A great example of what I am getting at here was my email sent to NH Speaker of the House Sherm Packard and NH House Majority Leader Jason Osborne concerning a Right To Know for Belknap County Legislative emails:
—— Original Message ——
From “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
To “Sherman Packard” <Sherman.Packard@leg.state.nh.us>; “Jason Osborne” <Jason@osborne4nh.com>; Jason.Osborne@leg.state.nh.us
Date 3/18/2023 1:26:38 PM
Subject Right To Know Demand for the Legislative emails of the NH House Representatives from Belknap CountyGood afternoon NH House Speaker Packard and NH House Majority Leader Osborne,
<snip>
Jason’s first listed email is his official email as seen here – a private email address – so I used it. I also used what I thought was the format of the “@leg.state.nh.us”. However, this was the result (emphasis mine):
—— Original Message ——
From MAILER-DAEMON@cloudhost-4403025.us-midwest-2.nxcli.net
To Skip@granitegrok.com
Date 3/18/2023 1:26:41 PM
Subject failure noticeHi. This is the qmail-send program at cloudhost-4403025.us-midwest-2.nxcli.net.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.<Jason.Osborne@leg.state.nh.us>:
3.13.178.213 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 554 5.7.1 <Jason.Osborne@leg.state.nh.us>: Recipient address rejected: Access denied
Giving up on 3.13.178.213.
Now, my message still reached him – an official email to an official within NH Government. Using a private email address. Should that be the case? And yes, perhaps he does have an @leg.state.nh.us account and I got the name wrong. It happens but this still serves as a great example (so let’s assume I DID get it right IF it exists).
So here’s the issue:
What if that Right To Know was meant for Jason’s emails dealing with official business? His email looks like a campaign address and not one that would match up with his official duties within the NH House. Because his official emails are government records, putting in an RTK to get them should be relatively easy; I have done this many times before for various parts of Government here in NH. All those emails are centralized and under the control of NH Government, whether by an NH IT server or outsourced to a private company. With a NH based Governmental domain (e.g., @leg.state.nh.us, jonos@sau73.org, dlafond@gilfordnh.org, or shackett@belknapcounty.gov).
PLEASE know that I’m NOT accusing Jason of anything and I’ve never constructed an RTK for any of his emails. Since I just sent it today (that would be yesterday by the time this goes live) and unexpectedly got a reject on the @leg.state.nh.us email. it serves as a great Object Lesson (his email address, not him personally).
But what can I do with “Jason Osborne” <Jason@osborne4nh.com>? Even if I KNOW there is something in one of his emails that is important and submit an RTK for it, there is nothing I can depend on to get that particular email with his address. He could say “No”, I’m not going to give it to you – and my only remedy would be take him to court, and spend a lot of time and money, and hope that a judge would order that the email administrator for that domain satisfy the order to fork it (or others) to me.
The problem is that if the need is for that is immediate, if the process is dragged out, it becomes moot (unless another court case is filed to roll something back). Essentially, using personal email address is a way to avoid accountability and hide such demanded information – they effectively (de facto) are not subject to valid RSA 91-A processes. You know, like what Hilary did with her personal email server in a closet that she famously said “what, wipe it with a cloth?” (and showing how little regard she had for openness and transparency).
And we have no way of telling – using personal email addresses instead of official government ones.
And that has happened in my recent RSA 91-A demands at the Belknap County Delegation. I have to ask, and then Trust, any Rep using a private email address as their “official” one is giving me a correct answer. Given what I’ve seen over the years (and lately over HB357, the “give them 4 years instead of 2 year term”), Trust is complicated first and hazardous at worst; I don’t know if I’m getting a correct answer.
By sending an RTK to a superior that then gives it to their IT folks (like I have also done lately during the “Gunstock Incident”), the individual Representative (in this case) is cut out of the loop. GENERALLY, IT folks tend to be more honest…
So look at how Belknap County Reps are with respect to official Government email addresses:
Out of the 17 Representatives, only 5 are using the @leg.nh.state.us domain, 10 are using private emails, and two have no contact info at all.
This is not a privacy issue – this is a Government problem. Those in Government are accountable to we citizens (and not the other way around – a trend that seems to be desired and accelerating). Deliberately making it harder to do, like these Reps are doing, needs to be corrected.
