A California appeals court ruled that San Jose mayor and council members are not required to release their e-mails and text messages under the state’s public records act. The decision came in a suit brought by a citizen who claimed that city officials could not hide messages concerning a downtown redevelopment project in their personal e-mail accounts . The judges said that messages on private accounts are not public records. (Courthouse News Service, March 28, 2014, by Barbara Leonard)
The court said it was bound by language in the California Public Records Act that only refers to records kept by government agencies. It said that the legislature could amend the act to include private accounts used to conduct public business. (San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2014, by Bob Egelko)
In addressing the issues, raised by the San Jose case, Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, February 5, 2014, wrote, “Government transparency enables the people to hold government accountable and public access to officials’ communications about government – whether digital or on paper, in e-mail accounts registered to a city or to a mayor council member personally – are the essence of transparency. The public has lost patience with elected representatives who game the legal rules to avoid disclosure of information to which the public is entitled.”
Maine’s governor has come up with a solution to the problem, banning state employees from using text messages and personal e-mail accounts to conduct state business. (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, March31, 2014, by Michael Rooney)
Government transparency enables the people to hold government accountable, and public access to officials’ communications about government–whether digital or on paper, in email accounts registered to a city or to a mayor or council member personally–are the essence of transparency.
The public has lost patience with elected representatives who game the legal rules to avoid disclosure of information to which the public is entitled.
– See more at: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2014/02/when-government-official-evade-disclosure-of-emails-by-use-of-personal-email-accounts-democracy-suffers/#sthash.rBiKQ3M0.dpuf
Government transparency enables the people to hold government accountable, and public access to officials’ communications about government–whether digital or on paper, in email accounts registered to a city or to a mayor or council member personally–are the essence of transparency.
The public has lost patience with elected representatives who game the legal rules to avoid disclosure of information to which the public is entitled.
– See more at: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2014/02/when-government-official-evade-disclosure-of-emails-by-use-of-personal-email-accounts-democracy-suffers/#sthash.rBiKQ3M0.dpuf
Government transparency enables the people to hold government accountable, and public access to officials’ communications about government–whether digital or on paper, in email accounts registered to a city or to a mayor or council member personally–are the essence of transparency.
The public has lost patience with elected representatives who game the legal rules to avoid disclosure of information to which the public is entitled.
– See more at: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2014/02/when-government-official-evade-disclosure-of-emails-by-use-of-personal-email-accounts-democracy-suffers/#sthash.rBiKQ3M0.dpuf