NFOIC Summit: Minnesota FOIA roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Helen Burke of the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information provided a summary of her state's FOI news.

• The governor's approach toward retention of e-mails is that they be kept up to 90 days, preferably 30 days.
• Minnesota took a step in the right direction with the Transparency and Accountability Project which includes vendor reports.
• Minnesota doesn't allow cameras in the courtroom, but the Supreme Court has said there can be a commission set up to explore this issue. It's moving at a glacial pace but in a good direction.
• The Uptake streamed the hearings regarding the Franken/Coleman senatorial election.
• Public access suffered a setback when the governor signed into law a bill that defines the Department of Natural Resources database as not a public database.
  

Dallas City Hall to purge e-mails after 90 days

Dallas City Hall's new policy to retain electronic communication for only 90 days is disappointing to open-records advocates who realize that it's sometimes a year or more before an issue arises, The Dallas Morning News reported. At that point, there will be no records. City officials say the policy is to help save storage space.

Dallas City Hall soon will begin purging from its computer servers many e-mails 90 days or older - a policy city officials say will save precious storage space but one some open-government advocates fear will hamper transparency.

For years, Dallas has lacked a clear document retention policy governing electronic communications.

The new 90-day e-mail policy will also help the city methodically and responsibly cull what's become a massive amount of information stored on its central computer servers, City Secretary Deborah Watkins said.

More here.

Former Gov. Matt Blunt will not face criminal charges

Investigators concluded that former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt's office "did not have adequate policies regarding record retention and state open-records law," the Kansas City Star reported. However, the violations are not considered criminal. Blunt's lawyers said the investigators' report contained “flawed factual assumptions and conclusions.” It's still unknown whether anyone in his administration ordered e-mail backup tapes to be destroyed or not.

A 16-month investigation concluded that former Gov. Matt Blunt’s office did not follow all laws on retaining public records, but investigators decided the violations were not criminal.

The report is the latest word, but likely not the last, on the issue that surrounded Blunt from late 2007 until he left office in January.

A defamation and wrongful termination lawsuit is pending brought by fired administration attorney Scott Eckersley, who contends he was terminated after challenging his superiors’ position on open records.

More here.

A Peek at Alice's Wonderland...

Slate's Alex Heard provides an excellent analysis of the FBI's "retention" program and
reminds us all how important the historical record can be, and how much of history can be lost...

I got bad news from the FBI a few months ago. A file I'd requested under the Freedom of Information Act wasn't going to be available. Ever.

And not for one of the reasons I already knew to expect—that the material was classified, that the file concerned a living person, or that no file existed to begin with. Judging by the FBI's final response letter, there might have been a file on my subject, a long-deceased Mississippi lawyer name John R. Poole. But if there was, it got shredded.

"Records which may be responsive to your … request were destroyed on July 01, 1995," the letter said. "The FBI Records Retention Plan and Disposition Schedules have been approved by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and are monitored by knowledgeable representatives of the NARA."