The Ongoing Saga of Sarah Palin’s Email.
Remember those public records requests for Sarah Palin’s email? The records were requested by citizens, and news outlets as far back as September of 2008. The office of Governor Sean Parnell has just asked for another extension.
“I think they’re hiding something, I think this is a travesty of justice,” state Democratic Party Chairwoman Patti Higgins said Wednesday. “The law says they have 10 days to do it.”
Public records in Alaska are generally supposed to be provided within 10 days, although the state can extend the deadline for more complicated requests.
State officials say this is no cover-up, but rather a case of massive requests that have overwhelmed the state’s resources. Assistant Attorney General David Jones said the 11 largest public-records requests from last year remain unfilled; most of them, he said, require the review of between 2,900 and 30,000 documents.
Our first instinct of course, with anything having to do with the ex-governor that seems to be suspect is to presume that it IS suspect. Using this simple rule, we’re right the vast majority of the time, which is why that’s usually our first reaction. But in this instance, let it be known that Dave Jones, the Department of Law’s Keeper of the Emails is actually telling the truth.
The work of sifting through the emails progresses day after day after day. And the Department of Law is overwhelmed.
So, how then, in this age of advanced technology, can it actually be taking this long to search 30,000 documents? They may want to make you believe that’s a lot of documents, and if you stacked them all up in a pile of paper, it’d be about 10 feet tall, but in terms of the amount of electronic information today’s software can handle, that’s nothing. Then if nothing nefarious is going on, and this could be handled easily in a short amount of time, what’s the problem?
Here’s where we have to imagine a little metaphorical scenario. Imagine if you will, a room with two desks. At one desk sits a young man at a computer work station. He’s got his iPod, and his iPhone and his slick computer setup with a giant monitor, and some really killer software. On the desk sits a bag of jalapeno chips and a Red Bull. He cracks his knuckles. He’s contestant #1.
About 20 feet over, out of the glare of the overhead fluorescent lights sits another desk. This one is of the wooden roll-top variety. Hunched over in the chair is a tired man. An old man. He wheezes a little, and coughs into a handkerchief. On his desk is a ledger, and an inkwell. He looks down his nose through the half spectacles and squints in the candle light. He is contestant #2.
The object of this competition?
Find the following information:
• All e-mails between Palin and state Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, or between Palin and state Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, with the words “abortion” or “AGIA,” which is short for the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.
• All e-mails from Palin containing the following words: babysitter, childcare, McCain, Obama, Democrat, Huckabee, Wal-Mart, Eskimo, Natives, Kuwait, passport, Ruedrich or Kopp.
• All e-mails between Palin and her husband, Todd, with any of the following words: vote, veto, budget, oil, Monegan or Wooten.
• All e-mails between Palin and her sister, Molly McCann, with the words Wooten or Monegan (referring to figures connected with the so-called “Troopergate” affair.)
Let the games begin.
(Time passes)
We rejoin the contestants a few days later. Contestant #1 is reclined in the chair, feet on the desk, keyboard in his lap, tapping on the keys. Ear buds in his ears, he’s jamming to something the rest of us cannot hear, and occasionally we hear a soft high-pitched singing. There’s still a can of Red Bull on the desk, but we now notice a couple more cans, crumpled on the floor. There’s a mostly empty pizza box on the desk. Suddenly he sits upright, feet on the floor, and clicks the mouse. He pumps his fist in the air. After taking a victory spin in the chair, contestant #1 grabs his iPhone and his iPod and his jacket and is out the door.
We look over at contestant #2, who stares in disbelief at the empty desk where our victor recently sat. His own desk has a large stack of papers on the left side. It measures about seven feet tall. On the other side of the desk is a pile of papers that measures about 1/2 inch tall. We realize that contestant #2 is taking papers one at a time off the giant stack, looking them over thoroughly, scanning for specific words with the aid of a magnifying glass, and eventually moving them to the top of the smaller stack, and painstakingly making notations in the ledger. This guy is going to be here a looooong time. And he’s going to need a whole lot more candles.
I’ll give you one guess which of our contestants is the State of Alaska. You guessed it, it’s the guy mopping his brow and looking up at the remaining nine feet 11 1/2 inches of paper. The State of Alaska does not have the software to do the job. What they do have can’t remove duplicates, can’t run word searches for “hot” terms, and can’t cluster similar emails. This entire project is being done MANUALLY.
Now, in the State’s defense, it probably didn’t think it would ever have to deal with these types of requests. How could it possibly have foreseen the nightmare that was the Palin administration, and all the fallout that would ensue? And to equip the Department of Law with the proper software is expensive. And we’d all like to think that we’ve learned a few things, and won’t have to go through this again. They think they won’t get the return on their investment, and we all hope they are right.
But , this raises the real question. Why hasn’t this work, like much of the State’s legal work, been farmed out to a private firm that has the software, a dedicated server and contract attorneys to do the work? This kind of work could be charged by the amount of information being processed, rather than by the hour, and would likely be far less expensive than having a team of “Bob Cratchits” with pens and ledgers and candles doing this work manually for over a year.
The contract attorneys would be dedicated to this one job until it was done. They would not be subjected to being pulled off the job to work on other things like state employees are. And the contract attorneys would be subject to the same confidentiality as the attorneys in the Dept of Law. Everything is still privileged information. According to attorneys in the know, it’s a pretty typical solution for any sort of legal issue involving huge amounts of electronic documents such as these. With better software, the work could be done relatively quickly. 21,000 emails is nothing when you have good software and experienced people, and would take days or maybe weeks to complete, but not over a year, with no end in sight.
So, why when the State is clearly unable to handle this type of request in a timely manner, and why when cases like this are routinely farmed out to those who can handle them quickly and are subject to confidentiality, is this being done manually by attorneys within the Department of Law who Jones claims are being pulled away from other projects?
They are hiding something. I’m quite sure if a law enforcement group submitted a subpoena for emails, they would have them to leg right quick.
forgot to add, I think Parnell is waiting until after Palin’s book is released, so sales don’t drop off, and I bet it was a verbal agreement between those two.
Eye Rollery for sure!!!
The State has probably found damaging instances – in the 1/2″ stack already reviewed. Now they will delay for years if possible.
pass the abacus please!
Thank you for covering this. The state of Alaska aka our elected officials have to know that the people demand resolution to the requests, no matter how long they drag it out.
~snicker~
Let me guess… hummm.
Gov. Parnell is going to ask for a special appropriation to fullfill all the extra work exhausted and the future work needed, to deal with all the crap former Gov. “It” created. His reasoning for extra bucks, doesn’t just cover the public records requests but more for cleaning out the spam in the junk folders of the all the e-mail accounts.
Sigh. Time to fire off an email to the elected officials. Again. Not like on this beautiful fall day in Wasilla there aren’t better things, including working for a living, to do. (What is it with some of the far right that don’t think liberals have to work for a living just like they do, anyway?)
I think the great “secret” of Palin’s administration is how grossly incompetent it was.
This email problem has been haunting her for a L O N G time: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008180084_palinemail15.html
This is absolutely ridiculous. I work for a small City (population of 23,000). We just processed 3 records requests over the past year with an excess of 20,000 documents EACH (along with over one hundred other records requests)! Guess how many people we have working in Records? Only 1/2 time Records Clerk, plus part of the time of our City Clerk, and part of the time of our City Attorney. We only farmed out 1 of the requests to a private firm and only asked for an extention of 2 months to get through those documents. You can count on the fact that the Governor’s office is hiding something. There is absolutely no excuse for this. Crazy…
wow…AK (or whoever) is giving her way too much time to cover-up…we know she’s guilty of something, so why the wait? we want to see justice…we want her to be punished for her crimes! there must be a sh*tload of secrets waiting to be revealed! …now THAT would be some book!
