The new "thing" is to use Google email accounts - for state business - so you don't have to turn it over in public records lawsuits.
Judge orders Fla. Gov. Rick Scott to stop fighting request for records
After ordering Google to turn over information on the governor’s Gmail account, a judge steps in to tell Gov. Rick Scott to stop resisting his order.
By Mary Ellen Klas
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- A Tallahassee judge this week ordered Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi to stop fighting attempts to allow Google to turn over basic information about the private email accounts used by the governor and his staff to conduct state business.
Circuit Judge Charles A. Francis last month ordered the company to disclose when the email accounts held by the governor and his staff were established and by whom. The action is part of a pending public records lawsuit filed against Scott and Bondi by Tallahassee attorney Steven R. Andrews. But the Jacksonville attorney hired by the governor to fight the effort refused to agree on the language of the subpoena, delaying it for weeks. Andrews then asked the judge to intervene and Francis overruled Scott’s attorney, Thomas Bishop, on Thursday.
The two-page order allows Andrews to seek subscriber information for the gmail accounts used by the governor and two of his former staff members, Sarah Hansford and Brad Pipenbrink.
Andrews alleges that the governor’s office encouraged staff to use gmail accounts to circumvent the public records law. He believes that determining when the accounts were established will help determine who was involved.
Scott has said that his account, gov.rls@gmail.com, was used to communicate with his family members, not public business, and that he has “followed the law.” However, emails to Scott’s gmail account have surfaced from his former chief of staff Steve MacNamara after MacNamara left the governor’s office.
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/09/05/4330560/a-judge-orders-the-gov-rick-scott.html#storylink=cpy
