They are fighting over a bingo hall I think in Pensacola. After several requests for copies of emails sent to a commissioners private email address that pertained to government business, the State Attorney in Escambia County now has the commissioners personal computer to determine if the request was complied with. Public officials use of private computers and/or private emails do not get them out of releasing discussions of public business.





State attorney has Valentino computer

July 2 20095 Commented
Categorized Under: Escambia County, May 11 2009

Commissioner Gene Valentino has turned over his personal computer to the state attorney’s office which is investigating a complaint by atty. Greg Smith that the commissioner had not released all his emails regarding a bingo casino on Perdido Key.
We discovered that Valentino no longer had his computer yesterday when we were told a record request which we had regarding the commissioner would not be fulfilled until his computer was released by the SAO.
Valentino has his version of why he had so much difficulty complying with Smith’s request—which took over two months—in the daily newspaper.
Emails can be deleted from laptops. The SAO needs to check if Collector Solutions (Valentino’s company) has a backup system on its server that stores all of the commissioner’s emails.

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The harddrive is probably crap on Perdido Key's beach

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I don't see why this is newsworthy. This has been the case for a long time in Florida. If you send a County Commissioner an email, it is public record, so be sure to not include your phone number, unless you want it to be public record along with your name and email address.

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I am not sure we want to go down this road. How many here would like to turn their personal computer over to an outside party for inspection? If the commissioner has turned over everything on his county computer, that should be that unless someone can prove other documents exist elsewhere. I would think the State Attorney would need a warrant to get someone's personal computer.

What is next, opening their mail on the chance some letter contains "county business?"

good point, idlewind. Does the gov't go through all of the piles of personal letters which may be stored at the Commissioner's house, on the chance that there may be a County biz letter in the stack of the juicy love letters and bills?

Gov't loves playing on the internet. Did you know that anyone applying for food stamps has to consent to allowing their computer to be monitored by the Fed Gov't? Pretty soon, in order for you to get your IRS refund, I mean "over-payment" check, you will have to consent to allow the Govt to monitor your computer. It's not that they don't already do that, they just don't currently have your permission to do so.

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I do not believe that anyone is promoting open season on peoples personal computers, but one only needs to remember the whole Richburg/Samson controversy and remember that most of the smoking gun documents that lead to the indictments were "discovered" after they stated they had released all emails and complied with public records requests - then once out of office the documents surfaced when others had access to their system.

Also please remember the whole Palin "personal email" account fiasco where many "state business" issues were handled through her personal email account rather than her state account.

If you are known to utilize a personal account for govt business and some are - they should be fair game for forensic examination.

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Thank You Walton County !
Our Hotline received 1168 calls during it's first month of operation.

Perhaps you are correct that if one uses a personal email account to receive Gov't emails, he or she should subject that account to inspection. HOWEVER, searching through an email account is much different than searching through an entire computer.

On another point, idlewind noted, just because a Commissioner might receive a few pieces of gov't biz mail via his or her home mailbox, doesn't also mean that all of his or mail received at that mail box should be subject to inspection. It really is no different than email in my opinion, except for the speed, and saving of trees, carbon dioxide pollution, energy waste, and time involved in delivering the US mail.

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You need to understand how a forensic hard drive examination is done to understand that every file and bit is not viewed, key word searches are used to examine the data stored searching for those key words within the bit stream. It is fascinating to observe. Data stored that has been "erased" is not really deleted, a bit flag is changed indicating the file is not available but is actually retrievable. (a very simplified explanation).

Is it acceptable for two county commissioner's to communicate with each other via a personal email account in an effort to avoid a sunshine law violation, to agree on a position, to agree on an expenditure without the benefit of "sunshine"?

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Thank You Walton County !
Our Hotline received 1168 calls during it's first month of operation.