The State of Alaska should pay a penalty to the requester for each day PLUS interest on the funds the requester was required to pay upfront for the search. That may speed it up.
Another possibility is that the person(s) in the Justice Dept are finding information that was previously unknown and quite damaging. They may not be covering it up – but building a case! (We can only hope)
Could there be any redress if an independent, unbiased investigator were to get involved to bring about a more expedient resolution to ALL of the unfinished palin business; email queries notwithstanding? Are law suits an option to hold these elected officials and subordinates accountable?
Alaska hs the money,why aren’t they farming this out? seems like a no brainer at least to me and IMO they should have a watch dog like they did in the recounts in Minnesota so there is no cheating.
I just tried to explain this post to a software programmer friend. He said “they are either lying, or so incompetent they should be fired immediately”.
the dog ate my e-mails…
lmao @ sjk’s comment, a virtual dog?
I think Palin thought that once you delete the email it went away forever, then she found out they are saved forever and now she’s having a fit.
Parnell needs to grow a set and get those requests sent out.
lmao @ sjk’s comment, a virtual dog?
I think Palin thought that once you delete the email it went away forever, then she found out they are saved forever and now she’s having a fit.
Parnell needs to grow a set and get those requests sent out.
Thanks for address this AKM.
How do we know that Dave Jones in the Dept of Law is telling the truth?
The whole thing seems fishy to me. I think they are covering for her.
Remember how fast “The State” got Sanford’s emails? It was a matter of weeks.
He is telling the truth regarding 1) the department being overwhelmed, 2) they are working on it 3) It’s taking a long time. AKM
Is there some type of Statute of Limitations on the crimes involving government officials and, if they drag it out long enough nothing can be done to her?
The process is easier than described. Move all email accounts to a typical, average PC. Download “Google Desktop”. Let it index for a few hours. Then do your search with results provided in seconds. The results can then be reviewed by one or more attorneys. A competent attorney can easily review a thousand emails a day. On average emails do not contain much writing.
I wonder why AKM is taking the state at their word that they don’t have the “proper software” to handle this request. When have we EVER been told the truth about anything involving Palin before???
Doing a keyword search does not involve “expensive software” in fact there are many freeware and open source software programs that will do it. As an I.T. consultant I can tell you that excuse simply holds no water. In fact it’s blatantly absurd.
From a connected Mudflatter.
AKM
Geez, does the State of Alaksa have computers from the Flintstone’s?
Please stay on this AKM. Unless they get some serious public pressure, they will NEVER release those emails.
They are dragging their feet for a reason. Let’s find out what the reason they are not getting this done.
@10 kryss: Wow….thanks for that insight. It just proves that their “excuse” is bogus.
You are so right. Their is NO excuse for dragging this out for over a year.
COVER-UP.
If they can’t figure out how to do this….and the law says they have 10 days to fulfill requests……isn’t it their responsibility to uphold the law and find a way to get it done in a reasonable timeframe?
Sorry to OT but Shannyn was just on MSNBC talking about Ms. Sarah with David Shuster and Tamryn Hall.
Why hasn’t anyone sued the state about this, yet? I’d imagine just the fear of deposing the employees responsible for this data gathering would get things moving, again.
What ever happened to that Tennessee lawsuit? I remember reading about a huge subpoena information request, but wasn’t that trial due to begin this month?
Levi won’t say squat until after his mother is sentenced. I’ll watch for that to be postponed, yet, again, obviously to keep his trap shut.
Is the timing of her book set to correspond to Levi’s mamma’s sentencing?
Can’t wait, but won’t hold my breath.
I think you have pretty much explained the whole situation in black and white simple basic terms AKM. Sgt. Joe Friday ( Dragnet )would have said ” Just the facts..mam”
Coming from the ‘ fiscally conservative ‘ side that he professes to be Parnell MUST contract the business out. It makes sense/cents. It saves money.
Ohhh… and it is the Law as well…. but who is counting those Ethics Violations as well. Sometimes that is simply a ‘ technicality ‘ in these matters. Just because the Law is there…. we don’t REALLY have to follow it. Those are Guidelines. Sen. Ensign, Sen. Vitter and Gov. Sanford said so.
It will take outside intervention from ‘ someone ‘. Lawsuits by Alaskans maybe but then they will complain/whine about the ‘ costs ‘ of those Lawsuits probably. And if they were truly worried about the costs… they would have used the Option #1 above. Catch -22 here. There is no defense though.
I’d have to say someone like CREW or The Feds will have to step in to get the problem resolved. ( LOTS of publicity … Rachel… Keith ?) Parnell ( has to ) has no intention of complying. He will try to keep all thinks hidden until after his run for re-election for sure. It’s in his best interest.These things happened under the Parnell/Palin watch.
Is there ONE specific person ( or Agengy ) that all of us could and should email AKM’s story to? It lays it all pretty clearly. Time to turn up the heat.
Suggestions or names..?
AKM, Thanks for the clarification on Mr. Jones.
Here’s the problem. So much time has passed that (if and when they are ever released)they will have been scrubbed clean of any inflamatory information. They will just hold back any emails that don’t reflect well on Ms. Palin.
The State of Alaska is screwing the citizens and there is nothing that they can do?
How much would it cost to gift the state with a software program?
Can anyone ask them to release what they have completed?
I suppose that farming it out, or using google desktop, risks the confidentiality of the documents. Couldn’t they deputize some software guys, swear them to confidentiality agreements?
Someone once described passive-agressiveness to me as “a postal clerk selling stamps slowly.” This sounds an awful lot like selling stamps slowly.
the “why”: dosnt matter. Ignorance of the law or failure to comply is THEIR problem. I paid to see some e-mails dammit. Now get them to me, or get out of the way and find someone who can. Like a middle school class. Perfect project for them, it’ll take them a few hours and they can get extra credit and a winky shout out!
The State had to produce e-mails in the Renkes case. How long did it take the State to produce those e-mails? Not a year. I’m sure the State had to go through just as many files, if not more, in the Renkes case as it has to go through Palin’s e-mails. Parnell seems to be covering up something – something that he was possibly involved in along with Palin. Looks like we have another half-term governor who won’t get re-elected. If the State has nothing to hide, they would produce the e-mails and not play games. Like they say, “If you look guilty; you usually are guilty.”
This isn’t obstruction?
The email information should all be there when it gets to the right people. Where is the DoJ on this? The FBI could get the info in no time.
This one is on the Alaskan bloggers and citizens, if they want the state run in this way. I know a few people have busted their balls to get these emails.
How about a little more support for them and coming up with a plan for the current situation?
this issue alone should keep her out of the running in 2012…even Conservatives wouldn’t want somebody with this much baggage, am I correct? …or maybe they don’t care as long as their party is in power. who the hell knows? corruption breeds corruption…what an insane political/religious world this is! …AK doesn’t want to be renown for this palin character and her misgivings & shenanigans!?!?! (to put it lightly) …do they?
lemonfair @29, That’s a perfect description!!!!!!!
They can say, “We are working on it”, but it seems, they are doing it so slowly that they are actually hoping people forget about the requests so they don’t have to release them.
