Dwight sez:

Larry, we may be talking apples and oranges, but, again just to clarify:
"The FOIA applies to Executive Branch departments, agencies, and
offices; federal regulatory agencies; and federal corporations.
Congress, the federal courts, and parts of the Executive Office of the
President that function solely to advise and assist the President, are
NOT subject to the FOIA." 

It would not apply to Senators acting in their capacity as Senators.
Similar statutes exist in most (if not all) states.

When it comes to FOIA, (as Ed McMahon said) "you are correct, sir!"  but my
post had nothing to do with FOIA, rather that if the content of the message
met the definition of a record, then it had to be managed AS a record... and
it also said that was true if the individuals went outside of the Federal
e-mail (.gov) system and used private e-mail accounts to communicate.  

And true, the content may not meet the definition, but that can be a very
subjective call.... (depends on what your definition of "is" is...) =)

So, if Governor Jones sends a message to Senator Smith using a government
owned communications system, and asks about having lunch (whether it's done
during business hours or not) that may not be a record, but if Senator Smith
replies and says to Governor Jones, "yes, let's have lunch and we can
discuss the funding of XYZ, and how we're going to proceed with ABC", then
that could qualify... and if that is done using a private or government
owned system, it doesn't matter, simply because it's related to the business
of the Senate.

Interesting discussion, especially since we have 3 seated Senators and one
other person in the race... 3 are subject to Federal records rules, one is
subject to State records rules, unless they are communicating with a Senator
and then the incoming and outgoing sides of the communication may BOTH be
impacted by Federal rules, depending on the content.

Larry

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