October 8th, 2008
Palin the reformer? In fact, a pattern of stonewalling and hiding
The Associated Press takes a hard look at Sarah Palin’s spotty – perhaps, hypocritical – record on open government and online transparency. She claims to be a reformer who will bring to Washington the government openness she says she established in Alaska. But the AP’s review of her record in Alaska found just the opposite – a pattern of withholding information and subverting openness systems.
Palin was elected nearly two years ago with splashy moves like publishing the state spending checkbook online. She kept a campaign pledge to allow the public to view online communications between state officials and potential bidders on a major gas pipeline, a contrast to her predecessor.
But there are many, many examples of Palin blocking out the light from Alaska’s operations.
- First and foremost, those Yahoo email addresses raise concerns about hiding state business from official email archives. Under Alaska law, any messages about official business are public records, but the state’s servers capture messages only if at least one party uses an Alaska state email address, according to Kevin Brooks, deputy commissioner of administration.
Palin has been careful to send copies of official e-mails to at least one employee’s government address so they would be retained, spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said She said Palin used a private e-mail account to avoid conducting personal business using state equipment.
But this breaks the system that’s in place to automatically archive the people’s business. It depends on the voluntary behavior of the governor to forward the email. It makes it unclear if all emails have been forwarded. To obtain, those emails, the attorney general or legislature has to subpoena the records from Yahoo. To the degree that she kept the existence of the Yahoo email address secret, the messages are unobtainable.
Also: It’s clear that that official messages were flowing to gov.palin@yahoo.com. As the Guardian reported in September:
Among the emails in Palin’s account were several from (GOV) addresses belonging to her aides, including a draft letter to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and several bearing “DPS”, the acronym for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
- The Palin-appointed attorney general ruled that personal communications on cell phones and Blackberries are exempt from Alaska’s Public Records Act – even though the public reimburses the officials for their phone bills.
- The state charges huge fees to provide documents under a state Freedom of Information Act.
When the AP asked for documents about nursing homes last June, state officials initially demanded $5,000 in fees. The fee was only waived three months later and the request satisfied after the AP printed a story on how state officials had effectively turned over questions about Palin’s record to members of the McCain political campaign.
Alaska now charges $960 per e-mail account for searches, plus additional fees for copying.
- Palin has stonewalled on TrooperGate, her family and subordinates have refused to testify, and she has sought to block the inquiry at every level.
“As soon as the heat comes on, the openness and transparency goes away,” said Anchorage Daily News editorial page editor Matt Zencey.
- Even the online state checkbook, which she promotes at campaign rallies as modeling the kind of openness she would bring to Washington falls far short of what Washington already does and what Alaskans might expect.
USASpending.gov offers details about federal contracts, loans, grants and insurance payments. Alaska’s Online Checkbook provides little detail beyond the vendor and amount spent, such as money spent on travel. Citizens must separately submit a formal public records request to learn who traveled, the destination and travel purpose.
- University of Alaska professor Rick Steiner attempted in vain to obtain reports by Alaska marine mammal experts that Palin deep-sized because she didn’t disagreed with federal designation of polar bears as a threatened species.
Steiner was told variously that he had to be more specific in his request, that the information didn’t exist, that he could find it on a state Web site, and finally that it was protected by a “deliberative process” provision under state law.
- Palin’s staff are withholding “swaths” of emails exchanged among Palin and top staff. News organizations have sought these emails under the Public Records Act but have so far been stymied.
