COMMENTARY · September 18, 2008 · Freedom of information
Palin's e-mail problems spread
The debate over access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s e-mails may not matter if hackers have their way. A group of hackers on Wednesday claimed they broke into Palin’s personal Yahoo! e-mail account, gov.palin@yahoo.com, and posted some e-mails on Wikileaks.org. The Secret Service, instead of simply retrieving the messages through Google, asked The Associated Press for copies of the hacked e-mails. The AP refused to hand them over.
That dispute unfolded against the backdrop of an ongoing battle over access to other official e-mail from the Palin administration.
Palin has refused to release 1,100 e-mails in response to a public records request by a local watchdog, Andree McLeod. McLeod's attorney, Don Mitchell filed an administrative appeal last week that could be ruled on as soon as Wednesday.
Mitchell said, "The regulations state we're entitled to a written decision on this appeal within 10 days of the closing of the administrative record. That means they're going to have to come up in writing what this is all about."
It's unclear from the law what event will constitute the "closing of the administrative record," but Mitchell said he's hopeful it means the governor's office will be forced to issue the decision by Sept. 24.
McLeod said she decided to file an administrative appeal rather than a lawsuit because, under Alaska law, she could be forced to bear the state’s cost of litigating the case if the court found against her.
The records request was initially made on June 17 -- long before Palin became a vice-presidential candidate. McLeod is seeking "copies of all landline and cell phone, text message, email, and leave request records" created between Feb. 1 and April 15, 2008.
She said she was concerned, in part, that political party activities were being conducted on state time, which is prohibited by law.
The former Alaska legislature candidate received several thousand documents in response to her request and a log of information that had been withheld, including the more than 1,100 e-mails. Many of those e-mails were copied to Palin's husband, which Mitchell argued destroys any executive privilege the Palin administration might have had.
In the documents McLeod did receive are indications other documents are being improperly withheld.
For example, McLeod said, e-mail addresses and state phone numbers are frequently redacted. McLeod said she's also been able to get copies of some withheld e-mails from their senders and does not understand how they could be properly withheld.
McLeod said of the thousands of records she's received, "There's just one e-mail that I found in all the e-mails that the governor's official state e-mail address is being used by Frank Bailey and Ivy Frye, is being written to, they're always using her private e-mail account. So is the governor. Her Yahoo account."
Frank Bailey and Ivy Frye are the state officials on whom McLeod’s records request focused.
— Hannah Bergman, 4:46 pm
Comments: (6)
Comment by duh, Thu, Sep 18, 2008, 5:22pm
Two things about Palin concern me regarding this article; 1)executive privileges used to avoid public information accountability and 2) her lack of brain power in using a strong password for her yahoo account. She may be a big wig in AK, but should not be on the global stage representing our country.
Comment by Palin's email, Thu, Sep 18, 2008, 5:34pm
Look at these
Comment by may lewis, Thu, Sep 18, 2008, 5:39pm
If you click on the highlighted phrase "Palin has refused to release 1100 emails..." it references a Sept.9 Washington Post article. Todd Palin is cc'd on 40 of those 1100 emails, waiving any executive privilege. Furthrermore, Todd Palin sits on on her executive meetings (ref.Andrew Halcro, Shadow Govenor). Is Todd going to be a Shadow Vice President? Why does he get copies of government emails?
Comment by triumph110, Thu, Sep 18, 2008, 9:57pm
The republicans are doing everything they can to steal this election. See what they are doing at www.republicantricks.com
Comment by Samatva, Fri, Sep 19, 2008, 10:16am
I guess bright sunshine all year long might be unfamiliar to Alaskans! ;-)
It appears that Sarah has more than pillow talk with her husband, Todd, so that communication should be treated as public record.
I agree that Palin shows poor judgment for conducting the people's business with a Yahoo account, but it's much more than that. She discredits the body looking into her ethics as governor - she claims it's not longer credible when it starts asking the em
Comment by Trekky08, Sun, Sep 21, 2008, 1:20pm
I viewed Yahoo's official response from the V.P. of mail and it's clear that he doesn’t comprehend the problem or solution. Yahoo recommends lengthening passwords, which is good practice, but had nothing to do with this breach of Yahoo's system in the Palin situation.
What actually happened is a college student with no hacking ability was able to do social engineering on a public persona by exploiting weaknesses in Yahoo’s ‘password reset’ feature. He was able to use public
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