I've written more than 100 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests over
the past few years, as well as a newsletter on FOIA policy, so it caused me
great pain to read the headline over at *Vox* on Tuesday: "Against
Transparency: Government officials' email should be private, just like
their phone calls."

Vox's Matt Yglesias writes that, in an age of casual email, the problem
with making government officials' emails subject to public records by
default "is that in addition to serving as a deterrent to misconduct, it
serves as a deterrent to frankness and honesty."
http://bit.ly/2cnTUaB
http://bit.ly/2cnTUaB+


The issue is that while common sense sees email and phone calls as close
substitutes, federal transparency law views them very differently. The
relevant laws were written decades ago, in an era when the dichotomy
between written words (memos and letters) and spoken words (phone calls and
meetings) was much starker than it is today. And because they are written
down, emails are treated like formal memos rather than like informal
conversations. They are archived, and if journalists or ideologically
motivated activists want to get their hands on them, they can.

http://bit.ly/2cgQymQ
http://bit.ly/2cgQymQ+

-- 
Peterk
Dallas, Tx
[log in to unmask]
Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org
“If only there were a massive entity that I were forced to fund to tell me
how I should live my life, since I’m so obviously incapable of deciding for
myself.” M. Hashimoto

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]