One Man's Fight to Open Government Data

Perry's office automatically deletes virtually all its e-mails every seven days, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Washburn, who viewed the retention period as "obnoxiously short," developed a computer program that every four days automatically requests all e-mails sent to and from Perry's office staff. When he received the first batch more than 8,000 e-mails covering four days -- he promptly posted them online.

Transitory Materials

According to the Dallas Morning News, Perry's office keeps policy papers and certain correspondence for at least one year.

But most e-mails have been defined as "transitory" material that can be deleted after a week. The policy started under Gov. George W. Bush and was never changed, according to Robert Black, Perry's press secretary.

But that policy may change thanks to Washburn, whose blanket request for e-mails is forcing more than 200 people in the governor's office to stop work, copy all their e-mails, and save them every day, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Washburn also has forced Perry's staff to watch what they say in their e-mails, Black told the newspaper.

Tough Battle

Washburn's Texas requests have been challenged, and a review by the attorney general is pending. But he said the Texas battle is important because while most Texas citizens don't care about records retention, it's the only way they can learn about what their government is up to.

But Washburn has found out that this can be expensive. According to the Dallas Morning News, he is trying to raise money to pay for Gov. Perry's records.

The governor is charging US$5,111 to fulfill all nine requests for e-mails from November 2007 through December 2007. So far, Washburn has paid only $568 for the first batch. The cost, the governor's office said, is due to the time required to go through the e-mails and redact personal information.

A Better Way

Washburn said the governor's office should store e-mails on a server , some of which can be dedicated to e-mails that are public records. Then record requests could be answered with virtually no cost or staff time. He's even volunteered to write the software to do this, but Perry's staff declined.

According to Black, Washburn's request has prompted the office to begin examining a technology upgrade.