A couple of good Anchorage Daily News editorials re the "release" of Palin's e-mails

[Blue_In_AK]

(which have been seriously redacted and which incidentally will cost over $700 for the copies plus shipping charges making the total cost well over $1,000. They can only be viewed in person in Juneau and will not be available on line).

http://www.adn.com/2011/06/04/1899549/our-view-public-records.html

Our view: Public records

The emails of the Palin administration are part of the public record. That means that anyone in the public has a right to see them, except those portions that are exempt by law.

According to Gov. Sean Parnell's office, Alaskans either have to travel to Juneau to see them or pay for copies and shipping, more than $1,200. The records won't be available in Anchorage, Fairbanks or Wasilla. They won't be available online, either.

As a practical matter, for most Alaskans, they really aren't available at all.

This is flat wrong and completely unnecessary.

<snip>

Gov. Parnell needs to do what's right and make the records truly available to the public. Yes, public expense is involved. That's an unavoidable cost of government by the people and the rule of law. Here's an idea: Perhaps the governor can bring the records along as checked baggage the next time he flies to Anchorage to conduct state business.


BOTTOM LINE: Make the Palin emails public -- with no more nonsense about trips to Juneau and shipping fees.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/06/04/1899549/our-view-public-records.html#ixzz1OR1WSRCw

http://www.adn.com/2011/06/04/1899535/palin-emails-redacted-by-same.html

Palin e-mails redacted by same people who worked for her

As they prepare to finally cough up more than 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin's emails gleaned from her brief, odd stint as governor, Alaska officials tut-tut they are going to withhold 2,415 pages from the public. Why? Those communications are privileged, personal or somehow exempt from Alaska's disclosure laws. Or so they say.

How convenient. Guess where the good stuff will be. No, really. Guess. Now, you might wonder, as I do, how emails sent or received by a governor or her minions on state time, using state resources, yakking about state business can be personal or exempt from disclosure laws. But state officials say there is the right to privacy thing and the attorney-client privilege thing and the "deliberative process" thing. Apparently -- and it was a shock to me -- there is no public's right to know thing.

Who made these decisions? It turns out state lawyers and folks in the governor's office -- where some, it turns out, worked for Palin but now work for Gov. Sean Parnell, who was Palin's lieutenant governor -- made the calls on those 2,415 emails. Not an impartial panel of citizens and lawyers, or folks lacking direct or indirect ties to the authors of the emails or any court. Just insiders.

Activist Andree McLeod, a much-maligned Palin critic, has been seeking the emails forever.

<snip>

All of that points to this: Alaska's public records law is not protecting the public's right to know a thing. It must be fixed. This lengthy, ongoing email sham is the kind of thing that corrodes the public's trust in government.

More than that, it stinks.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/06/04/1899535/palin-emails-redacted-by-same.html#ixzz1OR2Ajfna

The comments at the links are good.

[struggle4progress]

1. How frrickin hard could it be to make the emails available online?

[Blue_In_AK]

2. That seems to be the question on everyone's lips.

[struggle4progress]

3. They could scan it all in the same amount of time it takes to photocopy it

If it costs $700 to make photocopies, surely they can scan it all ONCE for less: you skip the cost of 25000 pages of paper, which 50 reams -- that's got to be a big chunk of the cost of photocopying

Then you can fuggin put it on a DVD anytime anybody wants it, in a minute or two, for like 25 cents

The state could mail anybody a copy for less than a dollar

[malaise]

4. I'd sure love to read them

She can't hide them forever

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Have you been reading Frank Bailey's book, Malaise?

He had the foresight to hang on to Sarah's e-mail exchanges that included him. Of course, Sarah has said that the book Blind Allegiance is full of lies -- which I guess she would know as well as anyone since it's based on her own words.

[malaise]

8. Not yet

:hi:

[gratuitous]

9. If you don't want to make them available, it's impossible

Jeez, do we have to spell out everything? You want a copy of those e-mails, you're going to have to do something Quitterella never did during her governor days: Go to Juneau.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

5. K & R nt

[spanone]

7. i wonder what sarah's been up to? hiding something are we?