Death By Email Blog

When Public Officials Use Their Personal Email Address

Public officials need to be careful when using their personal email addresses for anything that looks like official business.  Not only can it violate state Freedom of Information Act laws, but their mail can lead to problems.

Our tale begins when Escondido, California resident Tom Albergo wrote to high school district trustee Jon Petersen and the other trustees about the district's plans to build a magnet high school  near his home. Albergo expressed concern about a planned soccer field at the school, saying that other schools with fields have created problems for neighborhoods, such as criminal activity and public urination, the North County Times reports.

Here is the problem:

• Jon Petersen uses his cox.net personal email address for school district email
• Albergo put his name and email address in this mail.
• Unfortunately, he misspelled Petersen as Peterson.
• There is also a Jon Peterson with a cox.net personal email address, but he lives in Arizona
• Peterson, the Arizona man, must have decided to have fun with the mix-up, when he wrote back:

"Unfortunately, we are on a tight budget, and we don't feel that a little noise and inconvenience will warrant the layout of that kind of money."

"It will pretty much have to be live and let live, and the devil be damned, as they say in my hood!"

In response to Albergo's concerns about public urination, Peterson wrote: "It is really difficult to understand how there would be a problem with a little natural fertilizer now and again."

Albergo, who did not realize the mix-up, was outraged at the response and complained to the Superintendent of Schools.

Fortunately, the matter was quickly cleared up.  But, perhaps Petersen ought to use his official euhsd.k12.ca.us email address.

Email Suggests Race Connected To Intelligence

Nobody has ever claimed that the decision to send an email is linked to intelligence. But, perhaps, deciding when not to send an email should be. Unfortunately, people still tend to make statements in email that can cause a furor.

School board member Michael Kundu in Marysville, Washington sent out an email on June 3rd with the subject line, "race and achievement (please circulate)," according to the Marysville Globe. It clearly suggested that academic potential could be rooted in genetics. (The email referenced the work of professor John Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario in Canada.)

"I think what is safe to draw from this is that there is a definitive factor played by racial genetics in intellectual achievement, but we, as a society, are striving to offset that foundation by increasing educational and social opportunities to 'offset' the racial achievement gap," he wrote.

Open publication

As might be expected, the email generated heated debate at last night's School Board meeting, the newspaper reported. The meeting lasted 4.5 hours and generated debates involving the state Commission on Hispanic Affairs and the NAACP.

"I was offended," Board President Sherri Crenshaw was quoted by the newspaper as saying after she read the e-mail aloud. "I think it's racist. I saw it as my responsibility to speak up and let you know that people who are making decisions about your children could be this ignorant."

No other action was taken last night.

"Screw the shareholders!!’’

"Screw You.," typed Bank of America Board Member Thomas May  on January 15th to his friend and fellow Board Member Chad Gifford, during a teleconference among directors and executives.

"Unfortunately it’s screw the shareholders!!," was Gifford's retort.  The timing of the response may not have been the best.  The Bank just announced that the quarterly dividend to shareholders was being cut to just one cent from 32 cents.

"No trail," May replied to Gifford, it what apparently came as a reminder.  But, it was too late.  The email exchange was submitted to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as part of ongoing investigations into the circumstances surrounding the Merrill deal.  (Wall Street Journal has the full text of the email exchange.)

The entire exchange shows a rare insight into the relationships between high level Board members.  But, it is now part of a current investigation into the Merrill deal.  Did these guys make an innocent off-hand remark?  Or did they know something about the deal that shareholders did not know about?  The investigation as to intent will now begin.

Boston Mayor's Aide Takes Unpaid Leave Over Missing Emails

This blog previously reported on the thousands of missing emails in the Boston mayor's office.  Now, Michael J. Kineavy, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s chief of policy and planning, announced he plans to take an unpaid leave of absence.  In addition, Secretary of State William F. Galvin expressed frustration over what he described as the city’s failure to fully cooperate with investigators.  (Boston Globe)

Yesterday, it was revealed that Kineavy had replaced his computer shortly after receiving a request from the Globe for his emails.  Boston officials acknowledged that they have discovered the hard drive from the older computer tucked away in a sixth-floor office.  That disk may contain the bulk of the e-mail subpoenaed by federal authorities and formally requested by the Globe.  The discovery directly contradicts prior assertions by the city that Kineavy’s computer had not been replaced in more than two years. (Globe)

State Attorney General, and candidate for the U.S. Senate Seat vacated by Ted Kennedy, Martha Coakley says her office is now involved in a review of missing emails that was requested by Secretary of State William F. Galvin to see if state records laws were violated.

