Nevada Supreme Court to Decide if Governor's E-mails are Public

The Nevada Supreme Court heard arguments Monday whether to overturn a lower court's ruling that Governor Jim Gibbons does not have to produce e-mails kept on the state e-mail system that are personal in nature.

The Reno Newspapers argued that the e-mails on the governor's state-issued e-mail account is subject to Nevada's Open Records law. A reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal had requested e-mail communications between Gibbons and 10 persons for the period before January and June 2008.

Read more about the case here.

Staffers say S.C. governor used private e-mail for public business

Will Folks, former spokesman for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, says he checked his private e-mail at least 10 times a day when working for the governor, McClatchy-Tribune News Service reported. Of the 3900 pages of Sanford's messages provided to The State newspaper, 174 e-mails were from his private account. But those didn't contain much discussion of state business. Current Sanford spokesman Joe Sawyer says the office doesn't use private e-mail to get around open records laws. Regardless, Ashley Landess, president of the South Carolina Policy Council, said her group will now ask other state government leaders to turn over private e-mails concerning public matters.

Former staffers for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said they routinely used private e-mail accounts to discuss sensitive political and policy decisions with Sanford.

The governor's office denies the practice was used to shield those communications from the public.

The state's Freedom of Information Act makes any discussion of state business on state computers a public document.

More here.

Nev. AG rules governor's personal e-mails aren't public

The Nevada attorney general's office decided that personal e-mails on Gov. Jim Gibbons' state computer are not pubic records, the AP reported. Reno Newspapers Inc. is seeking all e-mails Gibbons sent on his state computer and asked for a log of recipients, senders, subject matters and reasons public access was denied. The brief from the AG's office said the state has "no pre-litigation duty" to create the requested index.

The Nevada attorney general's office says personal e-mails on Gov. Jim Gibbons' state computer are not public records.

In a Nevada Supreme Court brief, the AG's office says personal messages or those not concerning public business are not subject to a public records request.

The filing is in response to an appeal by Reno Newspapers Inc., which is seeking all e-mails sent by Gibbons on his state computer from January to June 2008.

More here.

Missing e-mails show up in criminal investigation

E-mails not provided to The Palm Beach Post in regards to a request for e-mails sent and received by former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom turned up during his criminal investigation, Post on Politics reported. The House had told the newspaper that Sansom didn't send or receive a single e-mail in the 11-day period for which records were requested. However, prosecutors' files included correspondence from that time. Officials say those "non-existent" e-mails might have come from Sansom's personal e-mail account or they might have been deleted e-mails that investigators uncovered.

A criminal investigation of former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom, recently indicted on charges of falsifying the state budget, has turned up e-mails related to the scandal that supposedly did not exist when The Palm Beach Post requested the documents from the legislature.

The Post asked Sansom’s office Dec. 10 to turn over the previous 20 days of e-mails that the Destin Republican had either sent and received. The request was made to gauge public reaction to news that Sansom may have received a six-figure job from Northwest Florida State College in exchange for funneling millions of state dollars to the school.

The Post also sought messages between Sansom and then-college President James “Bob” Richburg about the scandal.

More here.

Are personal e-mails sent via a work computer public?

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will consider whether personal e-mails sent on work computers are public, the AP reported. A citizen requested e-mails sent by Wisconsin Rapids School District teachers to determine how much time they were spending on personal business during school hours. A judge ordered the e-mails to be released, but the teachers appealed.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide whether personal e-mails sent by public employees are subject to the state's open records law.

The case involves five teachers in the Wisconsin Rapids School District. A citizen asked for e-mails sent from their work computers to determine if they were spending too much time on personal business.

The employees did not object to releasing work e-mails but filed a lawsuit to keep their personal messages private. A judge ordered the e-mails made public, but the teachers appealed.

More here.