Alaska Rules on Sarah Palin's Email Use

The state Supreme Court has ruled that any electronic communication use by state elected officials is subject to public-records laws and must be preserved, whether those communications are sent using government issued or personal accounts. The ruling stems from ex-Governer Palin's use of personal accounts to conduct state business, and her refusal to make the emails she sent with those accounts publicly available. From the NBC blog post:

All paper or electronic messages regarding state business must be preserved and made available for public review, in accordance with state law, "and that duty cannot be extinguished by a public official's unreviewable decision simply not to preserve them," the court said.

Current Governor Sean Parnell seems to think this will allow his administration to continue to use text messages to avoid public information requests:

A spokeswoman for Parnell said that his administration viewed the court's ruling as "favorable."
"Text messages are, by their nature, transitory, so they wouldn't be appropriate for preservation or constitute public records," Parnell's press secretary, Sharon Leighow, told Reuters in an emailed statement.

image: digiphile.wordpress.com