Subject: public emails HOW TO SPEND THE FOIA WINDFALL?  

    
Now this is RICH. It pays to pick up a free "entertainment weekly" on
your way into the luncheonette once in a while -- malodorous and lurid
as they normally are. Greenville's is called LINK, and contained this
article. It seems to have immense possibilities for anti-NWO activism.
I may try it on our county administration in Anderson, since they do
nice things like stealing people's computers and planting stuff on
them.         /\/.

http://www.upstatelink.com/issues/2005/03/14/2005031460558.htm
This e-mail's for you: How public employee inboxes are yours for the
asking

Meet Dan: He's a single secretary for some city office and, being
strapped for cash like you and me, uses his city.us domain as his
primary e-mail account.

This is where his frat brothers send dirty jokes and where he discusses
the affairs of wild weekends.
        
What Dan may not know is that his e-mail, like that of mayors, police
chiefs and governors, is open for inspection. Anyone who doesn't like
Dan - think former girlfriends, disgruntled employees, angry neighbors
- can walk into the city office and request a selection of Dan's e-mail
because Dan works for us.

That's the power of the Freedom of Information Act in the state: An
e-mail sent to or from a publicly provided computer is considered a
public document.

Technology has changed the stakes for your average worker, who doesn't
necessarily know that casual, personal e-mail from city computers isn't
personal at all.

"An e-mail anywhere inside a public body is a public record," said Jay
Bender, South Carolina Press Association attorney.

The situation with Dan is a hypothetical and unfortunate byproduct of a
law meant to open government and allow voters to monitor the actions
and behavior of those in office.

And with this being "Sunshine Week," a national weeklong observance of
the public's right to access government information, the boundaries of
e-mail as a public record seem all the more pertinent.

While mayors and governors have been schooled on the public's right to
files, your average state worker doesn't know outside business deals,
rude forwards, inane chatter and unflattering messages might be public
record and available to anyone that wants it.

Could there be misuse? Can anyone walk into a public school with a FOIA
request and receive three months of e-mail from a woman he'd like to
date, simply because that woman's salary was paid by the public? Could
a recently fired state employee randomly grab e-dirt on former
supervisors and colleagues?

"You know, to be quite honest, I never really thought about it," said
Deborah Lester, an accounting technician with city of Greenville
Parking Division.

And that's kind of normal, said Rebecca Daugherty, Freedom of
Information service center director for Sunshine Week.

"It becomes even a harder thing for them to realize because the whole
character of e-mail is different," she said. "That more informal
character has led people to think the law doesn't cover it, but it
does."

"Strange enough, the question hasn't been asked or posed to us over the
years," said Bob Cook, the assistant deputy attorney general who writes
the office's opinions. "One day we will obviously deal with that, and
my opinion is that it's a public record."

That's a point worth remembering if you take into consideration the
shelf life of e-mails at most public organizations.

Take Clemson University: Computer Services does a daily e-mail server
backup - a snapshot of everyone's mailbox - and some of those notes
have been sitting around from when AC/DC was the rage.

Yep, decades, said Brian Becknell, the university's e-mail
administrator.

Fifteen years ago, candid conversations - phone calls, memos and
face-to- face - weren't stored automatically.

And take these questions: If a taxpayer-paid employee sends e-mails
from a Web-based account, like Yahoo! or Hotmail, on a publicly
provided computer, would that be a public record? Or uses a city e-mail
account from a home computer?

"That is a tough one," said Cook. "I don't know that that's ever been
carved out."

But Daugherty, speaking nationally, referred back to the spirit of the
law: If public employees are communicating, "then it doesn't matter
where the account comes from."

Clearly, the open-government law concerning private or personal e-mail
on public time and hardware hasn't been flushed out.

The trick, said Bender, is making sure laws keep up with the technology.

But even that points back to the same basic rights: "In a democracy,
shouldn't citizens be allowed to have access as to how their money is
being spent?" he said.

South Carolina, like Florida, says in a public records information
leaflet that FOIA requests don't include private and personal e-mail,
but also says in an acceptable use policy that e-mail may not be used
for private, recreational or non-public purposes.

Those guidelines don't jibe.

"We try, as a rule, to advise all agencies, 'When in doubt, disclose',"
Cook said. "We urge them to more than comply."

So while laws grapple to address newer forms of communication - instant
messaging, bulletin boards, etc. - the fact that e-mail is a public
record and within a taxpayer's rights to request won't be easily
forgotten with each of Lester's "Send" clicks.

"I will say, yes, each time I do e-mail now, I will think about it,"
she said. "It's nice to be aware now if anything ever came up."

Mike Benzie and The Associated Press contributed.