Anything that can be "searched" can be "saved" and read some other time. From what I have always been told most violations occur by one talking to the other. So how do we catch that, bug them 24/7?
If people want to cheat, they will. Usually they will get bolder and bolder and get themselves caught. ( Charlie Morris for example)

WD Childers also.

I think the way you catch them is when you see a policy implemented that you know would require a public vote, and none is found. Such as increasing benefits in lieu of pay.

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The reason they requested the computer is because they have proof that emails were sent to the private account on it about government business.

This isn't an invasion of privacy we need to worry about, it's yet another elected official not following the rules and trying to circumvent the law.

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The enemy is ignorance.

In that case they have reason to get a warrant from the court and proceed.

Keep in mind that anyone can create an email address and access it from any computer, which would bypass all that crap if they wanted to avoid getting caught being in the dark. I cannot honestly believe that if a personal computer is taken in such case as noted above, that people wouldn't abuse their authority and search for many other things while in the progress. I truly think you are fooling yourself if you believe that only incriminating emails will be read.

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I'm not saying someone couldn't read their personal emails while searching for the others, I am saying that I don't have a problem w/ them going through the proper legal channels to verify that a court order has been properly carried out.

If you choose to involve a personal email account, laptop, phone, PDA, bank account, in government business it makes it fair game IMO.

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The enemy is ignorance.

What about letters sent to a private residence? Should the Court also issue a search warrant to search the residence for letters which could have been mailed? If you think not, what makes the difference between searching for incriminating evidence in the two, similar, yet different formats? It is just as likely that one could receive mail as email, and ironically, it may be easier to avoid getting caught, having an actual letter, than an electronic email.

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If they have proof that someone is sending mail that contains sensitive information to a certain address to circumvent the law, why shouldn't they be allowed to look for it?

I would think a warrant to search that location would be worded to include those documents..........and that additional charges would be added because they used the US mail system to commit a crime.

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The enemy is ignorance.

My point is that if they have proof of incriminating emails, why did they need to seize the computer? They only seized the computer to look for the supposed emails. If they have proof that incriminating letters are being mailed, they wouldn't have to search through a person's house to find the actual letters.

Without proof, it is only speculation, and therefore all public officials could have their computers confiscated and searched in hopes of finding something. Next thing you know, they will be monitoring the phones of elected officials. Oh, wait, I bet they already do that.

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As I understood it, the computer was seized after a complaint was filed that he didn't comply with the request for all the emails - they gave him 2 months to release his emails to them, and then seized the computer when he still didn't produce them and made excuses.

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The enemy is ignorance.

If that is the case, it doesn't sound as though they had proof. Giving the guy the benefit of the doubt, let's look at the following scenario: the "suspect" received a request to forward all of the County business emails. He (for this scenario) turned over all of said emails. However, some opponent, or haters, suggest that he didn't turn all of them over as requested. So, they take it to the Court, which confiscates his personal computer, searching for something that doesn't exist. (kind of difficult to produce something that doesn't exist.)

Now what makes sense about that, and what would keep people from doing that to every person in elected office in Florida? Answer: absolutely nothing. Nothing more than the news story on the subject, plants the seed of wrong-doing in the citizens of his area, even if no wrong doing ever happened.

I in no way am stating that the person is guilty or innocent of the accusations, I'm just saying that this is the perfect opportunity to play poliTRICKS, to get someone thrown out of office, or to get someone else elected.

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Just remember in the good ole' US of A we have a saying:

Innocent, until proven guilty.

Not sure if the comma should be there or not.

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Catching people at this game is not rocket science. The problem is that it is just about impossible to get more than a couple of people to act in total concert with each other.

