If you are a new reader, The Purge is a meandering series on open government -- on state government email retention policies, in particular. I haven't updated The Purge since January, so here's a brief recap:
The Purge started in the early days of this blog, when I read that Missouri Governor Matt Blunt took a bunch of heat for his office's policy of deleting emails every two weeks. Which led me to start a journey on this platform, asking questions about the Texas retention policy. What did we learn? Texas state agencies each get to set their own retention policies, so long as they follow the Texas Public Information Act.
What is the Texas governor's policy? Emails get purged every seven days. But -- employees of the office are asked to save the emails they think are considered public records.
The Purge has more recently become a chronicle of the odyssey of John Washburn.
Wisconsin computer whiz/open records advocate John Washburn read the first Purge entry, and began a quest for all the emails in the office of Governor Rick Perry starting in November, when he programmed a twice-weekly request for emails from four-day periods. But he was priced out -- the emails cost thousands of dollars to process, according to the Governor's office.
Washburn did receive four days worth of emails, which led to a few stories. But he also retained notable First Amendment attorney Joe Larsen, who helped filed a complaint to Travis County DA Ronnie Earle's office. Today, the AP's April Castro learns Earle's office has rejected Washburn's complaint. Excerpted:
Larsen, who argues that the e-mail deletion policy is in violation of Texas public information laws, said he'll take the complaint and request for an injunction to Attorney General Greg Abbott for review.
In a letter to Larsen on Tuesday, Greg Cantrell, Travis County assistant district attorney in the Public Integrity Unit, said the office will not move forward with an injunction against Perry "based on our review of information we received from the Governor's Office."
Larsen complained that the prosecutors appeared to have "accepted everything the governor's office told them" with no independent investigation.
Calls to Cantrell and District Attorney Ronnie Earle were not immediately returned.
"Cantrell agreed that the preservation of this information was important," Larsen said. "But in my conversation with him, the gravity of loss of information does not appear to have been matched by any gravity at the D.A.'s office."
Perry's e-mail policy requires that individual staffers determine which e-mails should be considered public records and print or save them within seven days before they can be deleted. Under the law, only correspondence considered "transitory" -- that with no public interest, such as someone making plans for lunch -- are not considered public records.
"There's no way these people, who have daily responsibilities, also have time to be printing these e-mails and making sure they're being stored properly," Larsen said.
To follow The Purge blow-by-blow, click on the Open Government category in the right rail.