Stay tuned.  The election for Boston mayor is just around the corner.  It would seem that more on the emails is coming soon.

EU Fines Intel More Than A Billion and Cites Emails

Intel appears to have been caught by emails that the European Commission on Monday published yesterday.  The EC says that emails and documents demonstrate chip maker Intel and major computer companies, including Lenovo, NEC, Hewlett-Packard, and retailer Media Saturn Holding, had a plan to shut competitor AMD out of the European market.  The details included data on rebates that were linked to tight restrictions on the amount of chips that could be purchased from AMD.

The competition watchdog yesterday imposed a $1.6-billion fine on Intel for breaching EU antitrust rules, the largest single penalty imposed on any company for competition breaches in the EU. (Financial Times)

Here are some emails the EC cited:

LENOVO

"[Two Lenovo executives] had a dinner with [an Intel executive] tonight (…). […] When we asked Intel what level of support we will get on NB [notebook] in next quarter, [he] told us (…) the deal is base[d] [sic] on our assumption to not launch AMD NB [notebook] platform. (…) Intel deal will not allow us to launch AMD", said in a June 2006 email.  (Tech Generation Daily)

DELL

In a February 2004 email on the consequences of the possible purchase by Dell of AMD CPUs, a Dell executive wrote: "Boss, here's an outline of the framework we discussed with Intel. (…) Intel is ready to send [Intel Senior executive] /[Intel executive] /[Intel executive] to meet with [Dell Senior Executive]/[Dell Senior Executive]/[Dell Executive] . (...) Background: [Intel Senior executive] /[Intel Senior executive] are prepared for [all-out war] 1 if Dell joins the AMD exodus. We get ZERO MCP [name of Intel rebate to Dell] for at least one quarter while Intel 'investigates the details' (...) We'll also have to bite and scratch to even hold 50 percent, including a commitment to NOT ship in Corporate. If we go in Opti [Dell product series for corporate customers], they cut it to <20 percent and use the added MCP to compete against us. "  (TGD)

HP

"Intel granted the credits subject to the following unwritten requirements: a) that HP should purchase at least 95 percent of its business desktop system from Intel …".

"PLEASE DO NOT… communicate to the regions, your team members or AMD that we are constrained to five percent AMD by pursuing the Intel agreement".

NEC

"NEC will (...) increase [worldwide] Intel market share from [...]  percent to 80 percent. Intel will give NEC [support] and aggressive [...] price.".

For its part, Intel denies any wrong doing.  (Monsters and Critics)

Intel claims "the commission relied heavily on speculation found in emails from lower-level employees that did not participate in the negotiation of the relevant agreements if they favored the commission's case".  (Financial Times)

It also maintains: "At the same time, they [Commission officials] ignored or minimized hard evidence of what actually happened, including highly authoritative documents, written declarations, and testimony given under oath by senior individuals who negotiated the transactions at issue". (FT)

In any case, it does show that damaging emails can be contained in the email archives of other companies, even if you deleted all your emails.

Will Deleted Emails Be a Bombshell in the Boston Mayoral Race?

Several candidates running to unseat Boston Mayor Tom Menino are calling for a criminal investigation into reported violations of public records laws due to deleted emails, said New England Cable News.  The claims include that the deleted emails represent a "culture of dishonesty" and a "deliberate scrubbing of messages."  Boston city officials state that the email deletions were unintentional.

With so many email archiving companies based in eastern Massachusetts (including InBoxer), you would hope that our local governments would be careful to maintain detailed email archives.  But, that does not seem to be the case for our neighbors in Boston.

