Interesting turn in public records request in Escambia Co.

The harddrive is probably crap on Perdido Key's beach

I don't see why this is newsworthy. This has been the case for a long time in Florida. If you send a County Commissioner an email, it is public record, so be sure to not include your phone number, unless you want it to be public record along with your name and email address.

I don't see why this is newsworthy. This has been the case for a long time in Florida. If you send a County Commissioner an email, it is public record, so be sure to not include your phone number, unless you want it to be public record along with your name and email address.

I am not sure we want to go down this road. How many here would like to turn their personal computer over to an outside party for inspection? If the commissioner has turned over everything on his county computer, that should be that unless someone can prove other documents exist elsewhere. I would think the State Attorney would need a warrant to get someone's personal computer.

What is next, opening their mail on the chance some letter contains "county business?"

good point, idlewind. Does the gov't go through all of the piles of personal letters which may be stored at the Commissioner's house, on the chance that there may be a County biz letter in the stack of the juicy love letters and bills?

Gov't loves playing on the internet. Did you know that anyone applying for food stamps has to consent to allowing their computer to be monitored by the Fed Gov't? Pretty soon, in order for you to get your IRS refund, I mean "over-payment" check, you will have to consent to allow the Govt to monitor your computer. It's not that they don't already do that, they just don't currently have your permission to do so.

I do not believe that anyone is promoting open season on peoples personal computers, but one only needs to remember the whole Richburg/Samson controversy and remember that most of the smoking gun documents that lead to the indictments were "discovered" after they stated they had released all emails and complied with public records requests - then once out of office the documents surfaced when others had access to their system.

Also please remember the whole Palin "personal email" account fiasco where many "state business" issues were handled through her personal email account rather than her state account.

If you are known to utilize a personal account for govt business and some are - they should be fair game for forensic examination.

Perhaps you are correct that if one uses a personal email account to receive Gov't emails, he or she should subject that account to inspection. HOWEVER, searching through an email account is much different than searching through an entire computer.

On another point, idlewind noted, just because a Commissioner might receive a few pieces of gov't biz mail via his or her home mailbox, doesn't also mean that all of his or mail received at that mail box should be subject to inspection. It really is no different than email in my opinion, except for the speed, and saving of trees, carbon dioxide pollution, energy waste, and time involved in delivering the US mail.

Perhaps you are correct that if one uses a personal email account to receive Gov't emails, he or she should subject that account to inspection. HOWEVER, searching through an email account is much different than searching through an entire computer.

On another point, idlewind noted, just because a Commissioner might receive a few pieces of gov't biz mail via his or her home mailbox, doesn't also mean that all of his or mail received at that mail box should be subject to inspection. It really is no different than email in my opinion, except for the speed, and saving of trees, carbon dioxide pollution, energy waste, and time involved in delivering the US mail.

You need to understand how a forensic hard drive examination is done to understand that every file and bit is not viewed, key word searches are used to examine the data stored searching for those key words within the bit stream. It is fascinating to observe. Data stored that has been "erased" is not really deleted, a bit flag is changed indicating the file is not available but is actually retrievable. (a very simplified explanation).

Is it acceptable for two county commissioner's to communicate with each other via a personal email account in an effort to avoid a sunshine law violation, to agree on a position, to agree on an expenditure without the benefit of "sunshine"?

You need to understand how a forensic hard drive examination is done to understand that every file and bit is not viewed, key word searches are used to examine the data stored searching for those key words within the bit stream. It is fascinating to observe. Data stored that has been "erased" is not really deleted, a bit flag is changed indicating the file is not available but is actually retrievable. (a very simplified explanation).

Is it acceptable for two county commissioner's to communicate with each other via a personal email account in an effort to avoid a sunshine law violation, to agree on a position, to agree on an expenditure without the benefit of "sunshine"?

Anything that can be "searched" can be "saved" and read some other time. From what I have always been told most violations occur by one talking to the other. So how do we catch that, bug them 24/7?
If people want to cheat, they will. Usually they will get bolder and bolder and get themselves caught. ( Charlie Morris for example)

WD Childers also.

Anything that can be "searched" can be "saved" and read some other time. From what I have always been told most violations occur by one talking to the other. So how do we catch that, bug them 24/7?
If people want to cheat, they will. Usually they will get bolder and bolder and get themselves caught. ( Charlie Morris for example)

I think the way you catch them is when you see a policy implemented that you know would require a public vote, and none is found. Such as increasing benefits in lieu of pay.