For example, during the TDC tax increase debate, I made a public records request to each county commissioner for every piece of email that they received either for or against the TDC 12.5% tax increase that eventually passed. I received emails from some, had one tell me that they got no emails about the issue. When examining the emails I could see that many were actually just CC:ed to each commissioner. Personally I thought it a bit strange when I would get four copies of dozens of emails, yet none from one commissioner who, even though according to my copies were addressed correctly, kept insisting that no emails were received at their office. I felt pretty confident in my assumption that the office was deleting public records or just lying about it. I also felt that I had enough, that if I went in front of a judge, I could have gotten someone's computer seized. But alas, it would go nowhere toward trying to stop the TDC from asking and then getting a 12.5% tax increase during dire economic times.

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I'm a little curious how many man hours and sheets of paper have been used, at taxpayers expense, for the WCTA to request public records?

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I do not know. My requests always include the statement that I will pay for anything in compliance with Florida statute, I just ask for an estimate in advance and how to make payment.

The only government entity I have ever had to pay is the school district, and they charged me time for an employee to do a request once, and the Clerk's office. I went to mediation with the prior clerk cause I wanted some data and he wanted to print it all out and then charge me 15 cents a page, but I did not need it printed, the State advised them to give me the data, and I have paid for copies from the Clerk's office, until they got really good at making pdf files, and now they just email them to me to look at and print if I so desire.

I would like to see them go ahead and put the county checkbook on line for viewing with links to the supporting documentation, I think it would save them some dollars in having to look stuff up. As for does it cost all of us money, yeppers, but it is a function of the various offices so they need to figure out how they are going to comply.

The real expense is the things that they do when a request is made. If a school board member makes a public records request, copies of any data gathered are sent to each member, for what reason, I have no idea. And many times I have heard of requests being duplicated for senior staff at government agencies, I guess they do this as some sort of strategy to try to figure out what someone is looking at. All that causes is for activists to over request documents in very vague terms so that they may find what they are seeking. If you are specific, you then have to worry about the record being destroyed or altered. While you would not think that sort of thing happens, there are allegations in an ongoing lawsuit to that affect.

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Thank you for the response. I'm just glad that the WCTA isn't making up for savings with endless paperwork and payroll expenses to the county.

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SWGB, it is refreshing to see you are interested in whether the WCTA is causing an unnecessary expenditure of county funds to pursue their actions. They have a yearly fee to belong to the association among other income. Don't worry. It is my firm conviction they have your back though sometimes I disagree with their decisions and conclusions.

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Speak out freely...Hold to the truth...Question boldly.

I understand. What if the County Commissioner were receiving many spam emails, eg- ads, and began marking the ads as "Spam," to be blocked by filters? If the Spam filter mistook legitimate business emails and filtered it to the SPAM file, the Commissioner would never see the email, and might actually think he or she is complying fully with the law, when he or she says that he or she did not receive any emails on the subject. I wonder how that would play out in Court. If it was never read because it is in the spam filter, therefore never getting into the "in-box," how is he or she to know to forward it in your request?

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Can you say s t r e t c h?
Posted via Mobile Device

It isn't a stretch at all. I check my spam filter once a week, just because legit email, including even from myself to myself (CCs), occasionally get screened out. It wouldn't surprise me at all if legit emails enter other people's spam box, if they are somewhat decent at marking spam on a regular basis.

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Watch out Joe, applying common sense and real life examples to a witchhunt is a futile undertaking.

County system, they all do it the same way. If the message was getting caught in a spam filter none of them would get it.

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Darn, thought Joe had you there for a moment.

So an individual cannot mark spam in their own mailbox? My email address from my company's email service allows each individual to set their own spam preferences. Is the County's so unique that it won't allow that?

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Robert, what say you about this?

I wonder how difficult it would be for someone who wanted to get someone thrown out of office, to go to a public computer, such as the library, and sign in using a Commissioner's first name, go to some kiddie porn sites, and subscribe to receive such things using the Commissioner's email address.

I know the good ole boy system is at work in County Gov't all over this Country, but it sure would be too easy to make an elected official look terrible, without much work.

