State of Alaska Prints Out Palin's E-Mails; Online Distribution 'Impractical' 516
ZipK writes "Three years after numerous citizens and news organizations requested the release of Sarah Palin's gubernatorial e-mails, the State of Alaska is finally making ready to make them available. In print. In Juneau. News organizations must fly or sail to Juneau and pick up the 24,000 page disclosure in person. The state claims it impractical to release the original electronic versions of the e-mails, so the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Mother Jones, ProPublica and MSNBC each plan to turn some or all of the printouts back into searchable, easily distributed electronic data. Thanks, Alaska." Where's WikiLeaks North?
WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is total bullshit. Even the most vendor locked email client has export options (I'm looking at you Outlook). Even then, it's trivial to use a print-to-PDF program to keep everything electronic.
This stinks to high heaven and me thinks this means there's something in there people don't want to get out. Reporters are going to have a field day.
Striesand Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
The state claims it impractical to release the original electronic versions of the e-mails
That's pretty good evidence of malfeasance all of it's own.
At least the journos now know there'll be a reason to collect and analyse all of those US Letter pages...
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's even more worrying is that there will be no way to prove anything was redacted or censored, or is or isn't the original unedited email. They will just release 25,000 pages of mundane drivel for journalists to pore through for months while she gets elected, but the really bad stuff was simply <SHIFT>> <DELETE> 'd before printing.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
if you or I tried to pull this shit, we'd wind up in jail for obstruction of justice.
the fact that she gets away with this means our system is broken. yet another red warning light that the revolution needs to happen and happen soon.
How do we handle government lies like this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think just about EVERY person on Slashdot will disagree with the idea that print is easier than electronic. This is simply a lie from the state government. Which citizen's group do I send money to for the purpose of pushing legislation that requires the government is honest to the people. Lies like this should be actionable.
Re:It's pretty simple (Score:2, Insightful)
They're electronic mail. E-mail. They are in electronic form to begin with. The state is already online or else e-mail wouldn't be in use. WTF is the difficulty here? What's the good, solid, gee-golly-just-no-way-around-it reason for this?
Is this like those Baby Boomer MBA managers who, despite sitting at a decent computer workstation, still insist on having their secretary print out each of their memos and e-mails? For no good reason except they just really hate trees or something?
(Note, any "eyestrain" arguments can be answered with two words: LCD panels. At least if you know anything about how they differ from a CRT. If you don't, why the hell are you commenting about them?)
Re:WTF? (Score:1, Insightful)
yet another red warning light that the revolution needs to happen and happen soon.
And yet you will do absolutely nothing to make it happen besides bitching and moaning and possibly posting some tired Thomas Jefferson quotes. You just want to sit back and play armchair general from your parent's basement like a pansy.
Re:It's pretty simple (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm strongly suspecting that, unless s/he happens to be a kool-aid drinking Palinista, the relevant IT person probably yawned and had the stuff packaged up in 20 minutes(probably in an Outlook 2003
Re:nice environmentally-concious idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I was with you until the pointless misogyny at the end of your post.
Not that unreasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
The slashdot crowd of course is going to lambast this decision. But if you take time to think about it rather than reply with a knee-jerk reaction, it really isn't that unreasonable.
What is required to host thousands of emails online?
- A web server. Presumably they have one of these, but is it just a simple website at some hosting company and not very easy to configure or mass-upload to, and perhaps with a limited storage quota? Is it their same server they had in the late 90's that might choke on 24,000 files in one directory?
- How do you convert the emails to individual files which can be hosted? Convert to PDF perhaps? File -> Save As? Either way, it is going to be very labor intensive. Perhaps the email system is old enough that it is even more difficult and time consuming?
- How long do you have to store the online files? Every day they store the files on the server costs them extra $. And every person who downloads the files costs them extra $.
- What type of technical knowledge is required to put all of the pieces together? To a slashdotter it might seem trivial, but a town of 30,000 reachable only by water and air is not the type of place who will employ public servants with the technical expertise of a slashdotter. Their IT staff might consist of a guy who knows how to replace a monitor and reformat Windows XP. They may outsource all of the rest of their IT functions at an hourly cost to the state. All of these email requests are probably going to some poor secretary who has a hard time opening her own email.
