Saturday, December 01, 2007

John Washburn Takes on the State of Texas

John Washburn, who has been a pit bull in attacking election problems in Wisconsin, has taken on the state of Texas.  Here’s the short version:

The Executive Branch in Texas, led by Aggie Governor Rick Perry, has been instructed to delete all emails on a regular basis.  This grated at Washburn, who rightly considers these to be public records worthy of being preserved.  Texas state law says that once someone requests a record, it must be preserved.  So Washburn...

The Milwaukee-based software consultant programmed his computer to automatically spit out two requests a week for all government e-mail generated by Perry staffers. He hasn’t gotten a single e-mail yet, but Washburn has already achieved a victory of sorts. Under state law, records aren’t supposed to be destroyed once somebody has asked for them.

In other words, Washburn has singlehandedly brought the electronic shredders to a grinding halt.

One guy can make a difference. 

But now he needs some help.  The State of Texas has some of the emails for him but want to charge him $568 for the records.  He’s blegging for the money to get them.  Please consider dropping him a few bucks.  Between all of us, $568 should come pretty quick and help one man teach the State of Texas what open government is all about.

(2) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1124 hrs
Politics + Politics - Texas + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. I love that he is doing that. I blogged about it and in his comments on my post, he explains that he is anti-government, feels it is only a tool with negative uses, etc. I, of course, quite disagree with him. But I think it is really cool when people with such opposing viewpoints find there is something they agree on.

    Posted by hope on December 01, 2007 at 1214 hrs


  2. Thanks for the mention and recommendation, Owen. 
    It is appreciated.

    Posted by John Washburn on December 02, 2007 at 2335 hrs


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