Easley sued over government e-mails By Matthew Eisley

http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1036973.html

Easley sued over government e-mails By Matthew Eisley, Staff writer

The News & Observer and nine other North Carolina news organizations sued Gov. Mike Easley today over his administration’s methodical deletion of official government e-mails, which they say violates the state’s Public Records Law.
The news media coalition accuses Easley’s administration of “the systematic deletion, destruction or concealment of e-mail messages sent from or received by the Governor’s Office” in violation of the law, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Wake County Superior Court.
The practice was “promulgated and implemented willfully and for the purpose of evading the Public Records Law and depriving the people of North Carolina of access to information and records,” the suit alleges.
The lawsuit also accuses the state Department of Cultural Resources, which oversees government records, of establishing an illegal policy permitting state government workers to delete e-mail messages that they decide are of “short-term value” or “when they no longer have reference value to the sender or receiver.”
The Public Records Law, which trumps administrative policies, does not allow the destruction of public records for those purposes, the media plaintiffs say.
The news organizations seek a judge’s ruling that Easley and his administration’s policies violated the Public Records Law. They want an order requiring the governor and his staff to follow the law going forward.
The media groups also seek reimbursement of their legal expenses in pursuing the lawsuit, as the law allows. The media organizations suing Easley are The N&O; The Charlotte Observer, The John Locke Foundation, a conservative public-policy organization that publishes the Carolina Journal; The Fayetteville Observer; Media General, which owns The Winston-Salem Journal, seven other North Carolina newspapers, and TV stations NBC-17 in Raleigh and WNCT in Greenville; Freedom Communications, which owns the Kinston Free Press and eight other North Carolina newspapers; The Wilson Daily Times; The Alamance News; The N.C. Press Association; and the national Associated Press.
matthew.eisley@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4538