I read some time ago that MSNBC was still waiting for emails they requested back in August 2008. I wish they would pick up this story again and put some pressure on the current administration.
It sure makes Parnell look guilty too. What’ HE hiding?
Well, this makes for another investigative story for some enterprising journalist. compare the FOIA efficiencies in all State Governments.
Because really, the people of ‘main street’ deserve transparency due them by federal law. Who advocates for ‘main street’? Like President Obama says about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, our government MUST the advocate for the citizens protection.
This is a black eye for Alaska. It shows deceit, callousness, and ineptitude. The quicker they clean house, the quicker Alaska can move on to better things and put all things Scarah and political scandals behind. There is no good reason to drag this out, it only makes it look worse.
Of course we have to wonder how much of himself (Parnell) is in those emails, it’s not just Scarah info, there are things which could implicate him too, is he trying to avoid potential legal or political fallout? It does make him look dirty, eh?
Whatchya hiding Sean?
God forbid that they would by the software they needed, IF this outrageous story is actually true. Much more cost effective to pay numerous people a salary to continue to trudge up this hill, hauling their sacks of cement in knee deep mud.
hmmm…”buy”
I wonder if there have been any FOI requests for non Palin requested emails? If so, how has the state responded to these requests?
Yeah, the Parnell/Palin ticket, that’s what Parnell’s Alaskan legacy will be.
Parnell? You mean that guy that was asleep at the wheel and did nothing for the State of Alaska while we had a complete idiot at the helm?
McCain and Parnell appear to have a lot in common after all. They both became politically intoxicated by those wicked “winks” and lost their lil’ pistachios!
You can’t tell me he wasn’t aware that Miss Scarah was NOT meeting regularly with her commissioners or being a part of any solution in state government while she was in office. He watched her turn our legislature into a circus. Of course, he knew she was only working part-time, collecting per diem, traveling with her kids despite being told not to charge the state, and watching daytime soaps. Yeah, he’s going to hear about all of that if he runs for anything again.
I can see Parnell’s political career belly flopping from my porch! (And no, I’m not psychic!)
Great visual imagery in this story. Sounds like one Rachel Maddow could run with. Sure hope she or Keith O would cover this story. I also think this posting should go on Huffpo.
Well, this makes for another investigative story idea for some enterprising journalist. Compare the FOIA efficiencies or lack of, in all State Governments. Where does remote Alaska fall in the mix? 50th? lol.
They’d be doing the country a favor in exposing FOIA rule abuse. It’s something we need after 8 yrs of Cheney dark behavior modeling. Bush’s administration was known for doing gov. business on private email accounts, hiding gov information from the people, it needs to stop. The American people deserve transparency and honesty in their government, FOIA is federal law.
So who advocates for ‘main street’? Like President Obama just said about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, our government MUST be the advocate for citizen’s protection.
This is a black eye for Alaska. It shows deceit, callousness, and ineptitude. The quicker they clean house, the quicker Alaska can move on to better things and put all things Scarah and political scandals behind. There is no good reason to drag this out, it only makes it look worse. It’s things like this that make people distrust.
Of course we have to wonder how much of himself (Parnell) is in those emails, it’s not just Scarah info, there are things which could implicate him too, is he trying to avoid potential legal or political fallout? In my opinion it makes him look dirty too.
Whatchya hiding Sean?
tin foil hat/on
I think it’s not so much WHAT is in the e-mails that is damaging, but more the WAY she says it. I heard and read too many snarky comments that disgusted me from her, in televised interviews and written on her official Gov. press releases (and don’t forget the Twitters!) that I have no trouble imagining that what was being passed around in what she mistakenly thought was ‘private’ is far worse and far more damaging to her image as an advocate of special needs children, a champion of the ProLife movement, a fiscal conservative, a proponent for America’s actual energy independence; in fact, I imagine that’s what in them would completely undermine the notion that she is in any way a caring or thoughtful or empathetic or respectful human being. (And silly me, those are the qualities I want in a public leader).
My guess is there’s so much non-politically-correct language in those e-mails, not to mention downright meanness exhibited to other human beings if not explicit crude language usage, that someone in a position of power is keeping the lid on them until the redactors can look over ALL OF THEM and
mark out the offending passages with their little black pens.
Problem is? They’ve already started doing that, and found that, using that criteria, a simple non-confidential e-mail to the Lt. Gov. or the AG needed to be 3/4 redacted. They know the public is not going to buy that.
Since I’ve got the tin foil hat on, I’ll dare to suggest that whoever is in charge of this might have some personal reason involving the ex-Gov. to stay sitting on them for the time being. If that’s so, is that not a major old violation of the law? State as well as Federal?
tin foil hat/off
No matter how you slice it, as MissSunshine related @15, there’s either major lying, obstruction, covering up going on, or incredible incompetence not to mention blatant disregard for the Alaskan (and by extension American) public who simply ask to have their elected leaders abide by the laws they swore to uphold when taking office.
Granted, a big request can take more time. But this has gone past the point ridiculousness. If not one single document has been found in a year, the entire department needs to be sacked for absolute incompetence. If they have found documents matching the search criteria, copies of whatever they have found to date need to be forwarded to the requestors immediately.
And a thorough explanation as to why so little has been found so far needs to be formally reported to the appropriate state agencies and the Governor’s office and then cross-posted on the public web page.
Only with that information will whatever problem there is be able to be solved, and that is what is at the heart of the matter – not Palin’s e-mails per se, but a system in the state of Alaska that cannot (seemingly) comply with its very own laws. Governor Parnell should be taking this very seriously. If the government can claim abiding by the law is ‘optional’, or ‘you can get away with it if you have a good excuse’, how on earth are we supposed to expect to enforce the law on our citizens? How are we supposed to expect that citizens will follow the law if they see their very own government and/or government leaders treating it as arbitrary, and selectively ‘not applying to them’?
SOA IT uses a program to keep track of web browsing by state employees, any webpages viewed and deemed unnecessary are quickly blocked to “conserve Bandwidth”. They can manage that but can’t deliver the email? They are not so low tech as they are claiming.
And I suppose the state will show up in rural Alaska with bags of rice, oh, around, August 2012?
Coverup, coverup, coverup.
or
If the states employees are that inept, maybe they should be fired?
Palin and Parnell will have mountain ranges, airports and statues erected to attribute to their greatness and how much they are loved in Alaskans. Not a chance he won’t win an election.
I’m truly sick of this. Just how much deception can be accepted by the public. Is there no accountability?
AS 40.25.125. Enforcement: Injunctive Relief.
A person having custody or control of a public record who denies, obstructs, or attempts to obstruct, or a person not having custody or control who aids or abets another person in denying, obstructing, or attempting to obstruct, the inspection of a public record subject to inspection under AS 40.25.110 or 40.25.120 may be enjoined by the superior court from denying, obstructing, or attempting to obstruct, the inspection of public records subject to inspection under AS 40.25.110 or 40.25.120. A person may seek injunctive relief under this section without exhausting the person’s remedies under AS 40.25.123 – 40.25.124.
sorry for the double post, computer is acting wacky in firefox.
Heh, Heh, Heh
Whatif
Winky already worked her magic and they have mysteriously disappeared. That may explain the delay, also too.
bombard your reps in Washington…your local politicians…your local media…your neighbors…anybody who will do more than just talk about it…’get ‘er done’, AK!!!!! I, personally, can’t tolerate the inaction, and it’s not my state!!!
