Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's impending resignation prompted MSNBC investigative reporter Bill Dedman to note that the public is still waiting on Alaska's government to produce e-mails from Palin's time in office before the November 2008 election.
Reading Dedman's story, I don't get the impression that either the state or Palin is fighting the release of the e-mails. (You could, however, interpret the state's initial cost estimate of $15 million -- that's $15 million -- to produce the records as a way of trying to keep them private. The latest estimate, Dedman reports, is somewhat less, at $5,000-$10,000).
But the state says it's just taking a lot of time to search for the e-mails and then have them looked at by lawyers to see if there's anything that legitimately needs to be withheld. (With due respect to the Alaska folks -- and obviously I haven't done original reporting on this -- you never know if the 'it's taking us time' claim is a delay tactic in hopes the requesters will forget they asked for this stuff.)
Meanwhile, since we've praised President Obama for his stand that the Freedom of Information Act actually means that government should err on the side of releasing records, it's only fair to point out that he's made some decisions lately that cut directly against his stand for public access.
Among them is the Obama administration's recent decision to withhold White House visitor records. Naturally, there is a legal argument for why they're doing this (agencies can always develop a legal strategy to withhold public records). In this case, Obama says the records are covered by a different law than FOIA, and as such don't have to be released.
But the point is, Obama is not holding himself to his own standard on government transparency. Why?
Reading Dedman's story, I don't get the impression that either the state or Palin is fighting the release of the e-mails. (You could, however, interpret the state's initial cost estimate of $15 million -- that's $15 million -- to produce the records as a way of trying to keep them private. The latest estimate, Dedman reports, is somewhat less, at $5,000-$10,000).
But the state says it's just taking a lot of time to search for the e-mails and then have them looked at by lawyers to see if there's anything that legitimately needs to be withheld. (With due respect to the Alaska folks -- and obviously I haven't done original reporting on this -- you never know if the 'it's taking us time' claim is a delay tactic in hopes the requesters will forget they asked for this stuff.)
Meanwhile, since we've praised President Obama for his stand that the Freedom of Information Act actually means that government should err on the side of releasing records, it's only fair to point out that he's made some decisions lately that cut directly against his stand for public access.
Among them is the Obama administration's recent decision to withhold White House visitor records. Naturally, there is a legal argument for why they're doing this (agencies can always develop a legal strategy to withhold public records). In this case, Obama says the records are covered by a different law than FOIA, and as such don't have to be released.
But the point is, Obama is not holding himself to his own standard on government transparency. Why?
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