Wisconsin GOP demands emails from professor who blogged about ALEC

[Newsjock]

http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/24/open-records-attack-on-academic-freedom
By Prof. William Cronon

Here’s the headline: the Wisconsin Republican Party has issued an Open Records Law request for access to my emails since January 1 in response to a blog entry I posted on March 15 concerning the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in influencing recent legislation in this state and across the country. I find this a disturbing development, and hope readers will bear with me as I explain the strange circumstances in which I find myself as a result.

Last week was quite a roller coaster for me. I spent the weekend of March 12-13 drafting an op-ed for the New York Times (published on March 22, and available at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/opinion/22cronon.html) about the several ways in which I believe that Scott Walker and the current leadership of the Republican Party in Wisconsin have departed not just from the longstanding culture of civility and good government in this state, but in fact from important traditions of their own party. In the course of writing that op-ed, I did some research trying to figure out where the current wave of conservative legislation in Wisconsin and elsewhere might be coming from.

As a result, last Tuesday night, March 15, I launched my first-ever entry for a blog I had long been planning on the theme of “Scholar as Citizen,” about how thoughtful scholarship can contribute to better understandings of issues and debates in the public realm. In my first blog entry, I published a study guide exploring the question “Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere?” I by no means had all the answers to this question, but I thought I had found enough useful leads that it was worth sharing them to help others investigate the American Legislative Exchange Council further. So I posted the link for the blog on Facebook and Twitter, sat back, and hoped that viral communication would bring the blog to people who might find it useful.

... What I did not anticipate—though I guess I should have seen it coming, given everything else that has happened in Wisconsin over the past couple months—was the communication that the University of Wisconsin-Madison received on Thursday afternoon, March 17—less than two days after I posted my blog—formally requesting under the state’s Open Records Law copies of all emails sent from or received by my University of Wisconsin—Madison email address pertaining to matters raised in my blog.

******************************************

From: Stephan Thompson
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 2:37 PM
To: Dowling, John
Subject: Open Records Request

Dear Mr. Dowling,

Under Wisconsin open records law, we are requesting copies of the following items:

Copies of all emails into and out of Prof. William Cronon’s state email account from January 1, 2011 to present which reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell.

We are making this request under Chapter 19.32 of the Wisconsin state statutes, through the Open Records law. Specifically, we would like to cite the following section of Wis. Stat. 19.32 (2) that defines a public record as “anything recorded or preserved that has been created or is being kept by the agency. This includes tapes, films, charts, photographs, computer printouts, etc.”

Thank you for your prompt attention, and please make us aware of any costs in advance of preparation of this request.

Sincerely,

Stephan Thompson

Republican Party of Wisconsin

608-257-4765

******************************************

[murielm99]

1. Holy shit. n/t

[lutefisk]

2. After the UW passes into Republican control, these will seem like the good old days

It's like history repeating itself...

[glinda]

3. For the person who tried to post about ALEC before, I REC big time!

[highplainsdem]

15. Did you mean me, since I've been posting about ALEC?

[glinda]

29. Yes you.

[highplainsdem]

30. Thanks for explaining!

:hi:

[glinda]

51. ...

:hi:

[midnight]

52. If you wouldn't mind linking me to your explanation of Alec I would love to read it...

[highplainsdem]

56. Here's the link -- and much of the info about ALEC is in the replies and the links they

contain:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

I'm still amazed by how much ALEC has done (and how much harm it's done) while staying under the radar. I hope that will change now, with the attention Professor Cronon's blog post received (and the extra publicity the GOP created by going after him with that open-records request).

[Tx4obama]

4. Contact the WI Dem-14 and tell them about this. n/t

[guruoo]

5. k&r

[midnight]

6. I'm not sure I understand if this is an accurate use of the open records law?

[sense]

7. I'm not sure it is either.

I wouldn't comply. What "agency" are they talking about?

[Very_Boring_Name]

8. The agency is the American Legislative Exchange Council

However, since he seems to be a private citizen simply blogging about ALEC, and does not work for it or is associated to it in any way, this definately will not hold up.