Is there a Parnell ethics complaint in this? lol
@29 Lemonfair
You don’t risk divulging any priviledged (confidential) information that is subject to public records disclosure laws by farming it out to a private law firm. The State would be a client of the law firm. The law firm would be responsible for redacting any priviledged information and then could supply the all records that must be disclosed under the public records act. Inevitably, there will be some priviledged (confidential, undisclosable) information that won’t be disclosed – but why haven’t they been providing the requested documents a little a time? That is the normal procedure with large records requests. You simply supply a chunk of the documents at a time (once they’ve been reviewed) until the entire records request has been satisfied. I can’t believe there’s not more media attention about the inexcusable inaction! Like I said before, crazy…
The state’s explanation of the year long delay reeks of obstruction. Don’t believe it for a second.
The only logical conclusion is that there’s an underlying strategy to obfuscate and delay indefinitely until the public moves on to other issues.
Pity, really…..since it makes Alaskans (in government) look like a bunch of bumbling, backward fools or petty criminals who thumb their noses at the law.
@Trisha (#34) Thanks. I wonder why Keith or Rachel isn’t on the story more vigorously then.
I guess there’s only so much outrage to go around. We need a clearinghouse to assign a specific outrage to each of us, so that a thousand of us can concentrate on just one thing at a time, while millions of others are focused on the other stuff.
Kryss – I hear you. Who’s going to make this happen, have you any idea?
My Mail folder contains just over 2200 subfolders, generally one per correspondent. These in turn contain, at the moment, 50,139 message files. To get an idea of how long the “All e-mails from Palin containing the following words” query ought to take, I ran this:
time find ~/Mail -type f -print | xargs egrep -i -l ‘babysitter|childcare|McCain|Obama|Democrat|Huckabee|Wal-Mart|Eskimo|Natives|Kuwait|passport|Ruedrich|Kopp’ >output
which listed the names of files containing any of the key words (regardless of upper/lower case). I left out the “from Palin” criterion, since that would have meant not getting any hits. As it was, 3956 files matched something in the query.
Time taken? 3m11.174s elapsed time — on a five-year-old PC.
Obviously, it would take longer for the computer to actually print out the messages concerned, but it could do that unattended.
It might be desirable to have output sorted according to which keyword(s) matched, but one can do that working simply with the set of files from the broad search, rather than from the whole works.
One has to wonder…
Perhaps they’re paying someone to “retype” all of the slanguage in the emails?
Ted Powell: Thanks for the demo. Case closed. Now what do we do about it?
Whatever secrets may be in those e-mails, another possibility of the delay is they are embarrassed to release them; because they may contain a lot of trash talk, innuendo, and immature language between Governor’s Office, and State employees. Dept. of Law may be trying to figure out how to release e-mails without revealing how incompetent those at the top were.
It would be like releasing the details of the 15 year-old mean girl’s diary.
this delay is making the State of Alaska look like a 3rd world country with their inability to deal with requests made a year ago.
what does this mean?
On Levi Johnstons twitter page.
Jaketapper.. I’m willing to give you a interview before deleting this account and placing all rumors to rest. Contact me or my lawyer.
You lost me at Jalapeno chips. I love them.
If this is so, then why does the state law say 10 days?
I still think some un named person or persons decided to blew off the ethics law and use other means to communicate and there are gaps in the system.
There still is no excuse if the law says 10 days, then it should be 10 days.
The people making the requests were never told upfront that it would take longer then the stated 10 days to complete their requests.
Clearly, the state officials are deliberately violating the AK open records law, as anyone with the slightest computer skills cound have produced and reviewed the records within 30 days. There have to be legal, as well as electoral consequences. Parnell needs to be voted out at first opportunity, and a lawsuit has to be brought compelling the state to carry out its responsibilities under the Act. When a litigant refuses to comply with the law, courts can appoint a Special Master to supervise the turn over of information. The fact that the emails will undoubtedly be embarrassing to Palin and to other state officials is not a basis for refusing to comply with the Act-or redacting embarrasing information. Time to put the pressure on, by bringing suit.
I think this needs to be cross posted on huff post.
And why haven’t they released the documents they have found? Why not go before the court and turn over what they have as part of a good faith plea for more time?
They are hiding things. It’s past time for the court to take charge of the search and force its completion or hold people in contempt.
Lets face it, a highschool class doing this as a special project after school would be done by now. Especially, if by completing the project they got paid for their work.
The department and employees do not have any incentive to hurry or to be accurate, they get their pay check anyway. If their boss goes to jail on contempt of court, I bet they’d get done lickity split.
Humm.
Unless of course they enjoy having their boss in jail.
12 Enjay in E.MT Says:
October 12th, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Another possibility is that the person(s) in the Justice Dept are finding information that was previously unknown and quite damaging. They may not be covering it up – but building a case! (We can only hope)
Or instead of compiling the emails taged, deleating them individually. That may be what is taking so long.
Is anyone getting the broadcast of AKM on KUDO?
BTW, I read somewhere that the ACLU may get involved and file a lawsuit to get the e-mails released. Hope so.
Crapola, we should have just asked for “all of them”, we could have gone through all of them ourselves by this time. We aren’t talking about that many months as Governor.
Would all Governor’s Office emails have been cheaper?
AKM is on NOW on KUDO! see previous thread for direct link.
they were talking about health care, agreeing that the “death panels” are the insurance companies. Now they are discussing offshore drilling.
“Thanks for the demo. Case closed. Now what do we do about it?”
I speak computer, but not legalese, let alone bureaucratese. But I did find some interesting-looking pages by googling: foia mandamus alaska .
In particular, following this link:
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/cgi-bin/folioisa.dll/stattx03/query=*/doc/%7B@15441
and scrolling down got me to:
Sec. 40.25.125. Enforcement: Injunctive relief.
A person having custody or control of a public record who denies, obstructs, or attempts to obstruct, or a person not having custody or control who aids or abets another person in denying, obstructing, or attempting to obstruct, the inspection of a public record subject to inspection under AS 40.25.110 or 40.25.120 may be enjoined by the superior court from denying, obstructing, or attempting to obstruct, the inspection of public records subject to inspection under AS 40.25.110 or 40.25.120. A person may seek injunctive relief under this section without exhausting the person’s remedies under AS 40.25.123 – 40.25.124.
By the way, does anyone have an authoritative source for “Public records in Alaska are generally supposed to be provided within 10 days”? I ask this because http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Alaska_FOIA_procedures says “The public records statute does not define a time within which records requests must be answered” and I’ve seen similar statements elsewhere.
this is a scam. the email system should be able to flag any emails with the keywords.
Why would she be talking confidential state business with todd, he wasn’t on the payroll was he. None of those emails should be redacted.
It occurs to me that the hold-up may be that the administration is severely restricting who gets to review the emails so that anything damaging can be disappeared.
Off topic but Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) is currently holding a townhall meeting on healthcare that can be heard here http://bit.ly/gF0Kg
the FBI needs to step in after a Judge rules the records be frozen, and the hard drives seized and subject to forensic inspection. I want my money’s worth. I paid to see e-mails and aint a leavin’ till I see’s me some. Diva did her job to the max and now we want to see the goods. STATE OF AK CAN YOU HEAR US?????
I wish somebody with loose lips would sink this e-mail ship.
