In a 5-0 decision, justices reversed a lower court judge’s ruling that documents stored on private accounts are not subject to public records requests. The high court said that its decision applied only to documents that meet the legal definition under the public records act, not private correspondence.
“The notion that state employees have a privacy interest in records that are by law public records — those produced or acquired in the course of agency business — is incongruous,” Justice Beth Robinson said in the 20-page decision.
In June 2016, Vermont Republican Party vice chair Brady Toensing sued then-attorney general Bill Sorrell, a Democrat, after he refused to search his personal accounts and hand over records that might be pertinent to Toensing’s request. Sorrell’s successor, Attorney General T.J. Donovan, defended the office as the case continued.
Citing privacy concerns, Superior Court Judge Robert Mello sided with the Attorney General’s Office in February. However, the judge raised the “seriously, and, frankly, disturbing concern” that his ruling would allow public officials to circumvent the public records act by conducting public business on their personal accounts.
Toensing, a Charlotte attorney, appealed the decision to the high court. Several news organizations, including Seven Days, filed a brief in support of his case.
The Vermont Press Association on Friday called the ruling “a victory for open government.”
“The decision reiterates the public’s long-held understanding that government business conducted by government officials is subject to the requirements of the Public Records Act, regardless of whether that business was conducted on a public or private system,” said VPA president Adam Silverman, an editor at the Burlington Free Press. “In other words, and what the Supreme Court unanimously concluded, is: What matters is the work itself, not where the government official did the work.”
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Let the shredding and Hillaryesque Bleach-Bitting begin
So, widespread search of all state employees private devices has now been sanctioned by Beth Robinson and the rest of the Supreme Court. Any idiot knows that the artificial limitations put on such searches will be ignored and that the vast majority of state employees will not be able to afford to hire legal representation to fight such search demands. Apparently the Vermont Supreme Court believes that state employees are deserving of no personal privacy. Perfect. Everyone wants total transparency in state government? Good. Then the state Supreme Court needs to rule that all employees working with anything that has been seen as confidential information now have no obligation to keep such information confidential and that in the legal arena, no records may be deemed privileged. This will of course put the state at a huge disadvantage but hey, al these idiotic transparency advocates will get what they want, right?
“So, widespread search of all state employees private devices has now been sanctioned by Beth Robinson and the rest of the Supreme Court.”
Please calm yourself. That’s not what the decision says, and this article summarizing the decision doesn’t say that either. The decision doesn’t authorize any “widespread searches” of government employees’ private devices. All it says is: 1) that government agencies should train their employees that they should not have public records on private accounts; and 2) that if a government agency receives a public records request implicating specific employees, the agency must ask those employees either to assure that they don’t use private email for public business, or to look for any public records on his or her private email accounts. The only person who needs to do the search is the employee himself. And the only thing he is required to search for is public records. He’s not even required to sign an affidavit.
Why is this a bad thing? Don’t you agree that public officials and employees should not be using private email to discuss things that fall under their government responsibilities? Frankly, I don’t think this affects the average government employee at all. They’re not the ones who are using private email to discuss public issues and make public policy and conduct government business. It’s the elected officials and agency heads and commissioners, etc., who are using private email to hide their doings from public scrutiny.