Gov. Perry, please get back on the program

Gov. Rick Perry is generally considered to be a friend of the transparency movement, but is working to shield his staff’s emails from public view by continuing a policy of deleting emails after 7 days. Open records advocates asked the Travis County district attorney to place an injunction on behalf of Wisconsin resident John Washburn, after he created a computer program to request all email traffic from Gov. Perry’s staff. Texas law states the records cannot be destroyed once they are requested.

The Dallas Morning News reports that Perry has directed his staff to print and store all government-related emails, but Freedom of Information Foundation Texas director Joseph Larsen believe not all emails will be saved.

“There’s simply no way that all the e-mails are being printed and filed,” Mr. Larsen said. “In addition to your daily work activity, you have to make sure you’re printing out your e-mails so that it doesn’t get deleted.”

Mr. Larsen also noted that Texas law requires electronic information to be kept electronically for the full retention period. “It’s easier to search. It’s cheaper to store. And you don’t use an additional resource by having to print it out and put it in a file,” he said.

The Travis County DA refused to halt the governor’s policy. Larsen has asked Attorney General Greg Abbott to take action on the matter.

The continuation of this policy confirms two things:
1. Gov. Perry feels his office is above the Texas Public Information Act, and
2. Workers are apparently spending government time on personal emails from the office, thereby wasting taxpayer dollars. (If they weren’t, the policy would be to print all emails, right?)

Governor Perry, please get back on the transparency bandwagon and preserve the right of citizens to find out what is happening in their government.