- Who should have access? IANAL, but this is a foia request so I presume anybody in America, but is Alaska required to make government documents readily available to the governments of North Korea and Iran? If not, who is going to setup the security to prevent unauthorized access?
Remember, this is a foia request which Alaska has to respond to, but they have no incentive to make it easy at their own taxpayer's expense. It is far cheaper and easier for a small town government office to tell people to come and get the information than it is for them to make it easily accessible over the internet.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
yet another red warning light that the revolution needs to happen and happen soon.
The revolution happened. We lost.
Re:How do we handle government lies like this? (Score:5, Insightful)
How do we handle government lies like this?
Simple. You sue the state in court, just as if they had declined the FOIA requests outright. That's what the judicial branch is for- limiting the ability of the state to abuse its power.
Unless the judges there are completely corrupt, they would force at least a reasonable argument about why the state made the decisions to go with paper and in-person delivery (because they'd be ruled against with this idiotic claim), if not force the governor to release everything digitally.
Between the major newspapers and cable news outlets, the cost and effort would be minimal. All we need is competent journalism, which includes knowing the difference between things that really matter and the bullcrap which comprises most Palin-related "news".
...Which citizen's group do I send money to for the purpose of pushing legislation that requires the government is honest to the people. Lies like this should be actionable.
The legislation is already there. FOIA and related disclosure laws are thankfully in-place, though perhaps not as tough as we citizens would like. Trying to get better versions of the legislation is IMO a waste of time. Rather, I'd check out various campaign-reform groups, such as Lawrence Lessig's [fixcongressfirst.org], and perhaps third-party/independent candidates.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
What did Palin "get away" with here? The state of Alaska is doing this, Sarah Palin doesn't have Bristol and Willow sitting there printing things out on the fucking family inkjet while watching Dancing with the Stars reruns.
From the article:
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just a slap to the face of the papers that are trying to embarrass Palin. Clearly, whether there's something there or not, being printed is not going to stop the papers from scavenging through it to find whatever they can.
Or inviting their readers to help them:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/help-analyze-the-palin-emails/2011/06/08/AGZAaHNH_blog.html [washingtonpost.com]
It's a witch hunt, plain and simple. They're looking for any type of dirt they can find. And this is why Palin isn't going to run for President. She's far more powerful as a regular person that gives her opinion about what's going on.
If Palin were the idiot that everyone makes her out to be, then why does everyone get their panties in such a bind every time she says anything about anything? You ignore the morons in Hollywood and at work when they do really stupid things (upskirt photos, getting hauled into court yet again for drunk driving, etc), but you freak out when the former Governor of Alaska says something questionable.
Re:It's pretty simple (Score:5, Insightful)
running around and making fools of the media.
Is that what she's doing? I thought she was making fools of herself, her family, and her followers.
And, of course, as a conservative (NON-Republican), I see this as just another case of Big Government ignoring the spirit of the law and not doing the will of the people. Let me add this little bit of "fuck you, voters!" to the list of reasons why none of these people can be trusted.
And the fact that your buddies Cain, Perry, and Bachman are too terrified to criticize this move speaks volumes for their principles and priorities.
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)
They're looking for any type of dirt they can find.
This happens with every candidate of any party. See also Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner.
And this is why Palin isn't going to run for President. She's far more powerful wealthy as a regular person
Fixed that for you.
If Palin were the idiot that everyone makes her out to be, then why does everyone the media get their panties in such a bind every time she says anything about anything?
FTFY again. And I do not know why the media follows here. There is no there there. Please ask them why they do it. If I never saw Palin's name in a "news" story again I would be very happy.
Re:It's pretty simple (Score:4, Insightful)
They're public records. EVERYONE has business inquiring into this stuff.
How much are they hiding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's pretty simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Good looking? Perhaps.
Intelligent? Anything but.
Demonstrated ability to run a government? She ran:
* A state with the population of a mid-sized urban area,
* Where the residents pay no taxes and in fact are paid by the state to live there,
* For less than two years.
Cake, meet walk.