FBD
02-26-2015, 05:38 PM
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/02/8562835/cuomo-administration-begins-large-scale-email-purges
ALBANY—The Cuomo administration has now fully implemented a policy of automatically deleting emails of rank-and-file state workers that are more than three months old, resulting in an effective purge of thousands of messages in recent days.
According to memos obtained by Capital, mass deletions began Monday at several state agencies after officials finished consolidating 27 separate email platforms to a single, cloud-based system called Office 365. It lets I.T. administrators purge any older messages, and can be set up to do so each day.
The 90-day deletion policy was first adopted in June of 2013, but its enforcement to date has been haphazard at best, employees and officials say. News of its implementation has drawn fresh concern from good government groups in both New York and elsewhere, who say automatically deleting emails is unnecessary and could stymie access to public information.
It's unclear exactly which agencies and employees were most affected by the purge, but according to employees and documents, accounts at the departments of health and economic development as well as the Department of State began new, regular deletions on Monday evening.
On Friday, agency heads received a memorandum from Maggie Miller, a former Girls Scouts of America executive who became the state's chief information officer in December, asking them to remind their staffs about the deletion policy. It made no reference to purges, but Miller confirmed in a subsequent email to Capital that "the ongoing policy is being applied."
“The consolidation of our email systems is revolutionizing how we, as a State, communicate and collaborate with each other. Before this email system consolidation we, as partner agencies, could not readily find each other’s contact information. Now we can easily communicate, collaborate, plan, schedule conference calls and meetings and manage our online correspondence consistently and effectively,” Miller wrote. “This is a significant accomplishment and I want to thank everyone for their hard work in making government work better.”
But more than a dozen advocacy organizations—including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, New York Civil Liberties Union and Sunlight Foundation, as well as New York-based good government groups—sent a letter to the governor late last month, arguing his policy was technologically unnecessary and out of step with the federal government, which saves emails from rank-and-file employees for seven years.
“In this era, government runs on email, and access to email and electronic records has become a cornerstone of public transparency. Our groups are very concerned that the administration’s June 2013 policy of using centralized software to automatically delete state employee emails after 90 days is resulting in the destruction of emails that are considered public records under New York’s Freedom of Information Law,” wrote the groups, which were organized by Reinvent Albany. “This policy was adopted without public notice or comment. Furthermore, we are extremely concerned that the inevitable destruction of email records under your 90-day automatic deletion policy directly undermines other public accountability laws like the False Claims Act.”
New York's contract with Microsoft, which developed Office 365, allows for 50 gigabytes of e-mail storage per employee. Reinvent Albany estimated this would be enough to handle up to 30 years worth of messages.
While deletion is automatic, the burden of designating which messages to save falls on individual employees, who must proactively place email into a special “retain” box on their computers. Formal guidance on what emails should be saved runs to 118 pages and contains 215 categories, according to documents published last year by ProPublica. They include emails subject to pending Freedom of Information Law requests.
In addition to the federal seven-year standard, other states like Washington, Florida and Connecticut have retention periods of between two and five years. The Central Intelligence Agency recently proposed a three-year retention period for departing employees, and was criticized for not archiving messages for longer. Shorter retention periods are more common in corporations seeking to reduce their exposure in litigation, according to a memorandum compiled by Reinvent Albany.
Miller, in an email late Tuesday—after an agency spokeswoman ignored inquiries for two days—said the policy was "nothing new" and noted the state has saved $3 million per year in licensing fees that were previously directed to various I.T. companies.
Core aides to Cuomo—who upon taking office promised his administration would be “the most transparent and accountable in history”—were dutifully deleting their own emails even before the policy was brought to all state agencies in 2013.
A gubernatorial spokesman did not answer questions about why the administration set a 90-day retention period, and declined to comment on Reinvent Albany's letter.
ALBANY—The Cuomo administration has now fully implemented a policy of automatically deleting emails of rank-and-file state workers that are more than three months old, resulting in an effective purge of thousands of messages in recent days.
According to memos obtained by Capital, mass deletions began Monday at several state agencies after officials finished consolidating 27 separate email platforms to a single, cloud-based system called Office 365. It lets I.T. administrators purge any older messages, and can be set up to do so each day.
The 90-day deletion policy was first adopted in June of 2013, but its enforcement to date has been haphazard at best, employees and officials say. News of its implementation has drawn fresh concern from good government groups in both New York and elsewhere, who say automatically deleting emails is unnecessary and could stymie access to public information.
It's unclear exactly which agencies and employees were most affected by the purge, but according to employees and documents, accounts at the departments of health and economic development as well as the Department of State began new, regular deletions on Monday evening.
On Friday, agency heads received a memorandum from Maggie Miller, a former Girls Scouts of America executive who became the state's chief information officer in December, asking them to remind their staffs about the deletion policy. It made no reference to purges, but Miller confirmed in a subsequent email to Capital that "the ongoing policy is being applied."
“The consolidation of our email systems is revolutionizing how we, as a State, communicate and collaborate with each other. Before this email system consolidation we, as partner agencies, could not readily find each other’s contact information. Now we can easily communicate, collaborate, plan, schedule conference calls and meetings and manage our online correspondence consistently and effectively,” Miller wrote. “This is a significant accomplishment and I want to thank everyone for their hard work in making government work better.”
But more than a dozen advocacy organizations—including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, New York Civil Liberties Union and Sunlight Foundation, as well as New York-based good government groups—sent a letter to the governor late last month, arguing his policy was technologically unnecessary and out of step with the federal government, which saves emails from rank-and-file employees for seven years.
“In this era, government runs on email, and access to email and electronic records has become a cornerstone of public transparency. Our groups are very concerned that the administration’s June 2013 policy of using centralized software to automatically delete state employee emails after 90 days is resulting in the destruction of emails that are considered public records under New York’s Freedom of Information Law,” wrote the groups, which were organized by Reinvent Albany. “This policy was adopted without public notice or comment. Furthermore, we are extremely concerned that the inevitable destruction of email records under your 90-day automatic deletion policy directly undermines other public accountability laws like the False Claims Act.”
New York's contract with Microsoft, which developed Office 365, allows for 50 gigabytes of e-mail storage per employee. Reinvent Albany estimated this would be enough to handle up to 30 years worth of messages.
While deletion is automatic, the burden of designating which messages to save falls on individual employees, who must proactively place email into a special “retain” box on their computers. Formal guidance on what emails should be saved runs to 118 pages and contains 215 categories, according to documents published last year by ProPublica. They include emails subject to pending Freedom of Information Law requests.
In addition to the federal seven-year standard, other states like Washington, Florida and Connecticut have retention periods of between two and five years. The Central Intelligence Agency recently proposed a three-year retention period for departing employees, and was criticized for not archiving messages for longer. Shorter retention periods are more common in corporations seeking to reduce their exposure in litigation, according to a memorandum compiled by Reinvent Albany.
Miller, in an email late Tuesday—after an agency spokeswoman ignored inquiries for two days—said the policy was "nothing new" and noted the state has saved $3 million per year in licensing fees that were previously directed to various I.T. companies.
Core aides to Cuomo—who upon taking office promised his administration would be “the most transparent and accountable in history”—were dutifully deleting their own emails even before the policy was brought to all state agencies in 2013.
A gubernatorial spokesman did not answer questions about why the administration set a 90-day retention period, and declined to comment on Reinvent Albany's letter.