Interesting turn in public records request in Escambia Co.

[wrobert]

They are fighting over a bingo hall I think in Pensacola. After several requests for copies of emails sent to a commissioners private email address that pertained to government business, the State Attorney in Escambia County now has the commissioners personal computer to determine if the request was complied with. Public officials use of private computers and/or private emails do not get them out of releasing discussions of public business.





State attorney has Valentino computer

July 2 20095 Commented
Categorized Under: Escambia County, May 11 2009

Commissioner Gene Valentino has turned over his personal computer to the state attorney?s office which is investigating a complaint by atty. Greg Smith that the commissioner had not released all his emails regarding a bingo casino on Perdido Key.
We discovered that Valentino no longer had his computer yesterday when we were told a record request which we had regarding the commissioner would not be fulfilled until his computer was released by the SAO.
Valentino has his version of why he had so much difficulty complying with Smith?s request?which took over two months?in the daily newspaper.
Emails can be deleted from laptops. The SAO needs to check if Collector Solutions (Valentino?s company) has a backup system on its server that stores all of the commissioner?s emails.

 

[30A Skunkape]

The harddrive is probably crap on Perdido Key's beach

 

[Smiling JOe]

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.

 

[idlewind]

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?"

 

[Smiling JOe]

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.

 

[WCTA]

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.

 

[Smiling JOe]

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.

 

[WCTA]

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"?

 

[idlewind]

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)

 

[Bob Wells]

WD Childers also.