ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The state of Alaska is about to
release more than 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin’s emails from her time as
governor. But officials are also going to withhold another 2,415 pages
the state deems privileged, personal or otherwise exempt from Alaska’s
disclosure laws.
News organizations and individuals requested the
Palin emails under Alaska’s public records law more than two years ago
when she was running for vice president.
The messages are finally now about to be released as
the former governor contemplates a bid for the presidency. State
officials expect to send the emails to a commercial printer to be copied
this week, a process that is estimated to take about four days.
Copies of the emails will then be shipped in boxes
from Juneau to the people and news agencies who requested them, said
Linda Perez, Gov. Sean Parnell’s administrative director.
It remains to be seen how many of the released emails
are going to be at least partially blacked out. State lawyers reviewed
printouts of each email and suggested which emails — or which portions
of emails — to withhold. Gov. Sean Parnell’s office made the final
decisions.
Perez on Tuesday contacted the organizations and
individuals who requested the records and let them know that some emails
would be withheld or redacted. She said they have the option of filing
an administrative appeal of the decision or seeking an injunction in
Superior Court.
News organizations that requested the records include
the Anchorage Daily News, the Associated Press, MSNBC.com, The New York
Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and CNN. Individuals
include Geoffrey Dunn, author of the recently published book “The Lies
of Sarah Palin,” and Andree McLeod of Anchorage, who has had ethics
complaints against Palin dismissed by the state.
McLeod has pointed out that Perez and Parnell’s chief
of staff, Mike Nizich, held the same positions during the Palin
administration as they do under Parnell.
“I don’t hold out much hope that all of these emails haven’t been scrubbed of any incriminating information,” she said Tuesday.
Perez said emails were redacted and withheld based on
the right to privacy afforded by the state constitution as well as
legal justifications established in court cases over Alaska public
records law. That includes attorney-client privilege and the state’s
right to withhold records considered “deliberative process,” meaning
internal discussions of policy that happen before a decision is made.
Perez said the state will provide a “privilege log” that describes the reason each of the records was withheld or redacted.
Each of those who requested the documents will be
required to pay $725.97 in copying fees. They’ll also have to pay
hundreds of dollars more for the state to ship them what’s expected to
be about five boxes of copied emails, the boxes weighing about 55 pounds
apiece.
McLeod also said she’s not sure how she’s going to
pay for her copies of the records, and is calling for the state to make
them available in Anchorage so she doesn’t have to pay to have her
copies of the emails shipped from Juneau.
The state says it is providing printed copies because
it doesn’t have the software to electronically redact information from
emails.
The Palin emails were first requested in the 2008
campaign season. State officials said they weren’t prepared for requests
for such huge amounts of data stored in antiquated electronic
databases. They also said fulfilling the requests was made more
difficult by the fact that Palin commonly used a Yahoo account to
conduct state business, rather than her official state email account.
Technicians searched for those records by sifting
through email accounts of more than 50 state employees, including
Cabinet members, executive staff and close aides, to look for emails
Palin sent or received from her personal account.
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