Mr. Murphy,
As we discussed yesterday, I have mailed the Department of Environmental Services’ initial response to your request for records. A courtesy copy is attached hereto as a PDF file. Also attached is a PDF copy of DES’ Electronic Communications Policy.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
Thank you
(Emphasis mine, above) I mentioned in my last post that instead of the IT policy that the Department of Information Technology follows, the Department of Environmental Services has a different one (and that was sent to me by DES’s “RTK dude and Legal Eagle”, after being informed that DES follows a different tune than what the IT folks do):
The full JPG that I created from the sent PDF is after the jump. However, if you want to see the PDF, click here. And of COURSE, I had questions; those are after the jump as well. I will say that this policy is much weaker (from my techie eyes) than that of the actual IT’s policy. It would probably be a good thing if each departmental policy (under the “if 1, then many” logic, if DES has one, am betting all of the other departments have their separate (and weaker) policies. The IT dept certainly will know better the IT technical “problem areas” that span across the entire network far better than most other departments (although there are always “ringers” that do know more than some IT folks – motivation and curiosity can go way far) while being familiar for most of the biz scenarios that should / should not be allowable.
And I wonder how many of the departments don’t define their terms sufficiently well so that there is a lot of “grey area” in between the letters of the law (while ignoring the Spirit of the policy – and that of just doing a good honest day’s work for a honest day’s pay). Maybe another ‘Grok project – or maybe the IT Dept should be doing that all on their own…
Here are my return questions on this policy to the DES self-described “RTK dude”:
I have received your email and as previously agree upon, I am letting you know that I have received it.
And yes, I have questions stemming from the materials you have sent. First is from the Electronic Communications Policy document you sent.
Policy: The electronic communications system (hardware and software, electronic mail, voicemail and facsimile machine) is state property, and is reserved for the purpose of conducting state and DES business. Access to the Internet is provided to enhance the agency’s ability to accomplish its mission. Employees have a responsibility to use the Internet in a productive and professional manner for state business. Internet access is not provided to employees for personal entertainment or personal business purposes.
Is it a fact that using the State’s “electronic communications system” to access the Concord Monitor site to leave comments (among other activities and sites) would run counter to the clause ” Internet access is not provided to employees for personal entertainment or personal business purposes.”? Would accessing that same site in the same way described be considered “for the purpose of conducting state and DES business”? How would accessing the Concord Monitor site in such a way be “to enhance the agency’s ability to accomplish its mission”?
In it, a reference is made another document:
9. Employee Acknowledgement on the Use of the Electronic Communications Policy.
Further, it is stated that all employees will read and sign such document. As our original Right To Know request contained the asking of the DOIT version of this document, we admit our error given our ignorance that DES had its own version. Instead, we wish to revise our original request and ask for the signed copies of the DES specific document in this space that Mr. Richard de Seve should have signed.
Further, there is this:
10. Improper use of the electronic communications system may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.
However, nowhere in your Letter acknowledging receipt of our request (but not providing any information that was in our request) or in this document was the term “improper use” ever defined. Could you explicitly please do so at this time. I note that I am not a lawyer but that you are one (I assume) given that you have now identified yourself as being attached to the DES Legal Unit (as opposed to our earlier discussion of “I’m the guy that responds to RTK requests”) – so I am asking what the DES legal definition of phrase means. As a simple engineer, I have learned that everyone has their own definitions of common words – I only wish to understand your meanings.
As to your Letter, a couple of questions:
- “some of the records you have requested may be statutorily exempt from disclosure” – please, if you would, enumerate what data items and the reasons for that?
- “once we have determined how much time DES and DOIT will need to fully respond to your request” – can you provide at least an order magnitude of time? As I said in our conversation on March 15th, we are willing to work with you folks on that timing but it would be helpful to have some idea when which pieces of data might be forthcoming at a given time? Yes, this is setting some level of expectation, but it also sets the first iteration of our virtual roadmap that gets us to the successful conclusion of the end point.
These are just off the top of my head at first glance of the documents sent (the Letter and the Policy) – I probably will have more.
Kindest Regards,
-Skip
Here is the complete JPG of the DES IT policy:
