Jeb Bush releases eight years' worth of emails: Is that legal?
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On Tuesday, Jeb Bush, 鈥渋n the spirit of transparency,鈥 sent to him during his time as Florida governor.
Many of the emails are the stuff of public record, and 鈥渨ould have surfaced anyway due to sunshine laws and nosy journalists,鈥 as 海角大神 put it.
Indeed, most of Mr. Bush鈥檚 emails came with a disclaimer: 鈥淢ost written communications to or from state officials regarding state business are public records available to the聽public and media upon request. Your e-mail communications may therefore be subject to public disclosure.鈥
That means making the emails public are legal under Florida鈥檚 鈥渋ncredibly broad鈥 public records laws, says , Dean Emeritus and professor at the University of Florida鈥檚 Center for Governmental Responsibility.
But some messages were personal appeals that included intimate details of people鈥檚 lives, medical and employment information, and even Social Security numbers 鈥 none of which were redacted, , which perused eight years鈥 worth of emails.
That's when it can get tricky, according to Prof. Mills: Social Security numbers in particular are matters of public record only in very specific instances, such as when it is required by state or federal law or a court order.聽
In one of the emails Bush released, a man who served in the US Navy included his mother鈥檚 name and Social Security number in a plea to have his mother鈥檚 record expunged after she made a mistake while service 鈥渋n the medical field as an Assistant [sic].鈥
Another email, reported by聽, described a child with a life-threatening medical condition and revealed the child鈥檚 and mother鈥檚 names, and the mother鈥檚 phone number, Social Security number, and healthcare identification number.
Bush's spokesperson, Kristy Campbell, told BuzzFeed that the emails on the site are "an exact replica of the public records on file聽with the Florida Department of State and are available at anyone鈥檚 request under Chapter 119 sunshine laws," but that they will "take a look at anything flagged."
Time reporter Zeke Miller, who spent the afternoon interviewing the former governor on education reform, gave a similar report:聽
Bush鈥檚 actions opens the door to yet another discussion on privacy rights and freedom of information.
He鈥檚 definitely received points for turning transparent: Earlier this year, Washington Post columnists Aaron Blake and Chris Silliza because 鈥渟taking out ground as the 鈥榤ost transparent candidate to ever run for president鈥 works at both the messaging and strategic levels,鈥 they wrote.
鈥淭he reality of modern politics (and modern journalism) is that everything eventually comes out,鈥 they continued. 鈥淛eb is playing the transparency card right聽鈥 and at the right time.鈥
That may be true for information on the governor himself. But UFL鈥檚 Mills points out that disclosure of lots of electronic information on a lot of different people, as Bush did with jebemails.com, can be very problematic.
As The Verge puts it:
Obviously one of the lessons here is that you shouldn't email information to public officials that you want to keep private, at least not in Florida. But even if these emails are broadly subject to disclosure under the state's sunshine law, it's concerning that such a huge, indiscriminate data dump could include so much personal information. At minimum, it shows a serious ignorance of the volume of sensitive information in the records and a carelessness about their disclosure 鈥 not a good look for someone who called himself the first "eGovernor," let alone a man who may want to sit in the White House.