"City employees were routinely deleting emails, a potential violation of the state public records law," stated the Boston Sunday Globe.  According to reports, some city officials deleted their emails every day and purged their deleted items folder.  If the deletions were completed before the end of the day, the messages did not appear in the long-term archive, the reports indicated.

The allegations began after the Boston Sunday Globe reported that it filed several requests for emails sent and received by Michael J. Kineavy, Mayor Thomas Menino’s Cabinet chief of policy and planning, a senior, influential role.   But a search of city computers found just 18 emails he had sent or received between Oct. 1, 2008, and March 31 of this year.  The Globe also reported on other deleted emails from other city officials.

"Kineavy, who is also one of the mayor’s chief political advisers and a strategist on Menino’s reelection campaigns since 1993, told them that he deletes all his emails on a daily basis, in such a way that they are not saved on city backup computers, administration officials said," according to the Globe.

"The improper deletion of email is a violation of the public records law. Period,’’ said Secretary of State William F. Galvin.  The Globe said that the state public records law requires municipal employees to save electronic correspondence for at least two years, even if the contents are of “no informational or evidential value.’’ The only emails that can be deleted are those containing completely inconsequential information, such as spam or questions about lunch orders.

The timing could not be worse for the Menino administration as the mayoral election is right around the corner.  The Globe further reports:

City councilors Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon, both candidates in the upcoming mayoral preliminary election, said they would ask Attorney General Martha Coakley and Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley to investigate the deletion of emails by officials in Menino’s administration.

Flaherty, in a statement, said the practice smacked of a “culture of dishonesty’’ in the Menino administration,’’ while Yoon issued a similar statement characterizing the controversy as “case in point’’ for term limits and greater checks on the power of the mayor of Boston.

Dear City of Boston:  My office is located about 20 minutes from City Hall.  Our company would be happy to help you have an effective email archive.

Email Points To Bribery in Environmental Case

Chevron Corporation released to the public a set of emails and videos related to a $3 million bribe scheme associated with an environmental lawsuit against the company in Ecuador.  (Full text)  In the latest in our series entitled "Caught By Email", we see that key individuals did not expect their emails to be released:

"In the correspondence, reviewed by Dow Jones Newswires, an alleged party official provides one of the businessmen, former local Chevron contractor Diego Borja, with a bank account number in a Galveston, Texas, bank. The email dates from late June, shortly after the businessmen recorded a meeting with a man who Chevron says is named Carlos Patricio Garcia, an official with Ecuador's ruling party Alianza PAIS. In that meeting, Garcia asked for a $3 million bribe, according to videos released by Chevron last week,"  reported today's Wall Street Journal.

Chevron's comment: The environmental case pending against Chevron in Ecuador has devolved into a runaway judicial farce, orchestrated by a community of interest made up of U.S.-based contingency-fee lawyers seeking a financial bonanza and the government of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, which seeks both a financial and political windfall.

DON'T WRITE EMAILS WITH ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!!!!!!!!

If you run around your office and yell at your colleagues, could you be considered a disruptive influence?  Would that be cause for termination or disciplinary action?  Do you need to have a manual that explains that yelling in the office is a bad idea?

In turn, what would happen if you happened to document your yelling in emails using capital letters, bolding, and color?  Do you think that any email user would know that writing this type of email might cause some recipients to become upset?  Do we need a manual that explains that writing emails like this is a bad idea.

In New Zealand, the answer appears to be yes -- we need a manual.

The New Zealand Employment Relations Authority ruled that Vicki Walker was not fairly terminated from her position after sending emails like the one on the top left to co-workers.  Colleagues complained that her emails were too "shouty" and confrontational. She behaved "provocatively" by highlighting key phrases in bold or red, her employer ProCare Health claimed. (Telegraph)

However, Authority member Alastair Dumbleton noted that her employer, ProCare Health did not have a style or etiquette guide for employees using email, so it was not clear what was regarded as unacceptable communication. (Source: Auckland Herald)  He agreed that Walker had contributed to disharmony in the workplace, but he said Ms Walker received no warnings.

