The Canadian Press, a commercial news agency operating in Canada reported this week that a Freedom of Information expert had some harsh words to say about Hillary Clinton's email recordkeeping. Daniel Metcalfe was the Director of the Office and Information and Privacy from 1981 to 2007. It oversees the federal agencies' compliance with Freedom of Information Act requirements.
The story has been reported and it doesn't need to be repeated. Metcalfe had lots of colorful comments about Clinton's press conference. He used words like "blatant circumvention of the Freedom Of Information Act." Legal/regulatory compliance officers talk tough like that. It's the norm. Metcalfe says he's a Democrat with no axe to grind. His length of tenure speaks for itself. I bet he has some good war stories.
What was missing for me was a citation of the law tied to the specific practices that violated its provisions. And his tenure didn't overlap with Clinton's if it makes a difference.
At the DOJ Office of Information and Privacy website, there's plenty of interesting information but I didn't find anything that disallowed personal email.
A simple Google search turned up an article in the Los Angeles Times of March 3. Read the last few sentences. I have no explanation. I'm not on a timetable to make a decision or reach a conclusion. Sometimes it takes months.
The Federal Records Act requires that, day in and day out, Clinton or someone on her behalf assist in preserving emails, said Daniel J. Metcalfe, the founding director of the Department of Justice Office of Information and Privacy, who is now a teacher of secrecy law at American University's law school.
“If there is official government activity, it ordinarily should be memorialized in a record. She can’t just be freewheeling all over the place with these communications and not worry about memorializing them or maintaining them,” he said.
A decision not to set up a government account undermines a commitment to preservation, Metcalfe said. The most reliable way to generate a record would be with such an account.
But there may be legitimate reasons to make some use of private email, he said.
“If you’re the secretary of State and you’re responding to crises around the world 24 hours a day, sometimes you might not have your government phone handy,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll just have your personal phone. There should be some flexibility.”
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