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It's criminal outrage only when Dems to it.
http://www.texastribune.org/2015/08/...tons-blessing/Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently added his voice to the Republican uproar over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, congratulating a GOP presidential hopeful for saying foreign countries know more about her electronic communications than the U.S. Congress does.
But Abbott, too, often usesa private email address for official government business, and in many years as a state elected official has often decided less is more when it comes to disclosing the communications. He has argued recently, for instance, that he is a "member of the public" in order to shield release of certain information, a tactic officially condoned last week by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In another case, Abbott calls the Texas governor’s office a “compe or” in the private marketplace in order to keep secret records related to taxpayer-funded incentives he’s offering private businesses — also with Paxton’s recently bestowed blessing.
The governor's many redactions and unilateral decisions to withhold information — along with all the exceptions written into disclosure laws each year by the Texas Legislature — are leaving the public less and less informed about the activities of the government they pay for, transparency experts said.
“The whole process has been harmful to the public’s right to know and harmful to the original intent of the Public Information Act,” said Jim Hemphill, who serves on the board of directors of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “Texas proudly was a pioneer in government transparency, and had a very broad and effective public information act, and I think lots of people are concerned that that’s just been chipped away bit by bit.”
Abbott’s office did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment Monday.
Paxton’s office pointed to the text of his legal determinations and declined to elaborate on the reasoning for them.
Earlier this summer, Abbott provided dozens of emails in response to a Texas Tribune request for electronic communications from the day he was sworn in until the end of the last legislative session.
The emails gave the public a rare glimpse into how Abbott runs the governor's office. Though publicly seen as aloof and tight-lipped, behind the scenes Abbott comes across as highly interested in what the media thinks about him and a bit more shrewd and skeptical than his optimistic, straight-laced image might suggest.
But the public remains in the dark about many of Abbott’s official dealings and major policy initiatives across state government — from public health to government contracting scandals.
For example, Abbott provided the Tribune with a thank-you email from law professor and former Judge Scott McCown, named to a task force to help clean up the government contracting mess at the Health and Human Services Commission. But responses from Abbott and his chief of staff, Daniel Hodge, were blacked out.
Likewise, a March 16 update to Hodge from former HHSC Commissioner Kyle Janek outlining the state’s readiness for an Ebola outbreak — coming on the heels of the state’s botched response to one last year — is so heavily redacted that it’s impossible to make heads or tails of it. HHSC is also seeking to withhold the email.
Perhaps the most vivid example of the heavy redactions came in an email from Abbott to Hodge and Deputy Chief of Staff Robert Allen. The subject line was “explanation of no bid contracting at mansion.” The rest of the long email was blacked out.
The State Preservation Board, which maintains and oversees the Texas Governor’s Mansion, also turned down a request for do ents related to any no bid contracting, or repairs and modifications at the mansion. The agency cited common law privacy, security concerns and broad protections of inter-agency discussions in its letter to the attorney general.
In certain cases the law allows agencies to withhold records that are clearly not public information, such as Social Security numbers or credit card information. Generally, though, agencies ask the state attorney general to decide what can and cannot be released.
In his objections to releasing various records to the Tribune, Abbott cited exceptions available under increasingly weak state transparency laws — from attorney client privilege to broad protections given to lawmaking deliberations — so it’s hard in many instances to tell which legal provisions triggered each redaction, or what types of records his office is refusing to provide.
The two objections drawing the most criticism from transparency advocates relate to Abbott’s email address and his successful attempt to avoid scrutiny of his use of taxpayer money to encourage business relocation or expansion in Texas.
On the email address issue, the Republican governor cites an exemption that was written into the law to protect the privacy of regular citizens who correspond with state and local government officials. Under that provision, authorities are forbidden from giving out “an email address of a member of the public that is provided for the purpose of communicating electronically with a governmental body.”
That’s the exemption Abbott cited when his office unilaterally chose to block out identifying information in the address fields on emails provided by the governor’s office. Without that information included — or some explanation from the governor’s office — it’s impossible to say for sure if it was the governor himself who promised a top donor some last-minute assistance on a lawsuit-restriction bill that was stuck in committee last May. Somebody in his office did, albeit unsuccessfully.
Several government transparency experts say the provision Abbott cites was never intended to protect the email addresses of public officials who are discussing state business inside the government.
“I can’t see how a governmental official’s email address that he or she uses to conduct official business can be redacted,” said Joe Larsen, an open government attorney who also serves on the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
Larsen said the email address, like the body of the email itself, becomes a public record the minute it’s used for public business.
“He’s not communicating with the government,” said former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire, a Democrat. “He’s communicating within the government — with other government officials. And that email address ought not be confidential.”
It's criminal outrage only when Dems to it.
disagree 100%. it's wrong regardless of party affiliation.
which party fabricates criminal outrage at national level and which party wimps out?
this isn't like Benghazi. laws might have been broken, and even if none were, what HRC did was colossally stupid.
she wasn't any more "stupid" than the Repug WH destroying Ms of emails, or any of the Repug mucky mucks, in office, who used private mail for official business.
Hillary's email Benghazi is as fabricated an outrage as first Benghazi.
Repugs know ABSOLUTELY that they have to destroy Hillary to have a chance of winning.
But they really ought to figure out how to destroy Trump, who is 100% unelectable.
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