Death By Email Blog

Saying Email Is Private Doesn't Make It Private

The Arizona Supreme Court today ruled that only a judge has the final word on which documents maintained on official computers are private and which constitute public records.  (Ruling)

"The ruling "leaves no doubt that a public official cannot simply pronounce the e-mail communications on a government computer system as purely personal without the public having an opportunity to challenge that pronouncement," said David Bodney, attorney for The Arizona Republic." reported by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.   

The case was the result as an effort to get the emails of suspended Pinal (AZ) County manager Stanley Griffis.  He allegedly purchased guns and ammunition with public funds.  But the investigation grew until, according to AZ Central, Griffis pleading guilty to six felonies, agreeing to pay over half-a-million dollars in restitution and the possibility of serving up to 51 years in prison. 

The Republic asked for the emails to do an investigation and the country agreed to release them.  Griffis then filed to block the release arguing that the emails were private.  The Court said that Griffis claim was not sufficient to convince the court that the emails were not public records.  So, now a judge must review them.

Fresno school staffer resigns over "Proud to be White" email

A computer specialist for the Fresno (CA) Central Unified School District quit Wednesday after a fellow employee reported him for an email message that was sent from his district email account, the Associated Press reports today.  The fellow employee was offended by the email, district spokeswoman Courtney Roque-Bautista said.  Other employees may face disciplinary action. 

KFSN-TV said that the email was racist, challenged recipients to forward the message and included the following sentence:

"You are proud to be black, brown, yellow, and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride you call us racists."

The full text was not reported -- and even if it was, I would not dignify it by printing it here.  But, superintendent Marilou Ryder gives some insight when she said, "Messages that depict racial slurs, obscene language or violence have no place in our school environment."

My concern is that the action took place AFTER the email was "reported by a fellow employee who was offended."  By the time that happened, I am guessing that the message was forwarded on by other people and more people got offended. Real-time notification systems are available at academic prices.  They can be set to protect privacy, monitor only for certain things, and report only to certain people.  Our company does it (InBoxer) and others do too. 

I would never recommend stopping the free flow of ideas that is essential to any academic environment.  Therefore, I do not believe in restricting access.  But, the speed at which email can spread calls for new measures.  We can be alerted to problems in a careful way.  Therefore, we should not have to wait until dozens of people are offended and one takes the time to report a rogue email.

Another Episode of Lost (Email)

There seem to be two types of email problems:  the content of messages you find and the messages that you don't find.  Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is suffering from the second kind.  And, while they are a huge company, even small companies need to know what can happen if messages are "lost."

What can we learn from Intel's court response this week in the on-going saga of their response in the anti-trust case brought by AMD (NYSE: AMD)?  Let me point out three lessons from Intel (with quoted examples from the San Jose Mercury News):

1. Make sure that everyone who needs to save email is actually saving it.  ("The Intel counsel responsible for document retention, for eight months did not notify 378 employees that they were on the list of workers who needed to store potentially relevant e-mails.")
   
   
2. Don't lose the emails once you have them.  Track them very very carefully.  Keep redundant copies.  ("Intel employees in Munich mistakenly handed over some tapes to investigators from the European Commission and the German antitrust enforcement agency investigating Intel. When they were returned to Intel, employees accidentally shipped them to a company facility in England for reuse, where they were stripped of identifying information.")
   
   
3. Don't forget to find the emails of employees who are no longer employees.  ("The company failed to retrieve the hard drives of 13 "custodians", or workers whose communication might be relevant to the lawsuit, after they left the company.")

Email Threats in the News

I often search Google News for stories about email.  It is a good way to check on the market and competitors.  Today, I was hit in the face with the number of news articles about email threats.  It shocked me.  Here are just a few of the local headlines:

• HURON, Ohio - A part-time instructor at the Bowling Green State University Firelands campus has been arrested for sending a threatening e-mail to a professor, the Erie County Sheriff's Office said. (Toledo Blade)
• NBC San Diego Receives E-Mail Threatening VA Hospital Violence (KNBC Los Angeles)
• UC Berkeley law enforcement officials said an e-mail hoax seeking advice on carrying out a shooting at UC Berkeley was sent to an attorney in Florida early Saturday morning by a 14-year-old resident of San Anselmo, Calif.  (The Daily Californian)
• Apartment shooter sent e-mail announcing his death: Police say a man living at an upscale Galleria-area apartment complex e-mailed friends and family announcing his own death before shooting two people, beating one and then turning the gun on himself Monday afternoon. The gunman, 48-year-old David Howard Thurm, was apparently angry over his pending eviction from The Post Oak at Woodway, 99 N. Post Oak Lane. (Houstonist)

I am afraid that the copycats are expanding their use of email to carry out threats.  Fortunately, it appears we have been able to find the senders.  I hope that if we publicize the apprehension of the senders, future senders of email threats will be discouraged.