RED ALERT!!! Anybody seen this? I just posted it in the forum. Sorry to get off topic, but we interrupt this program for a special report from NY Post:
“Sarah Palin fans, take heart. Your per son of choice has no intention of going quietly. As we speak, she is gearing up. E-mails are currently going out to the favored faithful to help form a coalition. She is primed, ready and now forming a national organization called “Stand Up for Our Nation.” Exactly what it’s standing for is unclear. If not a chicken in every pot, maybe a heater in every igloo. A monogrammed puck for every hockey mom. Possibly, it’ll start, “Give me your poor, your tired governors . . . ” All that’s known so far is, it’s a Palinization of the political system. Her people will categorize it only as “to promote issues she’s passionate about” — other than how to do away with her unmarried daughter’s babymaker, Levi Johnston.”
Two thoughts:
1. If Alaska had a decent newspaper, they would be all over this story like ants on candy. True, they ran a piece about it last week, but a real investigavtive newspaper would be putting some pressure on the state by staying on this, digging deeper and creating some public awareness and pressure.
Think of the newspaper “The State” in SC. They broke the Sanford story wide open and printed his emails in a matter of weeks. But, it takes a real newspaper to do that and the ADN seems to be in the pocket of the governor’s office. What a joke.
2. As far as the Dept of Law potentially being embarassed by what might be in those emails….it’s not their call to make. That’s the purpose of open records. It’s designed to prevent goverment cover-ups, but that’s exactly what they are doing by deep sixing these emails. Think of Sanford’s love letter emails, but South Carolina released them ASAP like they are supposed to do, by law.
O.K., three thoughts: Their excuses are a joke and don’t hold any water.
I seriously think its time to hire an attorney and begin a class action suit. The more time these clowns have to destroy evidence the better for $arah and the worse for transparency in govt.
ACLU needs to get an injunction on the hard drives before something “happens”…Like a fire.
Unseen Sarah Palin e-mails still roiling Alaska politics
From Sunshine Review
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January 31, 2009
[edit] Unseen Sarah Palin e-mails still roiling Alaska politics
“The Alaska Democratic Party says the state’s repeated delays in providing public records it has asked for involving Gov. Sarah Palin are “excessive and unwarranted.”
The state notified the Democrats earlier this week that it would likely need until the end of March if not longer to provide records first requested more than four months ago, on Sept. 22, during the heat of the presidential campaign when Palin was the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate.”
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Request_response_times_by_state
“Alaska Alaska Public Records Act “”as soon as practicable” but no later than the tenth working day after receiving a proper request “
End of March? Gee, what happened? Did they find things that they didn’t want to release so they changed their story? Are they holding back until Palin’s book comes out and she can make some coin?
Who’s responsible for the cover-up?
Any corporation [Exxon anyone?] which has been involved in litigation knows that sorting and sifting emails is easy. You hire a forensic person [there are many out there] and they use software to isolate the items you want. Yes, human eyeballs will be used to review what the computer finds, but it’s not impossible nor does it take that long [it might, though, take more than 10 days, to be fair]. And good lord, you don’t print out the emails!!! Kill trees? You just save everything on DVDs or harddrives. It’s not that hard to do and there’s a whole batch of journal and law review articles about the concept of eDiscovery out there to study.
The Gov appointing judges, doesn’t work very well… apparently the Gov is above the law. Alaskans really need to rework their form of dictatorship.
If they wait until March, those 30,000 documents, is going to be like 300. They are only allowing certain individuals to view and separate the documents. They already know what they will keep and what must be deleted. They don’t want info to be leaked. Cover-up?
88 Claw Washout Palin Says:
October 12th, 2009 at 4:49 PM
If they wait until March, those 30,000 documents, is going to be like 300.
* ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** *
AH! But the wonderful catch-22 here is that if they only fork over 300 documents, that hardly justifies the time spent. By delaying this long (and they’ve already said as much) there are THOUSANDS of documents, therefore, we expect to see somewhere in the neighborhood of … thousands of documents.
Otherwise, any sane, reasonable, rational person would question: Why did it take so long? and “What did you NOT include in what you presented to me?” Questions I’m sure neither Gov. Parnell not anyone at the DOL wants to have to try to answer.
That was March 2009, so they are already approx 7 months late past the extention! Many of these requests are from August 2008!!!!!
Utter BS from the governor. My workstation and a little javascript widget a friend wrote for just this kind of task could complete the preliminary extract in 10 minutes or less using the entire State of Alaska email database as the universe.
Taking as long to review and redact as they did to create in the first place? Fishy
state of AK… just buy the software. Its likely to be cheaper than paying all that staff time.
I can review 10 boxes of documents – at 3500 pages per box on average – for numerous categories including ACP, AWP, relevancy, etc., in about a week.
Why does it take them so long?
Incompetence or some time of subterfuge. They need to knock off the foot-dragging, unless their intent is to force LKB to spend more money in the form of court filing fees. IMHO, LKB needs to file a writ of mandamus forcing the State to do what they are supposed to do. But I’m just repeating myself.
I generally agree with everyone here but will in a whimsical way propose an alternative… why not a FOIA request to the NSA? I am quite sure they could search far more than 30,000 or so emails per second, and since Sarah could see Russia from her house and KNEW that Obama was pallin’ around with terrorists they would have most likely have been eavesdropping on ALL her emails.
Moreover, it is also likely that such a recovery of the emails of interest would be almost unredacted since the NSA probably could care less what Sarah threatened to do to Todd if he didn’t get Wooten fired.
It’s just a thought….
“So, why when the State is clearly unable to handle this type of request in a timely manner, and why when cases like this are routinely farmed out to those who can handle them quickly and are subject to confidentiality, is this being done manually by attorneys within the Department of Law who Jones claims are being pulled away from other projects?”
Perhaps for the same reason, tapes of the Executive Session in which the Borough Manager of the Slough was recently canned “because he was not a good fit” have mysteriously disappeared.
No ethics violations–if we can keep them hidden from the public.
@Krubozumo
Bwhahahahahahaha.
How about something like this:
****************************************
Bride’s offer to barter turns into free $75,000 wedding
From Craigslist offer to wedding in three months.
(Orange County Register, CA 10/12/09)
****************************************
My point is thousands of people responded to her heart wretching story and offered up absolutely everything asking for nothing in return.
Loads of businesses and local people saw this story, wrote in about it and the story spread.
Maybe someone could offer Alaska an updated computer, software or free legal help?
Whats the down side? That a ton of people see it and some get interested?
Government officials probably already receive millions of spam emails, I don’t think that it is fair to give out the email address no matter how much we hate her.
I have a feeling about all these e-mails, in that Todd was running the show, and Sarah was taking orders. Maybe this is “off the wall”, but when things look fishy, one can think of a lot of things.
After two decades in IT, I’m pretty confident that an email system that can handle the sort of volume the State would generate, but doesn’t have the ability to search messages by sender, recipient, and keyword: DOESN’T EXIST.
The job of just finding the messages (without legal review) should take a competent person less than half a day. If a single employee of mine could not complete this task in a week, I would regard that as grounds for dismissal.
I haven’t looked at the statutes recently but I looked at them perhaps six months ago.
There are records retention schedules– If I read it correctly, the executive branch is required to transfer records to the State Library after a period of time– I thought it was 90 days or less. That included emails. I wonder how many of Palin’s records should now be in the possession of the State Librarian– perhaps all of them.
Palin is no longer governor– I’m not sure what power the Department of Law or Parnell have to withhold public records from Palin’s or any other previous administrations. I don’t know; if anyone does I’d appreciate the information.
