Activist blocks purges of Perry
e-mail
Nov. 10, 2007
Associated Press
AUSTIN — After learning that Gov. Rick
Perry has his staff destroy e-mail
records after seven days, a political
activist decided this week to do what he
can to stop the practice.
John
Washburn, a Milwaukee-based software
consultant, programmed his computer to
automatically send out two requests a
week for all government e-mail generated
by Perry staffers. Under state law,
records aren't supposed to be destroyed
once somebody has asked for them.
"I've kind of put a stick in the
spokes of the wheel," he said.
"The whole point of public records is
to make those ongoing transactions and
government policy decisions more
transparent to the public. If they're
gone, by definition, that's about as
opaque as it gets," he told the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram.
Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody told
The Associated Press on Saturday that
Perry didn't initiate the e-mail policy,
which was also in place under former
Gov. George W. Bush.
"We continued the policy when Gov.
Perry took office," she said.
On Friday, Moody said the governor's
office will comply with Washburn's
request, which prompted officials to
deactivate the automatic destruction of
the records.
"That was disabled (Thursday)," Moody
said. The governor's office is "holding
all e-mail correspondence and not wiping
clean the server after seven days."
She said it's typically up to each
employee of the governor's office to set
aside and save e-mails that they believe
should be preserved as public records.
Otherwise, they're automatically purged.
"We believe our staff is acting
lawfully and in good faith," said Moody,
who added that Perry's office receives a
"high volume" of e-mail and doesn't have
the server space to keep them forever.