Email's Possible Role In Car Crash

Last week, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine was badly injured in a car crash on the Garden State Parkway north of Atlantic City.  The injuries are bad enough, but there seem to be reports about this journey that make it more curious and attention-getting:

1. His SUV was reportedly speeding at 91 MPH, which is well over the speed limit. (CBS News)
2. He was heading to Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion in Princeton Township, where radio host Don Imus was meeting with the Rutgers University women's basketball team to discuss Imus' comments about the players that got him fired this week from his radio and TV shows (Home News Tribune)
3. He was not wearing a seat belt, which is required by state law. (Philadelphia Daily News)
   
   Perhaps the most curious is the alleged role that email may have played:



4. "State Police are investigating whether a trooper was communicating with a girlfriend's estranged husband while driving Gov. Jon S. Corzine on the night of a crash that left the governor seriously injured, according to a published report." (WINS News Radio)  Emphasis added.

When is email a public record (in NH)?

When is an email between school board members official business and when is it a private communication?  In New Hampshire, it may be when a quorum is involved.

Yesterday, the Nashua Telegraph just released 198 pages of email messages between Nashua, New Hampshire school board members from February 1, 2007 to  March 8, 2007.   The release was part of public records request under New Hampshire law.  The paper was researching "the settlement with former Superintendent Julia Earl" whose tenure ended with questions appearing in the press about her reported use of $8000 in public funds for private travel.

But, which emails are to be released?  All of them?

"The school board’s private attorney, Tom Closson, agreed e-mails among a majority of board members were public documents and would be provided but said exchanges between individual board members, or anything representing less than a quorum, wern’t going to be released," the Nashua Telegraph reported.

I found this very interesting.  In this case, the definition of a public record becomes involved.  If a quorum of members received the email, it is a public record.  A one-to-one conversation is not -- even if it is about a topic related to business.  It also means that all of those emails that just happen to be copied to a distribution list involving all Board members would appear.

Advice for folks in New Hampshire:  If you want to keep email away from the public records law, stay away from distribution lists.  (Thank you, Carol Hayes of Channel Business Development for sending this news to me.)

Missing Emails May Be A Common Business Problem

The White House is now scrambling because unofficial email accounts may have been used for official business.  How common is this in corporate America?  A survey by Osterman Research for Message One and released last week said the following:

• 60% use personal email at work when the corporate email system is down
• 33% use personal email accounts at least once or twice a week for business purposes 
• 17% of those do so every day
• 15.7% admitted to using their personal email to avoid corporate review or retention of their messages

Wife Sues Yahoo! for 'Betraying' Husband's Email

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) was sued by Yu Ling and the World Organization for Human Rights USA in U.S. courts this week for turning over details on Yu Ling's husband's emails to Chinese prosecutors.  They say that Yahoo! is complicit in his torture by cooperating with Chinese authorities. (Complaint text.)  The suit was filed under the auspices of the US Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act.

Wang Xiaoning (王小宁), Yu's husband, was sentenced by a Chinese court last year to ten years in prison for "incitement to subvert state power" after he emailed electronic journals advocating democratic reform and a multi-party system.  Wang's journals, called "Democratic Reform Free Forum and Current Political Commentary," included essays advocating democratic reform, reported Wired Magazine in 2006.  Wang also used email to communicate with the leader of an overseas dissident political party, with whom he discussed the establishment of a new political party named the “Chinese Third Way Party,”  according to Human Rights Watch.

Wang Xioning was caught by email.  Here is a case where email evidence was prominently used for the conviction.  (Some text is listed below.)

The suit calls on the U.S. court to order Yahoo! to stop cooperating with requests by China to identify Internet users and to pressure the Government there to release Wang and others imprisoned as the result of such shared information.  It alledges that "While in custody, Plaintiffs were subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including arbitrary, prolonged and indefinite detention, for expressing their free speech rights and for using the internet to communicate about democracy and human rights matters." 

Would You Give Up A Spouse For E-Mail?

I am an email junkie.  I work in the email field.  I log on all of the time to check messages.  I carry a Treo with fast access to email.  What would it take for me to go a day without email?  I would like to think that I could give it up, if it was only a day.  (I do give it up for religious holidays and I have survived.  So, I know it is possible.)

When asked what they would rather give up for a day instead of losing e-mail, a recent survey of 10,000 Incredimail users replied the following:

• 54.4% said they would rather forgo chocolate
• 50.2% said they would give up coffee
• 41.4% would pass on television
• 38.4% would skip using their cell phone for a day
• 14.9% would rather live without their spouse or significant other
• 6% said they would rather lose their home

OMG.

"A gunman is loose on campus."

The terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech raises many questions and concerns.  We are all saddened by the great loss of life -- which is the truly important story.  But, as the author a blog on email, I feel the need to write about one of the least important questions that comes up.

To communicate quickly, Virginia Tech sent out a series of five email messages to the student body.  The email text was short.  For example, "A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows."  I hope that got through the spam filters and was delivered quickly.

But how reliable is email as a communications medium in an emergency?  Should we assume that people will wake up in the morning and check email before going out?  Are people who are in class supposed to be reading email instead of listening to professors?