Might be interesting to contact the State Librarian and see what information he can provide. I wonder who has domain over these records– Parnell and the AG, or the State Librarian.
Blantant Obstructionism! Sean Parnell is no better than Palin in not getting these emails released. Ethics complaint? There must be a LOT of dirt in there. I, for one contributed to Celtic Diva to pay the $5500 they charged her and it has been one excuse after another. This is ridiculous. Parnell….this is NOT helping your odds at getting reelected. This is outrageous.
Have you met V.O., AKM? Apparently, he and Ram have been up in Alaska since July.
Other blogs are reporting Shanny and V.O. now have a friendly relationship. Her demeanor on MSNBC today (?) seemed a lot nicer toward Sarah. Not quite so hawkish!
From your extremely long post, I sensed you were making excuses for them and trying to explain the delay.
Hope I’m wrong…
‘http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Request_response_times_by_state
“Alaska Alaska Public Records Act “”as soon as practicable” but no later than the tenth working day after receiving a proper request “’
How much credence should I give that, considering that the phrase “Alaska Public Records Act” on that page is a link to another page on the same website, where it says,
“”"”" Begin quote “”"”"
Time allowed for response
See also: Request response times by state.
The Alaskan law does not specify a time requirement for responding to public records requests other than that the department must give a certified copy upon payment of the fee.
“”"”" End quote “”"”"
Note, btw, that it does not say “immediately upon payment” or even “within ten days, upon payment”
maybe they should get the boy from tennesse to take care of them.
he got them and went through them, no prob.
Trisha @81 re. Sanford and the State newspaper – it’s interesting that The State got Sanford’s emails in Dec. 08 and sat on them for 6 months, until the guv made his embarrassing public confession. Reasons for ‘sitting on them’? They couldn’t be ‘authenticated’, even though when asked the governor’s office wouldn’t deny they were his. (Here they are)
http://www.thestate.com/sanford/story/839350.html
It’s simple. The law is irrelevant in AK. The list of incidents where the law has been flaunted and run over is legend.
This is just another case of hoping it passes the public by. If it costs too much for the state of Alaska to use email, they have a piss-poor system of cost-benefit and should go back to quill and pen. The whole story is a LIE and anyone with 1% of technical smarts should know it.
My observation over the past year are that the state does not provide for it’s citizens. The citizens either don’t care, are compromised by other graft, or are too weak. Any state that is so stupid as to destroy their own fishing for short term gain is insane. All I see is more hand wringing and more graft.
Alaska is on its way to becoming an example of what went wrong in …. pick your subject: global warming, fisheries, health care, education … whatever. It is becoming a failed state like CA. That is the Republican legacy backed up by the spineless DINOs who don’t speak up and don’t do anything.
Someday the hand in the pocket is going to come up empty. What then?
Well, after reading 3 pages of you all whining:
WHO’S GOING TO MAKE THE FIRST MOVE ?? YEAH, THAT MEANS YOU.
GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND FILE THE SUIT OR JUST SHUTUP AND SUCKUP.
And that, my friends, is the real truth…reflect on who you really are…
@105 in exile (SC version): Interesting.
Unlike the ADN, at least they were doing something.
What I really find amazing is the difference in “the media” between the two states. In SC, “The State” was at least working on this story and on a hunch, met Sanford at the airport–thus, blowing the story wide open.
In Alaska, the ADN has done nothing but defend Palin, write puff pieces about her, and never does any digging into the real story (why did she quit?, where are the emails?, etc.) They are really a sad excuse for a newspaper and I feel bad that the people of Alaska don’t have a voice. It seems the ADN has been a “voice” for Palin, and now the current administration.
This is why newspapers are dying. Too many have given up on investigative journalism and have become one big opinion page–the “Opinion” being that of the publisher.
Don’t get me going on one of the main newspapers here… “Deseret News” which is owned by the Mormon’s.
Hmmmm..complete lack of journalistic integrity……. But hey, the church owns lots of media here. Talk about controlling the message……
I am familiar with a company, one of hundreds whose business is to archive e mails and search e mail databases, typically hundreds of times larger than the AK database. This record search would be a three day turnaround, giving them two days cushion in the event of a database crash or similar catastrophe.
The statement that they need a year or more to search this database is as absurd as me saying I need a year to take out the garbage. All it tells you is I REALLY don’t want to take out the garbage.
I must say I agree with aha #107, time to get the courts involved.
aha, well well, we put our money where our brains told us it would help expose scarah. do you think for one minute we cant “mobilize’ on this? lawsuits take time, money, resources and lawyers! Take a deep breath, and wait ……ahhhhhhh….now STFU.
Bystander, your comment made me laugh………
“The statement that they need a year or more to search this database is as absurd as me saying I need a year to take out the garbage. All it tells you is I REALLY don’t want to take out the garbage”.
_______
It is so true. They really don’t WANT to release her emails. Period.
I’ve spoke with several “IT” friends of mine yesterday, and they say NO WAY. They don’t buy the “we don’t have the software to do it” story at all.
Then again, If the state really has Pebbles and Bam-Bam sitting at a stone keyboard trying to manually pound out the emails, why haven’t they farmed this out?
I think they got orders from above to drag this out as long as they can and hopefully, Joe-Public will forget about it.
Lol….SJK…. I understand and got a little carried away, sorry about that…but geez, do I think alaskans can’t mobilize…yes, I think that they can’t…I’m sure they can’t in fact from what I’ve seen.
The politicians, State, SOA employees, correctly measure the length to which ”the people” will mobilize; kindof like laying off bets…and the odds are in their favor because historically people will not mobilize much past lip service once their personal resources are required.
Now, that is not a personal attack. It’s just a fact, jack.
Is this one of the reasons the book was rushed?? Something must really be interesting in those emails. Her connections to AIP?? Hernon-pregnancy?? Her shady deals with big oil?? Her harassment of Trooper Wooren???
I suggest that the AK citizens on this blog contact the Alaska Public Interest Research Group in Anchorage (907) 278-3661 to see if they, or someone they can refer you to, is willing to take on this abuse of the AK public records law.
I get what you are saying but then think of this.
Now when Bill Clinton ran for President, I remember there were requests of this type, of course first term was pretty much pre-email but also pre computer systems like we have today but there were still thousands and thousands of documents requested. I know Arkansas is always behind other states getting the latest technology (or we used to be, anyway).
I am sure there are in any state where a sitting governor is running on the national ticket. There is no way this could take this long.
One person could have done this job in months, not a year.
I think they should file lawsuits against them.
I do have to wonder IF the only way the state government in Alaska gets anything decent accomplished is for someone to sue them?
Sure seems that way!!
Elections roll around and the lemmings go vote a party or color but not issues or people, so do Alaskans deserve this???
One has to wonder.
Open and Transparent? hmmmmm. not so much it seems….
aha, we’ll see jack, we’ll see…
Guys, the emails have been found in the system, printed, numbered etc. It’s just that the DOJ has yet to start redacting them, but! they hope to begin soon, lol. Diva has their response to her on her website. I can’t copy and paste it.
I got a kick out of the person doing the communicating to Diva, she/he keeps saying “I understand that” such and such is or has happened. Nothing definite about that answer, eh, no pinning any certain person down for blame. Saying “I understand”, “it is my understanding” or “as I understand it”, leaves a bunch of wiggle room. Like no definite answers were found or known, lol, silly govmint workers.
