Court: Officials can't use private email accounts to evade records laws

[w4rma]

Source: The Hill

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned a lower court decision in which judges dismissed claims from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative think tank that attempted to obtain correspondence from a top White House official through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said it did not need to search for or turn over records held by the head of the OSTP on a private email account as part of the open records request.

In addition to official White House email, John Holdren, the director of the OSTP, also sent and received emails from a domain at the Woods Hole Research Center.

Throughout the case, the government argued that “{d}ocuments on a nongovernmental email server are outside the possession or control of federal agencies, and thus beyond the scope of FOIA.”

Judge David Sentelle, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, disagreed with that reasoning and ordered the lower court to reconsider the case.

“If a department head can deprive the citizens of their right to know what his department is up to by the simple expedient of maintaining his departmental emails on an account in another domain, that purpose is hardly served,” Sentelle wrote.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/286490-court-officials-cant-use-private-email-accounts-to-evade

[burfman]

1. ironic ain't it?

Wonder what ole Tricky Dick would have to say on this current state of affairs?

[840high]

5. TD is laughing his arse off.

[giftedgirl77]

2. Oh look another division of the federal government

was using a private email server for official business. Thanks for pointing this out, good looking out.

[w4rma]

3. Yes, illegally - according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. (nt)

[giftedgirl77]

8. Lol, no that is not at all what they said.

The court ruled that the private email server was required to follow the same FOIA guidelines as a federal server would & that those documents would need to be reviewed & released in the same manner as HRC did during the witch hunt currently being conducted by Judicial Watch.

Once again a FOIA action is a civil matter so throwing out stupid terms like illegal is just silly. If you don't have the basic understanding of the difference between civil & criminal matters you should probably stop trying to pretend like you do.

[w4rma]

9. You're misinformed: There are potential civil violations *and* criminal violations of the FOIA.

In the case of "criminal violations" of the Act (Section 3 of the Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(i) limits these so-called penalties to misdemeanors), an officer or employee of an agency may be fined up to $5,000 for:

A. Knowingly and willfully disclosing individually identifiable information which is prohibited from such disclosure by the Act or by agency regulations; or

B. Willfully maintaining a system of records without having published a notice in the Federal Register of the existence of that system of records.

In addition, an individual may be fined up to $5,000 for knowingly and willfully requesting or gaining access to a record about an individual under false pretenses.

While the Act does not establish a time limit for prosecutions for violation of the criminal penalties provision of the Act, it does limit the bringing of civil action to two years from the date on which the cause of action arose. See 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552a(g)(5).
https://www.justice.gov/usam/eousa-resource-manual-142-judicial-remedies-and-penalties-violating-privacy-act

[pnwmom]

11. You should have mentioned the year this law came into effect. 2014.

Also, this concerns a case where the government wanted to withhold records because they were on a private server.

Interesting, but not relevant to anything else going on now.

[JTFrog]

13. Thank you for nipping that in the bud. n/t

[DCBob]

17. +1

[pangaia]

4. And if I get stopped for speeding,

I sure can't tell the cop, "Oh, I really didn't mean to speed, officer," and expect to get off.

[Elmergantry]

6. Sounds like you got it.

Laws are only for little people

[840high]

7. Just tell him every one else was speeding.

[SkeleTim1968]

10. That actually happens quite a lot.

[Skittles]

12. sure you can

and sometimes it works

[pnwmom]

15. If everyone on the road is traveling 10 mph above the limit,

then you are very unlikely to be stopped. But if you were, and you could show that you were traveling the same rate as everyone else, you could probably get off.

[pangaia]

16. Oh jeez !!

[LanternWaste]

19. It's a tough old world when the common occurrence doesn't validate your narrative.

It's a tough old world when the common occurrence doesn't validate your narrative.

[bemildred]

14. The manifest desire of "our government" to avoid our scrutiny, any bullshit will do. nt

[sofa king]

18. Woah!

This relates directly to the reason why Republicans were harping so hard on the Clinton email thing: they have to threaten her or they may find themselves liable for the destruction of millions of Bush-era emails that deliberately evaded the Presidential Records Act.

This case appears, at least on the surface, to open the door to the mass-prosecution of virtually every Bush appointee from 2001-2007 (they tried to cover their tracks by shaping up in the last year and a half).

Virtually every Republican who can complete a sentence is crap-panting right now.