The reason they requested the computer is because they have proof that emails were sent to the private account on it about government business.

This isn't an invasion of privacy we need to worry about, it's yet another elected official not following the rules and trying to circumvent the law.

The reason they requested the computer is because they have proof that emails were sent to the private account on it about government business.

This isn't an invasion of privacy we need to worry about, it's yet another elected official not following the rules and trying to circumvent the law.

In that case they have reason to get a warrant from the court and proceed.

Keep in mind that anyone can create an email address and access it from any computer, which would bypass all that crap if they wanted to avoid getting caught being in the dark. I cannot honestly believe that if a personal computer is taken in such case as noted above, that people wouldn't abuse their authority and search for many other things while in the progress. I truly think you are fooling yourself if you believe that only incriminating emails will be read.

I'm not saying someone couldn't read their personal emails while searching for the others, I am saying that I don't have a problem w/ them going through the proper legal channels to verify that a court order has been properly carried out.

If you choose to involve a personal email account, laptop, phone, PDA, bank account, in government business it makes it fair game IMO.

What about letters sent to a private residence? Should the Court also issue a search warrant to search the residence for letters which could have been mailed? If you think not, what makes the difference between searching for incriminating evidence in the two, similar, yet different formats? It is just as likely that one could receive mail as email, and ironically, it may be easier to avoid getting caught, having an actual letter, than an electronic email.

If they have proof that someone is sending mail that contains sensitive information to a certain address to circumvent the law, why shouldn't they be allowed to look for it?

I would think a warrant to search that location would be worded to include those documents..........and that additional charges would be added because they used the US mail system to commit a crime.

My point is that if they have proof of incriminating emails, why did they need to seize the computer? They only seized the computer to look for the supposed emails. If they have proof that incriminating letters are being mailed, they wouldn't have to search through a person's house to find the actual letters.

Without proof, it is only speculation, and therefore all public officials could have their computers confiscated and searched in hopes of finding something. Next thing you know, they will be monitoring the phones of elected officials. Oh, wait, I bet they already do that.

As I understood it, the computer was seized after a complaint was filed that he didn't comply with the request for all the emails - they gave him 2 months to release his emails to them, and then seized the computer when he still didn't produce them and made excuses.

As I understood it, the computer was seized after a complaint was filed that he didn't comply with the request for all the emails - they gave him 2 months to release his emails to them, and then seized the computer when he still didn't produce them and made excuses.

If that is the case, it doesn't sound as though they had proof. Giving the guy the benefit of the doubt, let's look at the following scenario: the "suspect" received a request to forward all of the County business emails. He (for this scenario) turned over all of said emails. However, some opponent, or haters, suggest that he didn't turn all of them over as requested. So, they take it to the Court, which confiscates his personal computer, searching for something that doesn't exist. (kind of difficult to produce something that doesn't exist.)

Now what makes sense about that, and what would keep people from doing that to every person in elected office in Florida? Answer: absolutely nothing. Nothing more than the news story on the subject, plants the seed of wrong-doing in the citizens of his area, even if no wrong doing ever happened.

I in no way am stating that the person is guilty or innocent of the accusations, I'm just saying that this is the perfect opportunity to play poliTRICKS, to get someone thrown out of office, or to get someone else elected.

Just remember in the good ole' US of A we have a saying:

Innocent, until proven guilty.

Not sure if the comma should be there or not.

I in no way am stating that the person is guilty or innocent of the accusations, I'm just saying that this is the perfect opportunity to play poliTRICKS, to get someone thrown out of office, or to get someone else elected.

Catching people at this game is not rocket science. The problem is that it is just about impossible to get more than a couple of people to act in total concert with each other.

For example, during the TDC tax increase debate, I made a public records request to each county commissioner for every piece of email that they received either for or against the TDC 12.5% tax increase that eventually passed. I received emails from some, had one tell me that they got no emails about the issue. When examining the emails I could see that many were actually just CC:ed to each commissioner. Personally I thought it a bit strange when I would get four copies of dozens of emails, yet none from one commissioner who, even though according to my copies were addressed correctly, kept insisting that no emails were received at their office. I felt pretty confident in my assumption that the office was deleting public records or just lying about it. I also felt that I had enough, that if I went in front of a judge, I could have gotten someone's computer seized. But alas, it would go nowhere toward trying to stop the TDC from asking and then getting a 12.5% tax increase during dire economic times.

