Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Saradise Lost - Book 5 - Chapter 72: Palin's Statute of Liberties May Be Expiring

I. The image at left is a screen shot from a video of Palin's bus, parked outside the studios in NYC yesterday: "We, The People," papered over by "I, The Media Whore." So fitting, especially outside of the FOX NewsFAUX disinfo HQ.

As Palin's "tour" skitters from one public relations disaster to another, she dissimulates about why her route is so, uh, random - the fuel costs a lot (as if it is coming out of her own pockets), she doesn't want to inconvenience anyone, and so on, one need only look back at her appearance in Madison Wisconsin, which was pre-announced, to understand the reasons for such secrecy: She doesn't want more incidents of 300 people show up supporting her and 3,000 organizing to boo her roundly.

It is as simple as that.

II. The State of Alaska is preparing to release tens of thousands of Palin emails from her short stint as Governor here, and to withhold thousands more:
The state 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.
The state is charging an arm and a leg for the stuff:
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.

[Alaska GOP political activist Andree] 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.

Earlier today, I contacted Andree, offering to hold a fundraiser for her, to help defray the costs. She feels it best to somehow come up with the money herself. I also, once again, offered her a forum to share her thoughts, documents or appeals, here at Progressive Alaska. She let me know it would be OK to publish this recent email exchange with Linda Perez about the documents:

-----Original Message-----
From: Perez, Linda J (GOV) [mailto:linda.perez@alaska.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 4:46 PM
To: Dacor@aol.com; Bill.Dedman@msnbc.com; mthiessen@ap.org;
andree@*******.**; geoffreydunn@*******.***; kevin.bohn@turner.com;
ronhoney@mtaonline.net; Matea.Gold@latimes.com; wyard@nytimes.com;
SCockerham@adn.com; gardnera.washpost@gmail.com; bbohrer@ap.org
Cc: Nizich, Michael A (GOV); Sims, Cynthia M (GOV);
sharon.leighow@alaska.gov; Jones, David T (LAW); Hildre, Tiffany G (GOV);
Ruaro, Randall P (GOV)
Subject: Your Public Records Request


I am responding to your request for copies of former Governor Palin's e
mail messages through September 30, 2008. I have 24,199 pages of
records that are responsive to your request. The duplication fee for
copies of these records is $725.97 (i.e., 24,199 pages at $.03 per
page). There will also be a shipping fee, depending on how you would
like us to deliver the copies to you. Please contact me to confirm that
you agree to pay the copying and shipping costs, and so we can discuss
how you would like us to ship the records to you.

We withheld and redacted some records that are responsive to your
request. We withheld and redacted records based on AS 40.25.120(a), the
privacy provision of the Alaska Constitution (article I, section 22), AS
39.52.340, AS 40.25.151, AS 47.10.093, the attorney-client privilege,
the work product privilege, and the executive and deliberative process
privileges. Alaska Rule of Evidence 503 describes the attorney-client
privilege. The Alaska Supreme Court's decision in DeNardo v. Bax, 147
P.3d 672 (Alaska 2006), among others, describes the work product
privilege. The Alaska Supreme Court's decisions in Gwich'in Steering
Committee v. State, 10 P.3d 572 (Alaska 2000), Capital Information Group
v. State, 923 P.2d 29 (Alaska 1996), and Doe v. Superior Court, 721 P.2d
617 (Alaska 1986), among others, describe the executive and deliberative
process privileges. We will provide a privilege log that includes a
description of the withheld and redacted records.

This response constitutes a partial denial of your records request. For
that reason I am required to provide you the following information. I
have been delegated the authority to deny public records requests for
the Office of the Governor. If you wish, you may administratively
appeal this partial denial of your request by complying with the
procedures of 2 AAC 96.340. You also have the option of obtaining
immediate judicial review of this partial denial by seeking an
injunction from the superior court under AS 40.25.125. Choosing not to
pursue an injunction in superior court will have no adverse effect on
your rights in the administrative appeal. An administrative appeal from
the denial of a request for public records requires no appeal bond.
Copies of 2 AAC 96.335 - 2 AAC 96.350 are attached.

Please feel free to call me at 907-465-3876 if you have any questions.