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No way would you ever convince me that each and every mail that they received on an issue was marked as spam, and so what if it was. A public records request has no automatic exemption for spam, nor no automatic exemption for not knowing it was in your mailbox. If this is occurring they should be searching their spam folders also.

You are also working under the assumption that the commissioners are the ones getting the mail and reading it, which is not true. I know one of them has all the email printed out, writes a response, and has staff type the response back. Have no idea what the commissioner is going to do with the new Blackberry they were recently given.

I do admire you for standing your ground in their defense though.

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I do not speak for Joe, but I am not defending anyone. I am defending the rights of everyone from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their personal affairs. If the government can examine commissioner's mail, then they can examine mine or yours if the "reason" is deemed good enough. We have already sacrificed too much personal liberty in this country.

Maybe we need to get back on track here. Elected officials are aware of this being possible when running for office. So they can choose not to participate. The emails that are being examined are public records. They are on government email servers. When we spoke about private email addresses, I used the example to show how easy it is to catch someone trying to say that they did not get an official email at their private account. There are copies, and obviously this guy had them. He asked for all the emails, was told there were none, asked again, told that there were none, then asked one more time and asked that they make 'sure' that they were none as he would be going to court the next day to try to get them produced. Suddenly dozens showed up. For him to be so persistent, I believe that he had copies of the emails already, at least one side of the conversation, and felt confident that he could get the others. If the commissioner was so committed to privacy, they could have presented their case to the judge to see how it worked out.

Of course, Escambia County has actually jailed officials in the past for violation of the public records law, one school board member, and the DEP regional director for the area.

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Do you also defend someones right to have a volleball net on their property ?

I'm confused because I thought the issue was taking one's private computer and confiscating private emails, not public. If the emails were sent to the public email address for a Commissioner, they should be able to find it on the County's server, without need to take any computer from anyone.

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The example I gave you of how easy it is to catch someone was my experience on government servers. Since this whole thing has gotten so mucked up I do not know if we will ever get back on track.

Current law and court precedent say that emails covering government business are public records even if sent to private email addresses.

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I don't think we are off-topic. I thought the fact is that a privately owned computer was being seized. You are saying that you sent emails to the public email address. Is it not possible for the Courts to see what goes through the County's server? I think the answer is yes, without the need to take one's personal computer.

Yes, but it says nothing about private, non-gov't business emails being public record, and it sounds like you are asking that people should have the ability to go through all of one's personal, non-gov't emails to hope to find a business email. If the email was sent to the public address, it should be traceable through the County's server.

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Current law and court precedent say that emails covering government business are public records even if sent to private email addresses.

Why don't you do this. Run for office, get elected, give me your private email address and I will show you how to spend some dollars defending your position. Who knows, maybe together we can make some new law.

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What the heck are you talking about? I have no desire to run for office, only to be sent emails by you, then requested the emails be returned to you. Are you nuts? I'd never get any real work done. By the way, thanks for saving all the trees by asking for these paper trails.

I understand the current law. The problem with finding guilt is that you have to provide evidence, which cannot be done through unconstitutional means.

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Does the Chairman of Code Enforcement also have to follow these rules? If so, sounds like he may have the potential to have his hands full if people wanted to start sending emails then requesting to receive copies of said emails which they just sent. Talk about trying to start something over nothing.

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I think you are about to find out that in Walton County the answer to your question is NO. Give it a few days. Check U-Tube

That is a good question. So far I have not received anything that I believe would be a public record at my email that a copy also does not exist on a government server. And I am not a custodian of any public records that I know of.

So send me something, then request it, and let us see what happens.


As for my paper trail, I get everything in electronic format so far. Although I may have to actually kill some trees, if I can not get DBPR to send me a case report as a pdf. I hate giving them $15 for a hundred pages of stuff that I probably do not need.

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You have evidence to get access. Not access to get evidence.

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They got Blackberries, wow, sometimes when communications get balled up, I bet WCFR wish they still had the direct connects on their trucks.