Missouri State Highway Patrol finds cracks in e-mail retention system

At least one e-mail pertaining to the 1992 murder of Angela Mischelle Lawless was deleted and could not be recovered, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said, a violation of an e-mail policy instituted by Gov. Matt Blunt last year.

The policy came in the wake of accusations that Blunt's office routinely deleted e-mails in violation of state record retention policies and the Missouri Sunshine Law. The policy instructed all agencies with a .gov e-mail address to comply.

Recently, the Southeast Missourian obtained through a Sunshine request a forwarded e-mail sent between members of the highway patrol pertaining to the Scott County homicide case, but the original e-mail could not be recovered, according to Sgt. Steven Frisbie, custodian of records for the highway patrol.

The Sunshine Law request was delayed for just over two months because the highway patrol has no way of sifting through e-mails based on subject or recipient.

Frisbie said he searched for the original e-mail in the retention system but could not recover it.

Instead of using the retention system developed by the Office of Administration, the highway patrol's system is in-house and can back up e-mails on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Any deleted e-mails are automatically restored during the system backups, but if the user has emptied the trash bin on his computer before that restoration, those e-mails cannot be retrieved, Frisbie said,

"The bottom line is that every e-mail should be saved and retained," said Jessica Robinson, spokeswoman for Blunt's office.

Blunt's directive was clear, Robinson said, and it was the expectation of his office that all government agencies have since been saving and retaining every e-mail.

Currently, the highway patrol is looking into a program that will make retaining all e-mails feasible and will comply with retention policies, but it's a costly endeavor that involves expanding their storage capabilities, Frisbie said.

"We're going to make it right eventually," Frisbie said.

According to Robinson, however, the process by which e-mails are retained is "irrelevant."

"I think that someone over there has some explaining to do," she said.

Frisbie acknowledged that the deleted e-mails represented a flaw in the current system but said it was one of the first e-mail searches he had requested in three years as custodian of records for the patrol.

"I guess we're not aware of the situation until something like this happens," Frisbie said.

Though state law already maintains that those e-mails are considered general correspondence and must be retained for three years, e-mails have only been considered to belong in that category for a relatively short time, Frisbie said.

Robinson pointed out that the Missouri attorney general's office has refused to comply with the directive, but Scott Holste, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the office has complied with both state record retention laws and their own internal policies.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245

Have a comment?

Log on to semissourian.com/today