Linda Perez
Administrative Director
Office of Governor Sean Parnell
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau, Alaska 99811-0001

PHONE: 907.465.3876
FAX: 907.465.1641
linda.perez@alaska.gov
www.gov.state.ak.us

Andree responded:

From: Andree McLeod [mailto:andree@******.**]
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 5:44 PM
To: 'Perez, Linda J (GOV)'
Cc: 'johnjburns@alaska.gov'; 'Jones, David T (LAW)'; 'Cockerham, Sean';
'mthiessen@ap.org'; 'Bohrer, Becky'; Don C. Mitchell (Dcraigm@aol.com);
'Dougherty, Pat'; 'Parnell, Sean R (GOV)'
Subject: RE: Your Public Records Request

Linda.
I would like to pick the 5 boxes of emails from our Anchorage gov’s office.

I’m sure the gov’s office or some other department has a contract with Fed EX or some other outfit that could reasonably ship these boxes up here. I’ve worked for the state as a mailroom clerk and know that employees ship boxes between Juneau and Anchorage willy-nilly.

And anyway, doesn't the Department of Law have copies of these emails in their Anchorage office. Why can’t the records be copied in Anchorage at the Department of Law and I could pick the boxes up from there or the Anchorage gov's office?

Andrée McLeod
Andree is waiting for Perez' reply.

I've got as much respect for Andree's selflessness as I've disdain for Palin's selfishness.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

An even better question is why the hell do the have to deliver paper copies of electronic documents in the first place?

Philip Munger said...

@ 1:34,

It goes beyond silly, doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

Every time I pay my comcast bill, I am needled in the direction of "paperless". This is Sooooo transparent. Utter nonsense.

Montana said...

Run, Sarah run. Sarah Palin was so successful as a governor, she graduated early “Bitter Quitter”, she real is a “Dan Quayle” in heels. She clearly loves “dishing it out” but real can’t take it because she loves playing the victim card. Poor thing she fail as a VP candidate (her lie that her daughter was engaged was such a farce), her stand-up comic fiasco on the Jay Leno Show, please, her TV show canceled after declining rating, I guess her perpetual run for the White House is the only thing she can look forward to, but since she is a coward she will only throw small minded rocks, poor thing. Since we already had an idiot “W” that caused our current economic debacle, America knows not to trust the GOP fools who flaunt the idiocy.

You know what this current crowd of GOP liars want is to turn the United Sates into China, where only a few giant corporations run things, they own the factories, that apartments, the grocery stores, the gas stations, the newspaper and magazine publications, the radio stations, the television stations and you pay them and they get all the benefits, and if you do not like it go jump off cliff. Well some Chinese workers seeing that as individuals that they cannot progress have done just that by committing suicide. The current crowd of GOP liars want to abolish Medicare from the elderly, they want to abolish a woman’s right to choose and have control over her own body, they want to abolish collective bargaining rights, and on top of it all they want to blame the poor, the middle class and the public sector workers for a recession that the GOP created, while their beloved “Fat cats” continue to pay themselves exorbitant salaries, bonuses, fringe benefits. Yes this is the GOP “Radical Right-Wing Social Engineering” that they dream about. The win in New York was the beginning but the next will be Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and later the other states of our nation. So run, Sarah run.

Dis Gusted said...

2,415 pages the state deems privileged, personal or otherwise exempt from Alaska's disclosure laws---

PERSONAL is the key word. I suspect there are e-mails about her daughter's pregnancies and her lack of one. It would be too much to hope for messages re: the murders of Curtis Menard and/or Dar Miller.

Anonymous said...

If anyone was using emails and such to schedule illicit sex with some prostitute- that's the IOKIYAR exemption.

Anonymous said...

Dis Gusted:

Some of you are going too far and delving into the deep depths of the same madness associated with the Conservatives for Palin blog when you keep speaking of the Palins killing Curtis Menard and Dar Miller.

I don't know what Phil's take is on this subject but just yesterday on the Malia Litman blog you guys had Palin and Todd responsible for every unsolved murder that has ever occurred in Alaska for the last 5 years, at the rate you guys are going I wouldn't doubt that the Palin clan killed Bonnie Craig.