Treat e-mails the same

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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Forget eating or shredding or burning a document - all it takes to interrupt a paper trail in the 21st Century is a quick tap of the “delete” key.

That fact's not been lost on some public officials looking to shield their public business from public view.

Although e-mail communication is considered a matter of public record under Iowa law, there is no corresponding requirement that public entities preserve and archive those public documents. There are no standards governing which, whether and how long e-mails are retained.

But e-mails sent and received by public employees, including government leaders, involving government or public business are an important record of public business and debate. Detailed e-mail conversations and documents should be protected and retained for public openness.

It's a matter of upholding the principle of transparent and open government - regardless of the medium through which the information is transmitted.

Some public officials rightly treat e-mail communication as an important record, but there are many more examples of those who don't.

In some cases, officials suggest that recipients delete sensitive e-mail conversations in order to avoid public scrutiny. In many more instances, public documents and messages are deleted as a matter of routine.

The issue is receiving some attention after the University of Iowa released more than 100 pages of e-mails relating to the UI's response to the Jan. 24 hospitalization of 13 Hawkeye football players following a strenuous workout.

In one of those e-mails, Rick Klatt, University of Iowa associate athletics director, directed his colleagues to “delete this e-mail after reading it.”

We don't buy the argument that archiving and storing public e-mails would be too cumbersome and costly. Digital storage today is relatively cheap and easily expandable - and getting more so all the time.

The Iowa Board of Regents, after facing criticism several years ago for the volume and quality of information Regents were sharing by e-mail during the search for a new UI president, now posts all e-mail to Regents on the board's website.

Gov. Terry Branstad's office recently told a Gazette reporter the governor's e-mail is archived and kept “forever”.

“It requires a significant amount of storage, but we want to have those for the sake of transparency,” spokesman Tim Albrecht said.

And when compared to the time and expense public bodies exert in order to preserve public paper documents, not doing the same for e-mail is little more than an excuse.

If public officials have a legitimate need to discuss something confidentially, they can pick up the phone.

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