Interesting. Sure seems to be a lot of versions of the truth floating out there about these emails. One thing is for sure….there is something…..errrr…..odd going on with those emails. No doubt about it.
You have got to be kidding. The kind of work and search they want to do…if your examples listed in the article are as fact….can be done in an hour or two at max. Not with a lot of elaborate software that cost a lot of money, but with what is on most desktops and laptops now. The process is quite simple.
sjk and aha, take a timeout….find some coffee…
http://www.divasblueoasis.com/diary/883/records-requests-and-emailsnothing-has-changed-under-gov-parnell
Here is her response.
Comparison state by state regarding FOIA:
http://www.nfoic.org/results
boodog, ‘Scuse me. Was I replying to you? Perhaps you should “find some coffee”….
I posted Levi Johnstons last twitter on various sites. I’m glad he has been in contact with a journalist from ABC. He said he wants to put some things to rest. At the time he was going to JFK airport, so I assume that he will be in contact with ABC news. Could be wrong.
I see, as he said, that he has closed the twitter in his name for the time being.
He is probably a normal kid, with good sense and instincts, and he seems pretty fed up by the hate mail he got from Sarahs followers. They seem a nasty group all in all.
What they pulled with Gryphon was disgusting.
I don’t know the pressures Levi Johnston has been under, but he never asked for his 15 minutes, and he, unlike some, probably prefers a normal life, even if a touch of notoriety can be interesting in small doses.
At least his lawyer Rex Butler and Tank seem like good men, with a head on their shoulders.
Another talk with my software friend, and I agree with JP#102 emails that can’t be searched DON’T EXIST.
This should have been a one day job – as aha#107 says “time to get the courts involved”. Clearly, the laws are being obstructed.
Newspaper in WI files suit even AFTER receiving the requested documents because it took just over a month to receive them even though there is no set no of days!
Come on Alaskans….Demand Accountability!!
FRI., JUL 31, 2009 – 9:22 AM
The Capital Times sues Doyle over records request
The Capital Times filed suit Thursday against Gov. Jim Doyle, charging the governor’s office took too long to comply with an open records request submitted June 4.
The suit, filed in Dane County Circuit Court, names Doyle and his attorney, Chandra Miller Fienen, claiming they withheld letters written for and against nine finalists for three Dane County judicial openings.
Although the state does not have a set time for complying with requests, the law requires information be made available to the public in a timely manner.
The governor’s office made the records available July 8, the day Doyle announced Amy Smith, Nicholas McNamara and Peter C. Anderson were his appointments to the Dane County Circuit Court.
“The governor’s office clearly delayed release of these records until moments before announcing the appointments in a calculated attempt to prevent a story,” said Paul Fanlund, editor of The Capital Times.
Lee Sensenbrenner, a spokesman for the governor, criticized the lawsuit.
“This lawsuit is over your impatience,” said Sensenbrenner, a former Capital Times reporter and editor. “Not over whether you got to see records. I want to make it clear that the paper saw the records.”
http://www.madison.com/wsj/mad/latest/460296
Yeah, BooDog, go get a cup of mindyourownbusiness…lol….let’s get em, SJK
I think some of that wacky tobacky Palin admitted to smoking might be better than coffee, though.
Yeah, Lilly, I hear Levi is supposed to be on the high protein, low carb, workout plan. Heh heh, just as long as Tank ain’t his trainer ‘cuz his big self needs to be on the high protein, low carb, workout plan.
Yeah, Tank, I said it…lol What are you trying to do, die young bra’?
Stay with us awhile, go get your fitness on, homie.
One love bra, one love.
Here is Alaska’s records retention schedule for the executive branch:
http://www.archives.state.ak.us/pdfs/records_management/schedules/gov/executive_offices/10106.pdf
Sorry; I didn’t copy the entire link. Here it is again.
http://www.archives.state.ak.us/pdfs/records_management/schedules/gov/executive_offices/10106.pdf
I give up. I don’t know why the entire link doesn’t copy. It is probably my fault; it usually is. Let me try this shorter one– you can navigate from there.
http://www.archives.state.ak.us/records_management/agency_schedules.html
In the Tennessee hacker case, they couldn’t get access to her personal E-mails. The court wouldn’t allow it.
Wasn’t she using her personal e-mails so she couldn’t get traced later.
She could be a nut case,( and I wonder exactly what a shrink would say), but she is a wiley nut case.
She reminds me of an squid that lets out a cloud of ink.
The problem with record retention schedules is they only work if someone is aware of them, willing to follow them, and there is a “policing” to make sure all employees and agencies are doing that. As a former State of AK worker, I can tell you this is not the case. A commissioner’s office didn’t even know about a retention schedule and a deputy commissioner did not want any e-mails printed and put in paper files. “They keep back-up tapes, if somone wants the e-mails they can pull them off the tapes.”
This is a Republican mantra; do not give out information unless forced to. The Bush administration has tried to gut the US gov’t FOIA regulations and what the public is entitled to. This carried through and Murkowski, $P, and now Parnell appear to be following that stance as well. Want a clear indication, look at the Personnel Board member who stated people ought to be grateful that they can appear before them, attend the meetings to hear their deliberations and get anything. Another case of “trust me, I’m from the gov’t” being a totally laughable, reason not to.
sjk and aha, sorry if I must have misunderstood.
Thanks Bear Woman:
I don’t know if it would be possible, but It would be interesting to get more information from the State Archivist about what records have actually been retained– if some records weren’t retained (like if Palin’s schedule went blank for a period of time), what happened– were they destroyed, or do they exist elsewhere? If they don’t exist, does that mean they were they destroyed?
Before I would request any records, I’d want to verify whether the records even exist. The archivist might have some insight.
I have no experience with State records, but should we be requesting records, or back-up tapes? Could the archivist provide any more information about what records exist?
Thanks Regina, according to that study Alaska gets a BIG FAT F !!!, so golly gee, they’re only living up to their grade.
here’s what it say about response time:
“Response time is the period of time that an agency has to make an initial response to a request for a public record. A major area of concern is requests for time sensitive documents. The more time an agency has to respond to a citizen’s request, the less effective the statute becomes. For instance, statutes that provide for very long response times, or do not provide a stated response time at all, do not create any statutory assurances for a requestor, such as a journalist, who is seeking a time sensitive document. Statutes in these states may allow an agency to stall in handing over the requested materials so that they are no longer useful, or the requestor simply gives up on the request. Either result frustrates the purposes of the open records act. Thus, state statutes received more points for quicker response times. Note: The BGA only examined the time an agency has to make an initial response to a request for documents. In many states, an agency can receive an extension of time to consider a request. Our analysis did not factor in possible time extensions.”
Like the Wasilla church with hospital records that burned, or the convenient rain event ruining some archives, maybe they are waiting for a natural catastrpobic event, or is there some time limit to retain e-mails before they are destroyed?
Anything to do with checking on SPs shenanegans seems fraut with difficulties.
The Republican machine did their best to muddy the waters when she was nominated.
I thought Scarah cleaned up AK gov. corruption and put in place the toughest ethics laws ever, well she bess not brag on that too much or this stuff can be thrown in her face and as usual she has it coming.
An article about FOIA
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_0d908cea-63da-5499-9eb2-1106d4875354.html
Somebody should write an article for Alaskan papers, shame the gov into cooperating. And shame them into putting a better FOIA law. AK’s grade on Scarah and Parnell’s watch is a big, fat F and 3rd from the bottom of the worst, whoa.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003992777_fancher04.html
“We got an “F”! How could we get an “F”?