[Maine_Nurse]

11. Well...he apparently used a state-owned email address so...

that is probably the loophole that allows them to access the info. State workers here, whether at the university or DMV, have no expectation of privacy in any communications like that. I hope he and the school fight it, but I doubt they'll win.

[SoCalDem]

23. I keep wondering why people still use "employer" email/computers

when laptops are so cheap now.. :(

[truebrit71]

26. But his blog is published separately no? This is a fishing expedition...

...to see if he did any research on "company time" as a way perhaps to try and force him out...

I think they should fight, and I think that they will win..especially in the court of public opinion..

[Scuba]

53. This is exactly the issue. It will be interesting to see...

...what the professor's UW email account contains. I'll bet there isn't some colleague two states away suggesting he fake an attack on himself.

[pacalo]

55. I'm not sure that the university will comply, given that academic e-mails have privacy issues.

[pacalo]

54. He has a personal computer as well as his work computer in his office.

He explains on his blog that he uses his personal computer for e-mailing family/friends.

And he has a lengthy discussion about why the GOP's request for his e-mail doesn't reflect the intentions of the FOIA.

It's a very good read & I highly recommend Newsjock's links. The professor is brilliant, & again, the GOP in Wisconsin picked the wrong guy to pick an issue with. He's brilliant & seems be be of high moral character.

[Recursion]

49. U of WI servers and email address (nt)

[Skip_In_Boulder]

9. What can you say, Republicans are agressive

they play hardball and one of their primary plays is intimidating people. They are at critical mass in implementing their authoritarian agenda so it is reasonable to assume that they will play very aggressively. I get the feeling that some people think that WI is just going to waltz through these recall proceedings and the Republicans are just going to give up and go away. That's not how they work.

[999998th word]

10. I read that and I learned a lot from it.Thank you,we need to see this stuff.

[Ellipsis]

12. Steve Cronin is Cool!!! I've heard him on NPR... Boy did they pick the wrong prof. to fuck with.

He tears them open on his blog... love it, love it, love it.

[highplainsdem]

13. Wow, they really don't like people knowing about ALEC, do they? I'll have to keep posting about it.

:)

I'm sorry they're harassing Professor Cronon, though.

[eShirl]

20. + infinity !

[highplainsdem]

37. Thanks! We should all try to make sure voters know what ALEC is doing.

[slay]

14. Walker is a megalomaniac out of control, abusing his power, and targeting anyone who questions him

It may be time for Wisconsin to have a general strike. And I don't just mean public employees - I mean every fucking person in the state. Something has got to give. At this rate Wisconsin will be devastated way before they can recall that piece of shit Walker. This guy acts like he's King of Wisconsin, not governor. I've never seen such contempt for THE PEOPLE of their own states as republican governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and Michigan this year. I don't live in any of those states, but if I did, I would be looking for any legal option or action I could take against these fuckers! :mad: :grr:

[6000eliot]

16. The question is why all these people didn't see this coming when they elected the scumbag

in the first place.

[slay]

18. It's like Kang and Kodos said: "It's a two-party system, you have to vote for one of us"

on that halloween ep of The Simpsons. But I do get your point - IMO the Dem is almost always the lesser of two evils. And you know, Americans ain't known to be all that informed when it comes to politics. :facepalm:

Vid Clip from that Simpson's ep: http://www.flickr.com/photos/giddygirlie/2987270819/

[tcaudilllg]

19. Because Republicans suck at seeing the flaws in each other. n/t

[pacalo]

57. Knowing that ALEC is orchestrating these policies & has probably included

a course of action for these governors to follow to deal with contention, I can now understand why these governors are so emboldened & arrogant. There's probably lots of money & expensive lawyers behind ALEC, but we can only speculate since it's a secretive organization that fears any light of day. A private person would be required to pay $1,000 to join their mailing list, but they wouldn't necessarily allow someone willing to pay the fee to join.

