North Carolina Governor Mike Easley's panel on deleting emails and public records laws is scheduled to hold its second meeting today. It is a timely meeting after revelations this week that show that some employees believed that the Governor ordered the deletion of emails coming from his office.
Last Month (March 4th), Debbie Crane, the former public affairs director for the state Department of Health and Human Services, was fired and shortly afterwards she said in an interview that she and other top public information officers were told to delete email after sending it to the governor's office. This instruction could be in violation of North Carolina's public records law. (This paragraph now contains the correction mentioned in the comment. My apologies for any confusion and my thanks to the commenter.)
The Governor's office quickly denied the allegations. "I find no evidence that anyone in the governor's office instructed any state agency, including DHHS, to systematically delete and destroy email messages exchanged with the governor's office," wrote Reuben Young, Easley's legal counsel on the next day. (The News and Observer)
This week, the waters became murkier. when notes taken by other public information officers became public:
The notes from one public information officer read, "Public records request -- increasing -- careful of email -- delete emails to/from gov. office everyday."
Another public information officer wrote, "emails -- more and more public records requests (blogs?) be careful w/emails; delete emails to & from gov office every day." (News & Observer)
In addition, other documents, such as a record of a March 20th meeting with the governor's press office in which email was discussed: "Sherri -- keep eye on agencies; limit your e-mails; clean out sent emails." Sherri may refer to Sherri Johnson, the governor's communications director.
Gov. Mike Easley said Tuesday that he is not convinced that recently released notes jotted by state employees are clear evidence that officials in his office instructed others to destroy public records. One interpretation, Easley said, is that the public information officers were told to avoid taking up too much space on computer servers and that they should print out email messages that are public records and keep them in a file before deleting them. (N&O)
"Delete can mean a lot of things," Easley said. "If you've got something of value, you move it to a folder and then delete it. If you need to print it, print it and then delete off your box." (Charlotte Observer)
The debate is an important one. The Governor's office claims to be taking the high ground and wants to make it known that the public records law must be followed. That could be one interpretation of Debbie Crane's termination for allowing emails to be deleted. Another interpretation is that the Governor's office is actually telling people to delete emails without actually using those words -- plausible deny ability.
In either case, it is good news that there is now a panel endorsed by the Governor that is designed to review and make recommendations, if needed, concerning email messages and public records. I hope that it has the independence and strength to review the issues and make great recommendations.
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