E-mail

A former deputy attorney for Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt has filed a lawsuit alleging that he was wrongfully fired for bringing to light a plan to deliberately delete e-mail messages from the state executive's office in order to keep it away from the media and the greater public.

On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola gave the White House five business days to reveal whether copies of sought-after e-mail messages from 2003 and 2005 are contained on computer backup tapes, AP reported.

"Do the back-ups contain the e-mails said to be missing?" Facciola asked in the four-page order.

A Seattle community group achieved a multi-layer victory, the Seattle Times reports, by securing the disclosure of e-mail messages from the state attorney general's office, collecting attorney's fees and clearing up concerns that the attorney general might have been involved in a settlement between the Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 

While some elected government officials around the country seem to be in a hurry to delete stored e-mail and other electronic documents from the public record, there's good news on the preservation of official records front from archivists in New England. 

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mail messages in response to two lawsuits, which seek to determine whether the Bush administration violated federal law by destroying other electronic communications.

Former Reporters Committee fellow Jennifer LaFleur writes in today's Dallas Morning News:

Texas District Judge Gena Slaughter has ruled that the city of Dallas must release e-mails requested more than 22 months ago by the Morning News, including messages from city officials' personal accounts or hand-held devices used to conduct city business.