« Ind. Courts - "Announcement Of Strategic Plan For Indiana Judicial Branch" [Updated] | Main | Law - "College Stars Run for Cover From Fans’ Cameras " »

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Law - More on: Maintaining governmental emails in Boston and elsewhere

Updating this ILB entry from Sept. 15, quoting a Boston Globe story about a high level city employee who routinely deleted his emails, apparently much has gone on since that story, today the Globe's Jonathan Saltzman reports under the headline "Forensics firm will scour hard drive: Specialists say retrieval likely for city’s data." The story begins:

Computer forensics specialists will probably be able to retrieve at least some of the e-mails deleted, in an apparent violation of state public records law, by the top policy aide to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, according to several specialists who provide such services.

Yesterday, responding to an order by Secretary of State William F. Galvin, the city hired a computer forensics firm, StoneTurn Group, to scour City Hall computers for the missing e-mail of Michael J. Kineavy, Menino’s chief of policy and planning. The issue came to light after the Globe filed a public records request for the messages.

It is possible that recovering the data might prove a challenge, specialists said, because Kineavy apparently dragged e-mail into his trash folder and then emptied the folder each day before the city’s computer system made an automatic backup at midnight. But much, if not all, of the e-mails are probably somewhere on Kineavy’s hard drive, which the city, under Galvin’s orders, seized and secured yesterday.

“If it’s only been going on for a few years, I would be surprised if all of it isn’t called back,’’ said Rob Fitzgerald, chief executive of the Lorenzi Group, a Topsfield-based provider of digital forensic services.

Nonetheless, Fitzgerald said, the routine deletions of e-mails by Kineavy was disturbing because state public records law requires municipal employees to save electronic correspondence for at least two years, even if the contents are of “no informational or evidential value.’’

Fitzgerald, whose company has been hired by cities and towns investigating employees for misusing computers, said municipal workers in Massachusetts too often flout the law about saving digital documents. He said that if Kineavy routinely deleted e-mails, it was probable that other City Hall workers were doing the same.

A Globe story yesterday reported:
Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s administration was warned by a state judge late last year that city employees were deleting e-mails in apparent violation of state public records law, but city officials failed to halt the practice.

The judge’s order, made in a lawsuit against the Boston Redevelopment Authority, shows that the problem of records destruction at City Hall has extended well beyond Menino’s closest aide, Michael J. Kineavy, whose e-mails the Globe sought through a public records request this summer.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 17, 2009 01:00 PM
Posted to General Law Related