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Moreland 2 Electric Boogaloo: Cuomo Rethinking State's 90-Day Email Purges
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 13, 2015
Modified Mar 13, 2015
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NY Governor's Office
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 13, 2015
Modified Mar 13, 2015
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Last month, it was revealed that Governor Andrew Cuomo's office and all state agencies delete internal emails after 90 days and have been doing so since 2013. Now Cuomo wants to meet with the Legislature, Comptroller and Attorney General to figure out how to manage emails in the age of toothless ethics reform.
According to the Times Union, "Cuomo's office has defended the new system, which in 2013 was announced as the new standard for all state agencies under the governor's control. That process concluded last month with the migration to a new uniform email system called Office365, prompting a new outcry from good-government groups and editorial boards." It's always Microsoft's problem!
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office is now defying Cuomo's "dump your email" policy by retaining emails (and giving Cuomo an F-U at the same!). And state legislators introduced bills to "preserve emails" for at least seven years (you know, long enough to run out a FOIL request).
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Mr. Cuomo, on the other hand, doesn’t use any email for government purposes, according to his aides, and he has never set up an executive-chamber email account. Instead, he relies on PIN messages—a BlackBerry-specific form of messaging that isn’t recorded on government servers—as well as text messages and, of course, phone calls.
While Mr. Cuomo’s staff use government email, some of his top aides regularly delete the entire contents of their inboxes, according to people familiar with the practice. According to another person familiar with the matter, senior administration officials have periodically verbally encouraged staffers to delete conversation threads as soon as they deem them completed.
Cuomo's office called the WSJ's claims "baseless and vague rumors."
Forget it, Jake—it's just Albany. Or Chappaqua.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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