Use of private emails in 'Bridgegate' discussions 'disturbing,' assemblyman says

[ProSense]

Use of private emails in 'Bridgegate' discussions 'disturbing,' assemblyman says

Written by Bob Jordan

TRENTON — The investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures has revealed the relative ease in which transparency measures can be bypassed, as numerous members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration along with Port Authority officials turned to personal email accounts to discuss actions that affected government business.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey on Monday called for the Christie administration to begin requiring public employees to use their government-issued email accounts to conduct public business...evidence includes many instances of officials forwarding government emails to their own Gmail, Yahoo, or other personal accounts. That allows the conversations to generally stay out of public view and out of the reach of laws governing public access to government records.

“That’s a very disturbing development because you see some of these communications start with normal government email channels and then switch to private email channels,’’ said John Wisniewski, chairman of the state Assembly panel that released subpoenaed documents last week....denials by Port Authority officials close to Christie that the lane closures were politically motivated didn’t hold up when email activity was examined.

“A the story was originally put forward, this was simply a traffic study, but you wouldn’t switch to your personal email account unless you thought there was a reason to, and that is something we have to get to the bottom of,’’ Wisniewski said.

- more -

http://www.app.com/article/20140113/NJNEWS1002/301130089/Chris-Christie-emails

2012: Senate Dems fail to override Christie's veto of Port Authority transparency bill
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024323658#post7

Hired drivers' lawsuit accuses Christie administration of 'reckless conduct' in lane closures
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024326199

[MADem]

1. They learned that shit from Bush's team--in the WH they used YAHOO.

They even used the "terra" tactic, where you write a draft, save it, and then signaling someone to go pick up the message by logging into the same account, reading the draft and then deleting it.

It's impossible with smart phones, etc., to prevent this kind of thing. It's really difficult to acquire the full communications that take place in an administration as a consequence. Not only the private emails, but the texts and phone calls to private phones as well.

[ProSense]

2. Wildstein knew he

had to cover his ass: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024316517

[MADem]

4. Yep...! nt

[treestar]

3. These emails still came to light though

It's just amazing they used email. They could have talked on the phone and none of this come to light. Lucky they are so filled with hubris.