Amid accusations of deleting e-mails classified as public records and instructing other administrative departments to follow suit, Gov. Mike Easley announced intentions to reexamine North Carolina's public electronic record regulations.
According to a Tuesday press release from the governor's office, Easley's senior assistant for government affairs, Franklin Freeman, will head a panel to review the e-mail retention policies, which have not been updated since 1993.
"Many of the uses of e-mail today were not even contemplated at that time," said Seth Effron, Easley's deputy press secretary. "That's why it's important to bring together people to look at those policies and see what needs to be updated."
The panel will address state e-mail systems and new forms of electronic text communication, such as Blackberry messaging.
Easley has been under close scrutiny since early March, when former spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Debbie Crane said that the governor's press office had instructed that agency, among others, to delete e-mails to the governor's office.
Soon after, Easley came under additional fire for deleting some of his own outgoing e-mails.
If true, both allegations are possible violations of the N.C. Public Records Law, which guarantees the public and the media access to most state and local government documents.
The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources is responsible for creating and enforcing retention schedules, which dictate how long documents must be kept.
According to the agency's records, e-mails may be deleted when their user decides they no longer have reference value.
That vague regulation is the crux of the problem because it allows for multiple interpretations of the law. Easley claims that the e-mails he deleted no longer held any value.
N.C. Press Association General Counsel Amanda Martin said documents such as fax cover sheets and hotel reservations are the type eligible for immediate disposal.
"There's nothing in the regulations set out by cultural resources that would suggest that it's just at the whim of the public official," she said.
Easley has also denied telling other offices to delete their own e-mails. Agencies' public information officers have corroborated his denials, Martin said.
"Even if his interpretation of the cultural resources instruction is accurate in regards to his records, I still don't think it gives him the authority to tell someone else when they have to get rid of their records," she said.
Public records laws are designed to ensure ethical government behavior and public understanding of government function.
"The law doesn't give you a right to demand answers to your questions. … It gives you a right to look at documents that might answer your questions," Martin said.
"If those documents are destroyed, then you lose one of the key tools you have to understand the operation of public business," she said.
Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.
