Some of President Barack Obama’s political appointees are using secret government email accounts to conduct official business, The Associated Press found, a practice that complicates agencies’ legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails under public records requests and congressional inquiries.
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday acknowledged the practice and said it made eminent sense for Cabinet secretaries and other high-profile officials to have what he called alternative email accounts that wouldn’t fill with unwanted messages. Carney said all their email accounts, public and otherwise, were subject to congressional oversight and requests by citizens under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
Acually, I'm not quite as worked up over this as some administration critics seem to be. As someone who gets a ton of email, including a lot of spam and other outright garbage, I appreciate the need to have a private account that that only a few people know about. I know that account is limited, the stuff in it is at a minimum, and it's all worth opening and reading. But private is not the same as secret. Even if few people know the address of the account, it's importand to know of its existence if and when something a congressional inquiry comes up.
