Wanna Read Haley Barbour's Emails? Pony up the bucks!

[n2doc]

Can you spare $60,000?

— By David Corn

Thu Mar. 24, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

Would you like to read the gubernatorial emails of Mississippi's Haley Barbour, a likely GOP presidential candidate? If so, it's gonna cost you. At least $53,460—and possibly closer to $200,000.

Several weeks ago, Mother Jones filed a request under the Mississippi's Public Records Act for all of Barbour's official emails, calendars, call logs, and travel records since the beginning of his tenure in January 2004. Amanda Jones, Barbour's counsel (who has referred to her boss as "one of the greatest governors that the State of Mississippi has ever had"), replied in a letter that the state could not process this request until it receives a check for nearly $60,000.

Jones notes that the state's IT department had determined that there are over 30,000 sent and received emails currently available in Barbour's account "generally spanning" 2006 through 2011. "This does not necessarily include all emails sent or received during that time period," she writes, presumably because some emails might have been deleted or lost. "Nor does it include," she adds, "any emails sent or received during 2004-2005," the first two years Barbour was governor.

more
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/haley-barbour-emails-mississippi

[rzemanfl]

1. We saw how that worked out in Wisconsin. I hope Mother Jones

sues those mothers.

[catgirl]

2. Ahhh, here we go

Lost emails, high cost to get the remaining ones... Well someone is doing their homework and found that
Barbour used tax payers money to fly himself, some family members (how Palinesque) and aides to D.C.
for some politicin". This guy is so corrupt that I really wish he would run for the big job in 2012. He and
the other nutbags will ultimately lose the race AND their current seats after the press is through with them.

[Canuckistanian]

3. WTF? 832 hrs of work to retrieve emails?

"Yet would it really require 832 hours of IT work to dig up Barbour's emails? David Gewirtz, a nationally recognized expert on email and other IT matters, says that so much time would be necessary only if the governor's office was using an antiquated system and storing the material in "some warehouse somewhere—think the Indiana Jones warehouse." He adds, "The idea that it will take 832 hours over a span of 20 weeks is ludicrous, unless literally they're trying to get it off the bottom of the ocean." And after reviewing a technical description of the state's email system provided to Mother Jones by Barbour's office, Gewirtz said in an email, "Bottom line: these guys clearly don't want to share and are putting up a lot of smoke to keep you out. So far, I'm not seeing anything particularly daunting or difficult technically....The system they use is essentially designed to do what you're asking for. If they can't meet that design spec, either they've been hiring incredibly incompetent people (doubtful) or grasping for whatever roadblocks they can find."

[Rage for Order]

4. It's a hard balance to acheive

Obviously it costs money to gather and produce all of a governor's emails, calendars call logs, and travel records for 6 + years. A request that broad in scope is going to require a significant amount of resources. Is Mother Jones looking for something specific, or are they just fishing for anything that might sound interesting? $60,000 sounds like a lot of money, but how much does Mother Jones stand to make if they break a story that generates enough interest to sell 500,000 magazines and boosts the advertising rates for that issue and beyond? I'm sure part of it is Barbour's office obstructing, but part of it is the legitimate cost of providing these records. How much would it be if each email/call log/calendar/travel record was on one sheet of paper and they charged $0.50 per page? It seems like that could easily approach $60,000. I see merit in both MJ's and the governor's positions.