couple of other key words in the e-mail archives and turns the results over to White. They could not do that for everyone, though, because some Blacksburg officials find it more convenient to use private e-mail accounts for official correspondence. Most of them use their town e-mail address, but a few do not. Getting hold of their e-mails was not easy. The practice is perfectly legal in Virginia, but it also could prevent citizens from holding their government accountable. When official e-mail goes to and comes from Yahoo, Gmail or any other private account, there is no public archive. Instead, officials must preserve their correspondence themselves and turn it over when someone like White asks for it. Unless a local official is a conscientious technology buff, odds are she will not back up all of the e-mail to a secure location. One hard drive crash or degraded CD could gobble up valuable public records. Even more risky, there is no guarantee an official will cough up incriminating or embarrassing e-mails. Human conscience often proves weak when a reputation or more is on the line. "Whoops, I accidentally deleted those." This need not be complicated. The town issues an e-mail address to every council member. They should use that account for town business and use a personal account for personal business. The technology is easy. It's convincing politicians to change their habits that's challenging. These days, people commonly check multiple e-mail accounts. They have an account for work, another for personal stuff, and one for signing up for Web sites so all of the ensuing junk mail will route there. Surely public officials can manage. Every town employee and volunteer on a committee should have a blacksburg.gov e-mail address. Virginia's Freedom of Information Act applies from the governor down to the local sewer board. They all should keep their personal and official e-mail separate. Those e-mails, at least at the council and committee level, could even go online for anyone to review without the hassle of filing a FOIA request. The Internet offers unprecedented government transparency if government officials get over their preference for secrecy. The e-mail problem is not unique to Blacksburg, of course. Plenty of New River Valley officials favor private accounts for public business. The Floyd, Giles and Montgomery county Web sites list personal e-mail addresses for almost all of their supervisors. The same goes for the Pulaski Town Council. Radford council members all have city e-mail addresses, but it is unclear whether they use them. And Christiansburg? They have not even updated their Web site to reflect the results of the May election, let alone posted e-mail addresses. Their correspondence, however, reveals council members use personal accounts. Governments are still adapting to a digital world. The old rules do not always translate as cleanly as we might like. No one should fault officials in the New River Valley for their bad e-mail habits. But the public deserves accountability. The technology is simple, and the resources minimal. The public's e-mail belongs on public servers. Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg. Inserted from <http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/trejbal/wb/178456>
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