Yes, us, Washington state. We got a failing grade for open government. How is that possible after all that our citizens, elected leaders, courts and media have done in the name of openness? An “F”! It was embarrassing last week when Washington was listed among the states whose freedom-of-information (FOI) laws need reform. No excuse that 37 other states got the same failing grade. We expect more from ourselves, don’t we?
The assessment came from the Better Government Association and the National Freedom of Information Coalition, both independent government watchdog organizations. The BGA/NFOIC scorecard had five criteria for evaluating whether state laws have built-in mechanisms to help citizens gain access to government information.”
This reminds me of something I learned from a Mormon missionary. They are taught this: Don’t give meat when milk will do.
Translation: When they are trying to convert someone to Mormonism and they start to ask questions……don’t give too much information. When asked a question, they are taught to give as little information as possible to satisfy them, and usually that means dodge the question by diversion. Scary, I know.
In this case, they are trying to give out milk (dodge and divert) when we demand (and have the right) to receive the meat!
MadCity Chick @131
Wow…that’s interesting. Too bad the ADN would never file a lawsuit against the state.
That paper doesn’t work for “the people”, it seems to be an extention of the administration who only writes fluff pieces about Palin and company. Shameful!
It’s cool boodog…I’m always a little tongue in cheek and sarcastic. Seriously, though, thank the heavens for bloggers. Imagine all this information never seeing the light of day without them.
This whole Palin scam says more about the devolvement of American government away from serving the people, its real constituents, and into being a corrupt and oppressive force, serving only those with money as influence.
Alaskans have become slaves as evidenced by the disregard they receive from their public servants.
Palin has to ask her self: Would Jesus behave in this way?
The answer, though, being straight forward; I’d love to hear her rationalize how she is the momma bear to her fellow Alaskans and everything she does is for their best interests.
aha
Apologies to all but I am putting this message here to bump my next message up to a new batch of 50 on the assumption that a lot of people don’t read all of the replies.
Not that what I have to say is particularly important.
There is no excuse for not delivering the requested emails in a timely fashion, any decent email agent deployed since 1998 would be able to perform the necessary search and retrieval in a matter of a few minutes in the hands of a competent user.
Reviewing the emails is another matter but it leaves the question, is there any legitimate reason to review them? This was aired somewhat earlier but it seems that any claim of privilege would be dubious at best. Does the current administration have any justification at all for redacting any portion of the requested emails? It they do Ak. is in deep trouble because the best reason for redaction is to hide malfeasance.
IANAL so what follows is certainly subject to skeptical review by knowledgeable persons.
It seems to me that if one has no redress with the state and is being stonewalled, the logical course of action from a legal view point is to escalate the game. File suit in Federal court against the state. Now, admittedly, since I have no knowledge of this procedure or how to initiate it or who would have standing, I will gladly refer to others in this.
However, from what I have seen in the comments so far, the response to this issue is confined to interested parties far flung but ineffectual, and local parties perhaps intensely interested but without the means to take further action. This is unsurprising, it is one of the things those in official positions depend upon to remain unexposed. However, the logical thing to do at this point would appear to make the story go viral and expand to the national
blogosphere. If nothing else it will pull in lots and lots of expertise from across the board who can help move things forward.
There are plenty of places that this can be aired in commentaries that might get the attention of bloggers.
Need I supply talking points?
I would suggest one more thing though and that is that AKM should make a new posting that is a call to action. Though it is important to inform, it is often timely to offer some direction.
If you want the emails, get organized, get busy and go get them.
KN~
I agree that WE must take action…and that, before all the media hype surrounding the release of palin’s propaganda. It would appear that Parnell and many others were indeed privy to the many palin deceptions and cover-ups long before she made her hasty exit….and since the MSM is choosing to ignore the real story here, citizen journalists must organize and force full disclosure and accountability.
For those of us who have been closely following this sad saga….there are far too many things that just don’t add up ~ and the obstacles are blatantly obvious.
Sorry, AKM, just not buying it. I’m sure that’s what your source “said” but he or she is misinformed or has been deliberately misled. Good luck to the AKns in pursuing legal action (joining with the Dems or AP or the ACLU or whomever). The key is to get the hard discs seized and frozen before any more shenanigans take place. Unfortunately, I suspect “aha” is correct in that the out-of-pocket cost is too high to allow all but the most highly motivated parties to file for legal redress. And that’s the point of the whole exercise, as many have stated. Subvert the whole idea of FOIA through obfuscation and delay. And Celtic Diva’s request was filed long after the ones AKM has written about above, so hers may fall to the bottom of the pile if they handle them chronologically. However, she is the only one who has ALREADY paid, so she has the best case for disputing the delay and should be able to ask for interest on the money or some other penalty. Too sad, the legacy of Madam Winky Quittypants.
Krubozumo Nyankoye:
It could be in the national interest for Palin’s emails to be disclosed, especially if she became a national candidate (especially if it turned out the text of her emails revealed ugly things). Too bad this issue is being fought primarily in our obscure little wilderness called Alaska with little or no Outside help. This is a big deal. We need to know the truth about Palin, and she and her cronies don’t seem to want to disclose the truth. Her upcoming book is no substitute.
It seems the Parnell administration, come hell-or-high-water, doesn’t plan to release Palin’s emails.
In another matter, they have made statements to me where they used the umbrella of executive privilege to justify their secrecy and denial of requested information. After reading those carefully worded excuses again, and after reading how they used similar wording elsewhere in similar denials, I think they may be planning to claim Palin had used candor in many of her communications, and those communications should be protected from public disclosure– Parnell and DOL may claim she wouldn’t have been able to effectively communicate without her candor, and therefore she would have been restricted from being able to perform her executive duties if she had felt restricted from using candor.
That’s just my guess– I think that is where we may be headed, and that is what they may say, if this all ended up in court.
The ”Peasants” (Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism A Love Story’) have no legitimate right to question their rulers. Lest you believe otherwise, politicians are but prince’s to the royal court of the Presidency. How else can Rangle ”mistake” his disclosures and ”underestimate” his assets, and ”overlook” the IRS tax code (which he oversees) so blatantly for years on end with seeming impunity.
In case you don’t believe it, APOC, the AG, Personnel Board, AK Legs, and those AK Legs are beholden to on either side of the party line, and especially the McCain campaign, have been rubbing your Alaskan faces in it for years…please wake up.
I read, here, all the time how people call on the Fed as if that entity were the Creator, himself. Well, neither the Creator nor the Fed is coming to help, so get over it.
Is it a wonder countries eschew the Democratic experience and Capitalism, in general? People see what’s going on. Thank the Heavens for PJ Bloggers. Wasn’t it funny the other day, Obama etal were talking about bribing Afghans and the Taliban to support our interests since bullets don’t seem to work so well? Let’s woo them with our devalued dollar, but the opportunity to overrun your neighbor still exists, here, in the land of plenty…lol…just don’t get sick and if you do, just die, quickly, thank you kindly.
If you can’t beat them join them. The only way to effect change is to run for office and hope by the time you get elected your resolve is still intact. Hope the process hasn’t overtaken you by the dark side. It’s obvious you will only be listened to if you are one of them.
We need someone poor to run for office, since it’s painfully obvious anyone with the money to initiate action, who could act has no intention of doing so…I know many people are acting behind the scenes in unreported ways, but think of them as splinters, when what is needed is a blunt force object.