[Raksha]

17. K & R

[HereSince1628]

21. I don't know why he wouldn't have known this.

Computer accounts and computers on faculty desks are provided for institutional business. Appropriate faculty activity generally falls into 3 areas Teaching, Research, and Community Service. If he can defend his use of his account and equipment (and btw, his time) he should be ok.

I've seen the attempt to terrorize faculty over the use of their computer accounts before during a failed attempt to get union representation at Carroll College, also in Wisconsin.

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. +1

[pacalo]

58. He has his own computer at work for personal e-mails. And because e-mails originating

from his university-provided computer includes conversations with students about their grades, plus academic conversations with his colleagues, it wouldn't be surprising if the university refused to comply with the GOP's McCarthyistic demand -- due to privacy issues.

[Historic NY]

22. Do what Republicans & FOX News does scrub, lather, rinse & repeat.

[SoCalDem]

24. Probably not possible. n/t

[truebrit71]

25. I'd tell them to fuck off...

..and then get the lawyer ready..

They aren't the authorities, and they are on a fishing expedition...I hope this Prof fights them all the way...goddamned fascists..:grr:

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. Doesn't he have a personal email address he could use??

Why would he use his work email for this??

Truly stupid.

[highplainsdem]

33. As I understand it from what he wrote in that post, he doesn't use his university email for anything

personal or political. This is why he's objecting to releasing the emails:

A number of the emails caught in the net of Mr. Thompson’s open records request are messages between myself and my students. All thus fall within the purview of the Federal Educational Right to Privacy Act (FERPA, sometimes known as the “Buckley Amendment,” named for its author Senator James Buckley—the brother of conservative intellectual William F. Buckley). The Buckley Amendment makes it illegal for colleges or universities to release student records without the permission of those students, and is thus in direct conflict with the Wisconsin Open Records Law and Mr. Thompson’s request on behalf of the Wisconsin Republican Party. I don’t know whether Mr. Thompson intended his request to generate a wholesale release of student records, but I myself think that doing so would represent a dangerous intrusion on student privacy. I’m pretty sure the law supports me in this view. If you’d like to review the terms of FERPA, see
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
and
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_04/34cfr99_04.html

Many more of the emails that would be released under this open records request are communications with colleagues of mine at other institutions about various matters that have nothing whatsoever to do with Wisconsin politics or the official business of the University of Wisconsin-Madison—but they do involve academic work that typically assumes a significant degree of privacy and confidentiality. (Many happen to include one or more of the requested search terms because these are widely used words in the English language—for instance, a writer recalling the role of the Union Army in the post-Civil War electoral success of the Republican Party would get caught by this search three times over.) The emails include, for instance, conversations with authors and editors about book manuscripts, and also the deliberations of two professional boards on which I sit, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the American Historical Association (AHA), the latter of which I now serve as President-Elect. Online email exchanges among members of these boards are expected to be confidential, so that all of us are admonished not to share each other’s emails lest doing so discourage colleagues from being candid in sharing their views.

Even though it’s not part of official university business, I have always used my University of Wisconsin-Madison email address in professional communications of this kind, because I’m proud to declare my association with this university and this state. Neither I nor my academic correspondents imagined that my doing so might put the confidentiality of our communications at risk, and I would very much regret having to announce to the world that colleagues can no longer communicate with me using my UW-Madison email address for fear that politically motivated use of the Public Records Law might intrude on what are meant to be confidential communications. If these discussions involved something unethical or illegal, then of course a FOIA request might be appropriate—though so too would a court-ordered subpoena, which has much greater legal power to intrude on private communications.

Given the GOP's request for ALL emails with any reference to

rally
union
collective bargaining
recall

this could very well pick up a LOT of emails that had only the most casual references to those subjects.

Emails that the GOP might be able to use to cause trouble for those people in other ways. Would you want to trust the Wisconsin GOP with any private emails?

Anyway, this request by the state GOP is basically harassment, intended to make professors afraid to publish any posts like Cronon's on ALEC.

