You would want to contact the Public Information Officer or Clerk of the Court of the Supreme Court there, inquiring about whether there is case law yet. You may also want to contact the State Law Library and see the legislation yourself. Until somebody challenges their ability to delete those emails, and it is sent through the courts until it's done being challenged, there can be no case law. And then, that would only apply in Wisconsin. So when you ask, "Does anyone have an opinion..." the only "opinion" that matters is the one your Supreme Court issues on this case.
<disclaimer to keep my job> I'm not a lawyer, and don't even play one on TV. Please do your own legal research. My employer would laugh food through their nose at the suggestion that I knew any law, so there. </disclaimer> Tom Meunier Network Administrator State of Texas Office of Court Administration (512) 463-0282 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Norris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Posted At: Thursday, October 25, 2001 9:49 PM Posted To: MSExchange Mailing List Conversation: public schools, gov & e-mail Subject: OT: public schools, gov & e-mail I'm wondering if anyone here who has experience with public school systems or other government bodies would grant an off-the-record opinion. Are e-mail messages either received from the public, sent to the public or sent internally a matter of public record? ... and yes, I realize each state/locality might have somewhat different laws. Here's the deal: The Madison (WI) School Board a few weeks ago voted to restrict saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the words to the National Anthem in order to comply with a state law... they did wise up and reverse the decision a week later. http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/oct01/pledge14101301a.asp?format=prin t http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/oct01/pledgea101501.asp?format=print The district received approximately 22,000 e-mails regarding the issue. A citizen made a public records request for those e-mails and was told a week later a majority of the messages had been deleted. http://wisconsinstatejournal.com/local/7043.html I know the district uses a POP3 system (probably Sendmail), so there is no message store or transaction log to recover them from. I imagine 22,000 text messages in a .pst would fit on a Zip disk, it could become unwieldy to manage the inbox if they were not moved into another folder. So, does anyone have an opinion about this incident in regards to the open records laws? Does Sendmail have logging that could maintain a copy of every message that routes through the system? What options are there for Exchange systems to continually maintain all messages? Can Exmerge be scripted to run a scheduled task to remove or copy old messages? How many days max can Exchange maintain deleted items (assuming unlimited drive space)? Norris Carden www.rasquel.com This account is a spam hole used for lists. Mail to it may not be read for days or weeks at a time. _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