Catching people at this game is not rocket science. The problem is that it is just about impossible to get more than a couple of people to act in total concert with each other.

For example, during the TDC tax increase debate, I made a public records request to each county commissioner for every piece of email that they received either for or against the TDC 12.5% tax increase that eventually passed. I received emails from some, had one tell me that they got no emails about the issue. When examining the emails I could see that many were actually just CC:ed to each commissioner. Personally I thought it a bit strange when I would get four copies of dozens of emails, yet none from one commissioner who, even though according to my copies were addressed correctly, kept insisting that no emails were received at their office. I felt pretty confident in my assumption that the office was deleting public records or just lying about it. I also felt that I had enough, that if I went in front of a judge, I could have gotten someone's computer seized. But alas, it would go nowhere toward trying to stop the TDC from asking and then getting a 12.5% tax increase during dire economic times.

I'm a little curious how many man hours and sheets of paper have been used, at taxpayers expense, for the WCTA to request public records?

I'm a little curious how many man hours and sheets of paper have been used, at taxpayers expense, for the WCTA to request public records?

I do not know. My requests always include the statement that I will pay for anything in compliance with Florida statute, I just ask for an estimate in advance and how to make payment.

The only government entity I have ever had to pay is the school district, and they charged me time for an employee to do a request once, and the Clerk's office. I went to mediation with the prior clerk cause I wanted some data and he wanted to print it all out and then charge me 15 cents a page, but I did not need it printed, the State advised them to give me the data, and I have paid for copies from the Clerk's office, until they got really good at making pdf files, and now they just email them to me to look at and print if I so desire.

I would like to see them go ahead and put the county checkbook on line for viewing with links to the supporting documentation, I think it would save them some dollars in having to look stuff up. As for does it cost all of us money, yeppers, but it is a function of the various offices so they need to figure out how they are going to comply.

The real expense is the things that they do when a request is made. If a school board member makes a public records request, copies of any data gathered are sent to each member, for what reason, I have no idea. And many times I have heard of requests being duplicated for senior staff at government agencies, I guess they do this as some sort of strategy to try to figure out what someone is looking at. All that causes is for activists to over request documents in very vague terms so that they may find what they are seeking. If you are specific, you then have to worry about the record being destroyed or altered. While you would not think that sort of thing happens, there are allegations in an ongoing lawsuit to that affect.

I do not know. My requests always include the statement that I will pay for anything in compliance with Florida statute, I just ask for an estimate in advance and how to make payment.

The only government entity I have ever had to pay is the school district, and they charged me time for an employee to do a request once, and the Clerk's office. I went to mediation with the prior clerk cause I wanted some data and he wanted to print it all out and then charge me 15 cents a page, but I did not need it printed, the State advised them to give me the data, and I have paid for copies from the Clerk's office, until they got really good at making pdf files, and now they just email them to me to look at and print if I so desire.

I would like to see them go ahead and put the county checkbook on line for viewing with links to the supporting documentation, I think it would save them some dollars in having to look stuff up. As for does it cost all of us money, yeppers, but it is a function of the various offices so they need to figure out how they are going to comply.

The real expense is the things that they do when a request is made. If a school board member makes a public records request, copies of any data gathered are sent to each member, for what reason, I have no idea. And many times I have heard of requests being duplicated for senior staff at government agencies, I guess they do this as some sort of strategy to try to figure out what someone is looking at. All that causes is for activists to over request documents in very vague terms so that they may find what they are seeking. If you are specific, you then have to worry about the record being destroyed or altered. While you would not think that sort of thing happens, there are allegations in an ongoing lawsuit to that affect.

Thank you for the response. I'm just glad that the WCTA isn't making up for savings with endless paperwork and payroll expenses to the county.

SWGB, it is refreshing to see you are interested in whether the WCTA is causing an unnecessary expenditure of county funds to pursue their actions. They have a yearly fee to belong to the association among other income. Don't worry. It is my firm conviction they have your back though sometimes I disagree with their decisions and conclusions.