E-mail memo prompted by IUPUI request

A University memo advising administrators to obtain private addresses for personal e-mails was prompted by a request for an IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis employee's messages, officials said.\nMartin Hensley, a volunteer at WJCF, a Greenfield, Ind.-based Christian radio station, filed a complaint with the Indiana Public Access Counselor to have the e-mails of IUPUI Information Systems Coordinator Janet Wolford released to the public.\nHensley believed the e-mails would show Wolford made threats toward her husband.\nHensley had initially requested the e-mails from IU, but the University counsel's office denied the request. Hensley filed a formal complaint with the Public Access Counselor Sept. 11.\nInterim Public Access Counselor Sandra Bowman issued an opinion Oct. 10 finding the University had violated the Indiana Access to Public Records Act by not releasing the e-mails.\n"E-mail is like any other record," Bowman said. "If an exception applies you can dispute it, but otherwise, it's a matter of public record."\nAfter Bowman's opinion was released, Associate University Counsel Thomas Gannon wrote in a memo Oct. 20 that University employees and any others who use IU computing resources, "should expect and assume that all records created and maintained in any format, including e-mail (whether personal or business related), are subject to public disclosure pursuant to (the 1984 Indiana Access to Public Records Act), unless such records clearly fall within an exception to the law."\nExceptions would include an e-mail to a professor with a question about a course. Bowman said such e-mails would be covered under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, which protects student privacy.\nThe Indiana General Assembly reviewed whether e-mails were a matter of public record in 2001, and passed a bill protecting them from public disclosure. However, then-Gov. Frank O'Bannon vetoed the bill.\nProponents of public access worry that memoes such as the one issued by the University Legal Counsel may keep faculty from even doing regular business on their e-mail accounts.\n"From a policy standpoint it makes sense for the University to advise employees to not use e-mail on state-owned equipment to do personal messaging," Stephen Key, general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association, told the IDS last week. "The concern is if they quit using University e-mail for University business and communicate on private e-mail accounts. That would be a concern for those trying to hold public officials accountable."\n-- Contact staff writer Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.