And it shows VERY clearly just how terrified the Republicans are of having more voters made aware of how many GOP state legislators are just puppets dancing at corporate direction via ALEC.

[CreekDog]

34. if his academic specialty included this topic, then he would use his school email

for lots of the items they are looking for.

besides, say you were a scientist studying climate change at NASA and you work on the subject day in a day out, corresponding with everyone and their brother as part of your job.

then on the weekends, you have your own personal blog also talking about climate change --except representing only your own opinions.

if the Republicans FOIA'd your computer at work for items discussing climate change (which you blogged about), they would find them and it would appear in the media that something was untoward --except that it wasn't. but the appearance is what they can affect and they will do so --and at some point, if you're an expert in a field, you will use your employer's email because that's what you're supposed to do as an employee when on work time doing your employers work.

heaven forbid you'd actually take an interest in the topic on unpaid time at home.

[Raksha]

31. Bill Cronin's blog post of March 15th is worth posting as an OP in itself.

I just read it, and it's impressively well researched and written. It isn't hard to see why ALEC and the Wisconsin Repukes are harassing him. The last thing they want this kind of a public spotlight on their activities. As we all know, sunshine is the best disinfectant. They know it too. Here's an excerpt:

<snip>

Telling Your State Legislators What to Do:
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)

The most important group, I’m pretty sure, is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which was founded in 1973 by Henry Hyde, Lou Barnett, and (surprise, surprise) Paul Weyrich. Its goal for the past forty years has been to draft “model bills” that conservative legislators can introduce in the 50 states. Its website claims that in each legislative cycle, its members introduce 1000 pieces of legislation based on its work, and claims that roughly 18% of these bills are enacted into law. (Among them was the controversial 2010 anti-immigrant law in Arizona.)

If you’re as impressed by these numbers as I am, I’m hoping you’ll agree with me that it may be time to start paying more attention to ALEC and the bills its seeks to promote.
You can start by studying ALEC’s own website. Begin with its home page at
http://www.alec.org
First visit the “About” menu to get a sense of the organization’s history and its current members and funders. But the meat of the site is the “model legislation” page, which is the gateway to the hundreds of bills that ALEC has drafted for the benefit of its conservative members.
http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Model_Legislation1

You’ll of course be eager to look these over…but you won’t be able to, because you’re not a member.

Becoming a Member of ALEC: Not So Easy to Do

How do you become a member? Simple. Two ways. You can be an elected Republican legislator who, after being individually vetted, pays a token fee of roughly $100 per biennium to join. Here’s the membership brochure to use if you meet this criterion:
http://www.alec.org/AM/pdf/2011_legislative_brochure.pdf
What if you’re not a Republican elected official? Not to worry. You can apply to join ALEC as a “private sector” member by paying at least a few thousand dollars depending on which legislative domains most interest you. Here’s the membership brochure if you meet this criterion:
http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/Corporate_Brochure.pdf
Then again, even if most of us had this kind of money to contribute to ALEC, I have a feeling that membership might not necessarily be open to just anyone who is willing to pay the fee. But maybe I’m being cynical here.

Which Wisconsin Republican politicians are members of ALEC? Good question. How would we know? ALEC doesn’t provide this information on its website unless you’re able to log in as a member. Maybe we need to ask our representatives. One might think that Republican legislators gathered at a national ALEC meeting could be sufficiently numerous to trigger the “walking quorum rule” that makes it illegal for public officials in Wisconsin to meet unannounced without public notice of their meeting. But they’re able to avoid this rule (which applies to every other public body in Wisconsin) because they’re protected by a loophole in what is otherwise one of the strictest open meetings laws in the nation. The Wisconsin legislature carved out a unique exemption from that law for its own party caucuses, Democrats and Republicans alike. So Wisconsin Republicans are able to hold secret meetings with ALEC to plan their legislative strategies whenever they want, safe in the knowledge that no one will be able to watch while they do so.
(See http://www.doj.state.wi.us/dls/OMPR/2010OMCG-PRO/2010_OML_Compliance_Guide.pdf for a full discussion of Wisconsin’s otherwise very strict Open Meetings Law.)

