This Day In Snookland...Darn Those Wizards All To Heck...

...And The Private E-mails They Rode In On.

Why?

Because it is now absolutely clear that they cannot attempt to cover their tracks by destroying 'transitory' government E-mails while hiding behind 'private' E-Mail accounts to carry out so-called 'official' government business.

The following is from Mark Hume's interview with Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, published in the Globe last night:

Hume: It’s not in the report, but did it come up for discussion that government staff can use private e-mails to communicate and thereby avoid putting anything on the record?


Denham: Government agencies are required to follow the law when it comes to responding to FOI requests. My expectation is that government will follow the law, which would include the search of a private e-mail account for records that are responsive to the request.

So, if there are responsive records relating to government business and they happen to be in private e-mail, then the government is required to produce those records in response to an FOI request. … I think a lot of people, journalists and people in the public, don’t realize this, but e-mails that contain information about government mandate, government business, sent from a personal account, are subject to those FOI laws. And the determining factor is not the type of account, personal or government, but actually whether the e-mail relates to the performance of that employee’s or that contractor’s duties.



Now.

As reader EG pointed out in the comments to a previous thread, there may be compliance issues here. However, she also pointed out that anyone who has been working in/for government for any length of time actually knows, or should know, this.

So.

Either the Wizards just weren't paying attention...

Or, perhaps, they just thought they were above any and all real scrutiny when they were hatching their secret plans to funnel personal information collected by government into BC Liberal Party databases.

With respect to the latter possibility, the fact that the Premier's former deputy chief-of-staff, Ms. Kim Haakstad, did not mention the use of private E-mails by Premier's office staff to the Information Commissioner during the probe into the Boessenkool 'paperless' investigation certainly does nothing to rule it out.

There is another possibility, I suppose.

Which is that they got a little sloppy while attempting to follow the 'Dobell Doctrine'.

Ha!


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And my apologies to folks that have been sending me great BC Rail and NDIT stuff and, of course, the long-arc boomerangish-type connections between the two....I'll get to them...Promise...It's just a busy day today (we're setting up new microscope in the lab this morning and I've got a defense this afternoon)...Also owe paisley that pod...It's comin'.
Finally....Here's the really important thing...Our great and good friend Mary Mackie passed away one year ago this week...I'll be back with more to say about that, later, as well, including the van Dongen stuff in considerable detail (eg. what happened immediately AFTER Ms. Clark attended the June 18th 2003 Cabinet Mtg involving BC Rail) which I think would have made Mary and her Anon-O-Mice very happy indeed...


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