Another public records hot button issue has resurfaced in Washington. It apparently remains as much a problem there as here.

This article in Salon, another digital media outlet, focuses on the House Oversight Committee's investigation of the use of private e-mail accounts by officials— including Betsy DeVos — at the US Department of Education.

Most troubling is the existence of unambiguous federal policies prohibiting the use of private e-mail accounts to conduct public business and statutory requirements mandating that any such email pertaining to public business — but stored in a personal account — be forwarded to the official's or employee's public account within 20 days.

A poorly reasoned and entirely result driven open records decision issued by Attorney General Jack Conway on his last day in office, and a failed legislative attempt to codify that absurd open records decision in 2017, have emboldened Kentucky's public officials and employees to engage in illegal discussions of public business on private devices and accounts in the false belief that they can evade public scrutiny.

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/04/02/ken…

The attorney general's staff has made substantial progress in reversing the damage Conway did in 2015, but we await the open records decision that fully and finally reverses it. A published opinion of an appellate declaring once and for all that communications about public business conducted by public officials or employees on private devices or accounts are public records that are subject to the open records law would eliminate any lingering doubt.

http://kentuckyopengovernmentblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/beshears-open-re…

It is a pervasive problem and one that must be checked administratively, judicially, and legislatively.