Walker was awarded nearly NZ$ 6000 in lost wages for and NZ$ 11,500 for any harm caused through her dismissal.

OK.  Perhaps Walker did not understand the rules of email etiquette.  It might be handy if Emily Post had written such a guide.  And, I do think it would have been useful for management to explain to Walker that emails were causing problems.  But, do we really need to define what is unacceptable communications in the workplace in this day and age?

Clarksville, TN Mayor Sends Anti-Islamic Email

  Clarksville, Tennessee Mayor, John Piper sent an amazing anti-Islam email to public officials including every City Council member, every department head, and numerous other city employees, friends and family members.  The email urges "patriotic Americans" to protest a U.S. Postal Service stamp commemorating two Islamic holidays.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, the stamp in question commemorates the two most important festivals—or eids—in the Islamic calendar: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. On these days, Muslims wish each other “Eid mubarak,” the phrase featured in Islamic calligraphy on the stamp. “Eid mubarak” translates literally as “blessed festival,” and can be paraphrased as “May your religious holiday be blessed.” This phrase can be applied to both Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. (Clarksville Online)

This stamp was first issued in 2001 with a 34–cent denomination, and with the same design, a 37–cent denomination in 2002, 39–cent denomination in 2006, 41–cent denomination in 2007, and 42–cent denomination in 2008.

But. the mayor says: "REMEMBER to adamantly & vocally BOYCOTT this stamp, when you are purchasing your stamps at the post office. All you have to say is, No thank you, I don't want that Muslim stamp on my letters. To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors."  (Full text of the email.)

"I don't see any reason why it would be inappropriate," Mayor Piper said in The Leaf Chronicle. "I read it and thought about the bombings of our buildings, of our national buildings," Piper said. "In my mind, it presented an image of mass death at the hands of Muslims."

He added later, "I don't believe, just for the record, that all Muslims are linked together with radical Muslims that are out to harm Americans ... I have several good Muslim friends."

I am all in favor of free speech.  And, when you make personal statements on your own time with your own email account, you should be free to say anything that you want -- no matter how offensive. 

But, if you are using city computers, on city time, to city email addresses, can offensive statements constitute misuse of city computing resources?

Probably, the only recourse will be by the voters in the ballot box.  I just hope that the next election is really soon.

Tagged Stole Identities of 60 Million, Cuomo Says

Social networking site Tagged.com stole the identities of 60 million people and may have spammed even more, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.  He announced that he plans to sue the site that claims to be the third largest social networking site in the country.

This is how the email and identity theft allegedly worked, as described in the Christian Science Monitor:

Tagged sent 60 million emails to people saying they’d been tagged on the site in a photo. In many cases, no such photos existed, but users were apparently tricked into providing the company with access to their personal email contacts. Cuomo says Tagged then reached out to those contacts, asking if they’d like to join the site.

Tagged made their invitational emails appear to have been sent directly from members’ personal email accounts, instead of from Tagged.com. The emails falsely stated that “[name] sent you photos on Tagged.” If a member had added a personal image to the website, Tagged also included that picture in these fraudulent email solicitations. Many consumers were unaware that Tagged accessed their email contact lists, stated blog Pogo Was Right. 

It was also reported that in order to see the photos, Tagged required you to create a Tagged account, which would grow its membership list.  Under the right circumstances, Tagged could then access the new member's address book and repeat the cycle.

"Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their email contacts for Tagged’s unethical – and illegal – behavior. This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books, and sending phony mail to all of an individual’s personal contacts. We would never accept this behavior in the real world, and we cannot accept it online,” stated the Attorney General's office.

Tagged offered an apology on its blog site and stated:

"When our company tested a new registration process, we discovered that our “invite your friends” language was confusing. The registration drive generated some complaints and as a business that succeeds or fails based on word of mouth, we took every complaint very seriously. We immediately stopped using this registration process, before being contacted by the Attorney General’s office. In no instance did Tagged access a person’s personal address book without their consent and no emails were sent without the person giving us permission. We realize that some were confused and accidentally agreed to invite their friends. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience or frustration that these people experienced.”