I mean, this isn’t even controversial. It’s a warning right there when you log into a government computer that anything you do there is a public record. Note that confidential information has to go onto a separate confidential network that has different protections, but if it’s not confidential information, it’s a public record, and can be retrieved via FOIA request by *anyone*.
Let’s not forget how Wikileaks got Hillary Clinton’s emails: A FOIA request by a VICE reporter. Not by hacking her server. Nope. Just by scraping the emails off the State Department’s servers as they publically released them in response to Jason Leopold’s FOIA request. Jason Leopold isn’t law enforcement. Jason Leopold is just an ordinary citizen who files requests for public documents. And gets them, albeit sometimes having to sue to get them.
If you are a law enforcement officer, getting access to public documents is even easier. You show up with your badge and say you need them for law enforcement purposes. They hand you what you ask for. That’s it. Because they’re public documents. There isn’t a need to get a warrant to get access to information already owned by the public, especially information that could be FOIA’ed. About the only thing that requires additional paperwork is if there are privacy rights involved — e.g., if you’re requesting records that have been deemed “private” under various privacy acts, you’ll need to file paperwork saying that you need the information for law enforcement purposes. You still don’t need a warrant, because it’s still information the government already has — you only need a warrant for information the government *doesn’t* have. None of that privacy stuff even applies to emails sent to or from government computers. You explicitly waive all privacy rights when you log on to a government computer. It’s right there in the notice that you’re forced to sit through. Anybody can file a FOIA request and get those emails. Anybody. Doesn’t require a badge, or anything, just two working brain cells and a fax machine (yeah, most departments require FOIA requests to be faxed. Hilarious, huh?).
None of which is brain surgery, and anybody who has ever been a government employee knows all of this. Well, except the Trump administration. Which claims that Mueller’s request of emails sent by Trump administration officials on government computers was “improper”. Because they’re fucking morons. Duh. Look, it’s been over twenty years since I was last a government employee, and even *I* remember that anything I generate using government equipment is a public record! Fuck, now that Mueller has these emails, it’s time to get Jason Leopold on the case again, because I’m curious to see what’s in them. The only real question is whether Wikileaks (which appears to be an arm of the Russian government) will throw off their reputation as Russian stooges and publish the emails…
– Badtux the Not-moron Penguin
The weekends stories got a little grim, what with Faux setting up the next, big step of the Dictator Installation Protocol. Setting the stage for the police and the public to view the FBI as the Enemy reveals the intentions so clearly.
trump does a fair job of making things happen not with direct orders, but voicing his Imperial Wishes, then waiting for all levels of government and society to make them happen, regardless of legality or Constitutionality. It works far better than I would have guessed.
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King Trumpy the 1st: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Feeb?”
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A lot of the e-mails referenced in the reports I’ve read indicate they were from the transition. Doesn’t this mean these were not “government” e-mails?
Just wondering
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Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed:
Specifically, the General Services Administration (GSA) turned over emails written during the transition — the period between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day 2017 — and the Trump campaign is claiming in a letter that the decision to do so violated the law.
Officials with both the Special Counsel’s Office and GSA, however, pushed back against the Trump campaign lawyer’s claims in the hours after the letter was issued. …
The GSA — which is responsible under law for providing the presidential transition with office space, supplies like phones and laptops, and “ptt.gov” emails — was instructed after the transition had ended and President Trump had taken office to preserve records from the transition in connection with ongoing investigations.
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Colorado, dot gov = public record
That is all.
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Whatever it is if it is in a system of records operated for or owned by or paid for by the federal government and FOIA applies it is a public record. That includes classified national security information Tux. There are 9 exceptions that allow the federal government to not release a public record to a FOIA requestor. 5 USC 522 (b) is the statute and 1 through 9 are the exceptions. There is one for national security information properly classified (of course) down to 9. that makes information on oil, gas and other minerals deposits detected by federal government organizations non-FOIAble (as is the lingo in the community, I understand).
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