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State of Alaska Prints Out Palin's E-Mails; Online Distribution 'Impractical'
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?
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.
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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.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.
It's almost as though somebody knows that they are legally obligated to release certain documents; but also knows that the law nowhere requires that they remove the gigantic stick from their ass before doing so(plus, public records laws often allow some sort of cost recovery fee, so printing them all out will allow you to stick it to those uppity 'journalists' and their 'transparency' to a much greater extent...)
.pst; but electronic and easily internet-transmissible at least). The bitter; but legally obligated, records handling person then presumably took over...
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
yet another red warning light that the revolution needs to happen and happen soon.
The revolution happened. We lost.