If it has seemed to you while watching recent debates in the legislature that many Republican members of the Senate and Assembly have already made up their minds about the bills on which they’re voting, and don’t have much interest in listening to arguments being made by anyone else in the room, it’s probably because they did in fact make up their minds about these bills long before they entered the Capitol chambers. You can decide for yourself whether that’s a good expression of the “sifting and winnowing” for which this state long ago became famous.

<snip>

That last line in the first section which I bolded is absolutely true, BTW. Here it is again:

You’ll of course be eager to look these over…but you won’t be able to, because you’re not a member.

I discovered this on my own last night when I was exploring ALEC's website. I tried to access some of their now-famous model legislation and discovered I couldn't do it. When I clicked on the links, I got an error message informing me that the content was available to members only. As Prof. Cronon explains in the next section of his blog post, becoming a member of ALEC is a lot more harder than just filling in your name and e-mail address! It also costs some serious money, especially if you're not a Republican state legislator.

[highplainsdem]

40. You can occasionally find copies of ALEC's model legislation in news stories, though,

and they've liked to boast about copies of their model legislation being passed in press releases. I've posted what I could find in my long topic about ALEC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

I've also quoted an article quoting former WI governor Tommy Thompson boasting that he liked to "disguise" ALEC's model legislation when he took it back to Wisconsin and claim the ideas were his.

After all, these politicians look less attractive to voters when it's clear that they're corporate puppets...

[Raksha]

42. I've already read your OP twice, and just went back and skimmed it again.

Since that was the post that made me aware of the existence of ALEC, your alertness and hard work are much appreciated. Here's the part of relevant to the model legislation again:

This is their website

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home

and this is their Model Legislation section

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Model_Legislation1

which provides rightwing legislators with model legislation in these areas:

Civil Justice
Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development
Education
Energy, Environment, and Agriculture
Health and Human Services
International Relations
Public Safety and Elections
Tax and Fiscal Policy
Telecommunications and Information Technology

It was when I followed that second link that I discovered that the average lurker, who could well be--gasp!--a liberal, can't just click on the links and read ALEC's model legislation. You have to be a member for that, and becoming a member of ALEC is neither easy nor inexpensive. So even though the website is public, the core agenda is shrouded in the usual RW secrecy. At least they don't want the public aware of their regressive legislation BEFORE its public debut. Afterwards is a whole other thing.

[sabrina 1]

43. Sounds like a job for Anonymous!

Unbelievable how our government has been hi-jacked. I think Democrats need to hold some open hearings about the effect these secret groups are having on this country.

This should be kept in the public eye. The more people realize who and these morons are doing, the less they will be willing to put them in office.

If only we had a real news media!

[Raksha]

45. I'll admit that I've fantasized about how Anonymous could "redecorate" the ALEC website.

For the lulz if nothing else. Although ALEC doesn't strike me as the kind of group with much of a sense of humor, especially not at its own expense.

But *IF* there was some way they could hack that members-only model legislation section and publish what they find...well, it would be very enlightening to say the least. :evilgrin:

I'm not a hacker myself, but I am a card-carrying member of a rather public Anonymous support group. So if anybody out there is reading this thread, well...you know...

[sabrina 1]

46. Lol, I was watching RT (we now get Russian/English TV which

is a lot like Al Jazeera) last night and they did a section on Anonymous's takedown of HBGary and of the Church Hate group, showing how they were busy hacking into the site even as the Representative was claiming how God, or some such nonsense was 'on their side'. It was hilarious, don't think I've seen anything funnier happen to the bad guys ever, and live on TV.

