Of course, before electronic communication, federal records were routinely filtered by individuals, who sorted their papers before handing over boxes to archivists. (Gawker Media and The Associated Press have announced they are suing to have a Clinton spokesman's and Clinton's emails released.)Ĭlinton was the filter for what was relevant to work and what was not. "I took the unprecedented step of asking that the State Department make all my work-related emails public for everyone to see," Clinton said at her news conference on the emails last month. In Clinton's case, she says she turned over some 30,000 relevant emails, totaling 55,000 pages, and wants those all made public. The process can be a cumbersome one, and depending on the sensitivity of the information, much of the information may be redacted. Journalists often use the law to procure public documents. It should be State Department employees who are bound by duty to the public interest."įOIA - You Can't Always Get What You WantįOIA is intended to "foster democracy by ensuring public access to agency records and information" in a timely manner. "The final arbiter of what's public or what's turned over to Congress shouldn't be private staff working for Hillary Clinton. Wonderlich also found it ethically challenged, if not legally, for Clinton and her team to have been the filter for her emails: "ur expectations for public service are public servants use their official email accounts." The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich explained to Horsley: Watchdog groups conceded that she may not have violated the text of the law, but they argue she violated the spirit of it. The law was amended in late 2014 to require that personal emails be transferred to government servers within 20 days. Federal law allows government officials to use personal email so long as relevant documents are preserved for history." "A State Department spokeswoman says Hillary Clinton did not break any rules by relying solely on her personal email account. She said she did not want to carry around two mobile devices, though she acknowledged it "might have been smarter" to have done so.Īddressing the Federal Records Act, NPR's Scott Horsley reported last month on the question of whether Clinton's exclusive reliance on a private email account violated it. The server has been wiped clean, according to the Republican-led Benghazi committee.Īt a news conference last month, she cited "convenience" as the reason. Instead, she used a private email account and kept all of her emails on a private server in her home. "Knowingly" removing or housing classified information at an "unauthorized location" is subject to a fine or a year in prison.Ĭlinton did not use an official government email account while serving as the country's top diplomat.
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