Yeah, I hope one day this group is stupid enough to annoy Anonymous. They don't like being annoyed as a few people are finding out. :-)

[pacalo]

59. I agree! I'd like to see how this secret organization plans to further ruin people's lives.

They can use a lot of sunshine, Anonymous! With the government's high penchant for globalization ideas, this below-the-radar brand of ambush politics could be coming to a country near you -- act today! ;)

[Uncle Joe]

32. Kicked and recommended for exposing ALEC.

Thanks for the thread, Newsjock.

[hifiguy]

35. Will Snotty Scotty be sending Major Hochstetter around

next?

Jayzus, this is getting more like the little corporal's Germany every day...

[highplainsdem]

36. John Nichols, writing about this in The Nation:

He gets Cronon's name wrong (misspelling his last name and at one point getting his first name wrong as well, calling him David Cronin after calling him William Cronin at the start), and he doesn't seem to realize the GOP's demand for Cronon's emails came after the blog about ALEC but BEFORE the NY Times op-ed piece on Wisconsin so it had nothing to do with the op-ed piece. But this is still a very interesting read, and I'm glad to see The Nation covering this story:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/159489/mccarthyism-wisconsin-its-back-state-gop-seeks-silence-distinguished-dissenter

McCarthyism in Wisconsin: It's Back, as State GOP Seeks to Silence a Distinguished Dissenter
John Nichols
March 25, 2011


-snip-

So where does this leave us? A highly-regarded, reasonable and moderate professor asks some tough questions that powerful political players do not like.

They then move to attack and silence him -- and to intimidate other doubters and dissenters.

David Cronin wrote in his op-ed that: "Scott Walker is not Joe McCarthy. Their political convictions and the two moments in history are quite different."

-snip-

When the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which has operated from the start of the current conflict as the political arm of the Walker administration (despite the fact that many Republicans oppose what the governor is doing), goes after a distinguished professor for asking reasonable questions, there is a word that describes so crude and blatant an attempt to intimidate a dissenter: McCarthyism.

[Raksha]

44. Yes, I noticed that myself after I read both the blog post and the NYT op-ed piece.

Re"...he (John Nichols) doesn't seem to realize the GOP's demand for Cronon's emails came after the blog about ALEC but BEFORE the NY Times op-ed piece on Wisconsin so it had nothing to do with the op-ed piece."

But I think Nichols can be excused for that since even Cronon himself (in his last post about the demand for his e-mails) focuses on the NYT op-ed. But the demand was actually a response to the revelations about ALEC in his blog post.

[Maine-ah]

38. I am admittedly ignorant of ALEC

so now of course, I'm reading. http://www.alecwatch.org/forward.html

not really surprised at some of their membership. Thanks for posting the blog...off to go read some more.

[highplainsdem]

39. Lots more info on ALEC here, in a DU topic with over a hundred replies:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

[Maine-ah]

41. thank you!

[MadBadger]

47. Cronon was my professor a couple years ago

Good man, good Teacher

[Tx4obama]

48. The story is the front page main top headline at TPM Talking Point Memo now!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[Dover]

50. An even bigger shark than ALEC is The Business RoundTable

The chief executive's club Business Roundtable (BRT) = the great white shark.

* THE BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE, with over 200 chief executives of the largest US-based corporations and banks in its ranks, was founded in 1972 with the explicit goal of enforcing corporate control over the political agenda. The BRT's successes inspired corporate leaders in Europe, Canada and elsewhere to set up lobby groups around the same CEO-only model.

* The Roundtable lobbies aggressively on issues from healthcare and social security to the environment and consumer protection, aiming to adapt public policy to the corporate bottom-line. The BRT is particularly influential over US international trade policies. In the early 1990s, a Roundtable front group, USA*NAFTA, spent $10 million to help secure the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2000, the Roundtable successfully campaigned for unconditional access to US markets for goods US corporations produce in China under commercially ideal, but often socially and environmentally deplorable, conditions. They spent over $30 million on lobbyists to help US Congress members make up their minds. The Business Roundtable alone employed no less than 80 full-time field organizers to create an impression of local grassroots activity in favour of the China trade policy. www.brtable.org


Other groups working behind the curtain:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/Naked_Lobbyist.html