Tony Evers has a secret state email account appropriating the name of a dead baseball legend, but he doesn’t think the public has a right to know about it.
Gov. Tony Evers has been communicating with state workers about public business using a secret government email account in the name of a deceased Milwaukee Braves baseball legend, and over 17,000 emails sent to and from the account exist, Wisconsin Right Now has exclusively documented.
But the governor’s office thinks the public has no right to know the account’s name and won’t provide most of the emails. We verified Evers is using the account, first through a source who saw communications between Evers and a state worker, and then through the open records request. The response provided other details that verified it, even though the address was blacked out.
We can reveal: Gov. Evers writes various state workers and cabinet secretaries using the account “warren.spahn@wisconsin.gov,” a state email account in the name of the Braves’ legend.
The state Department of Administration explained it was blacking out the email account name, writing of the redactions, “The Governor’s non-public official direct email address. Making this email address available would significantly hinder the Governor’s ability to communicate and work efficiently. There is minimal harm to the public interest, given that there are numerous public means to communicate with the Office of the Governor.”
There are two transgressions here. First, the governor is using a secret email account to conduct public business. This practice intentionally makes it more difficult for people to find them when conducting open records requests. You can’t ask for something you don’t know about.
The greater transgression is that even after WRN discovered the email, the DOA is still refusing to disclose the emails in response to a lawful open records request. Wisconsin’s government is required by law to provide any information for the asking. It is a cornerstone of transparency that promotes good government. There are few – very few – reasons that the government is allowed to redact requested information. “Evers doesn’t want to because it might embarrass him” is not a lawful reason to deny an open records request.
Evers has a history of thwarting the public’s legal responsibility and right to see what his office is doing. What is he hiding?
That first “transgression” is a felony:
943.201 Unauthorized use of an individual’s personal identifying information or documents.
(1) In this section:
(a) “Personal identification document” means any of the following:
1. A document containing personal identifying information.
2. An individual’s card or plate, if it can be used, alone or in conjunction with another access device, to obtain money, goods, services, or any other thing of
value or benefit, or if it can be used to initiate a transfer of funds.
3. Any other device that is unique to, assigned to, or belongs to an individual and that is intended to be used to access services, funds, or benefits of any kind .
(b) “Personal identifying information” means any of the following information:
1. An individual’s name.
2. An individual’s address.
3. An individual’s telephone number.
(2) Whoever, for any of the following purposes, intentionally uses, attempts to use, or possesses with intent to use any personal identifying information or personal identification document of an individual, including a deceased individual, without the authorization or consent of the individual and by representing that he or she is the individual, that he or she is acting with the authorization or consent of the individual, or that the information or document belongs to him or her is guilty of a Class H felony:
(a) To obtain credit, money, goods, services, employment, or any other thing of value or benefit.
(b) To avoid civil or criminal process or penalty.
(c) To harm the reputation, property, person, or estate of the individual.
Josh Kaul is working up the papers as we type!
As far as the 2nd issue, I have yet to see any evidence that he didn’t provide the emails that were legally requested of him from this address. If you can prove that he used this email address to avoid public requests and NOT provide them when requested, then lets ring up the charges. And it clearly wasn’t a very big secret if it had 17000 emails.
And as far as using a different handle or name for an email address. I don’t believe that would hold up in court. He did nothing to try and convince or prove to anyone that he WAS Warren Spahn. It was just an alternate email handle. It would VERY quickly get thrown out of court.
As we all know, Scott Walker used the alternate email of kevin.scott@wisconsin.gov to do private gov’t business as well. And not his primary email address. I see no issues with having a private email address to do internal work, and a public facing email address.
So, unless you can prove he was avoiding public requests… big fat nothing-burger here.
Walker used his own name. That ain’t a felony.
Not to mention that Phoney nEvers and state Department of Administration lied to WRN.
Response to WRN’s open records request from the Gov’s office:
On September 22, 2023 you submitted a request for “any emails to or from the state a email account of warren.spahn@wisconsin.gov from January 1, 2018 to present, including attachments
The Gov’s office denied the request because it wasn’t specific on email subject or “time frame”.
WRN writes:
Weirdly, the DOA arbitrarily narrowed our request to a different time frame (through 2021) and to a couple of DOA officials (but not the secretary of DOA, for example).
Here was the DOA’s response:
Your request does not provide a reasonable limitation as to subject matter or time period as required by Wis. Stats § 19.35(1)(h). As worded, it would require a search that email address and each of the Department’s employees’ emails for a period of nearly five years.
Rather than deny your request, we interpret your request to be for records between the Governor and the DOA Secretary’s Office from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2021.
Yet both the gov and the DOA the “time frame” complaint was bullshit.
From today’s Milwaukee Urinal-Sentinal:
The alternative emailreported by Wisconsin Right Now has been inactive “for years,” according to the governor’s office, and bounced a Monday morning inquiry from the Journal Sentinel.
It appears Evers continues to use a different non-public-facing email that is redacted on records sent from the governor’s office
If you can prove that he used this email address to avoid public requests
Be serious for once. There is NO other reason to create a fake-name email address than to ‘avoid public requests.’
We all thought that you were older than 10.
But DOA is doing a very good job of “NOT providing them when requested,” is it not? So both of your inane arguments fail.
Who cares WHAT the alternate was called. I don’t care if he called it “bieber_fan_1@wisconsin.gov”. Having a non-publicly known email address isn’t a problem. We have seen it with Walker and now Evers. And he is now probably using another one as we speak once he felt that the Warren Spahn one was burned. There is NOTHING that says that all his email addresses should be publicly known. It’s probably even better security to have a completely private one that potential hackers can’t target.
And still, no one has PROVEN that when requested he didn’t provide emails from that account as well as his publicly known account! When that happens, file the charges.
I mean, it isn’t like Scott Walker used his campaign email to communicate for county business to private email accounts… oh wait. That is EXACTLY what he did.
And MJM. Using whatever name he wants on an email account is NOT a felony. Last time I checked Warren.Spahn@wisconsin.gov wasn’t his legal name. It is Warren Edward Spahn. Whatever alias he wants to use is fine. Good luck racking that up as a felony in a court of law. If I go and register an email account called Owen.Robinson@gmail.com, it isn’t a felony. As long as I am not trying to defraud anyone and make them think I am Owen.
Ahhh, the old “whataboutism” argument. Walker’s out of office. Dipsy-Doodle Evers is IN office.
He’s hiding something and is STILL hiding something. The State hires competent IT security people, so a hack wasn’t likely–and you know it.
Further, the law is crystal clear–if you can read English. The elements constituting felonious behavior were bolded so you could see them better. Used someone else’s name, check. Used the name, check. To avoid civil process (Open Records requests), check.
Duh.
And [Phoney] is now probably using another one as we speak once he felt that the Warren Spahn one was burned.
Wait… are you saying the Gov lied… again?
I mean, given the fact that WRN outed the Spahn account just three months ago yet the Gov hisself told the MJS that the account “has been inactive ‘for years’ “.
And “probably using another” is just a bit outside. The MJS already confirmed that, you know, as shown above in the quote of them.
Last time I checked Warren.Spahn@wisconsin.gov wasn’t his legal name. It is Warren Edward Spahn
We’ll just let that one roll along in all its glorious absurdity.
If I go and register an email account called Owen.Robinson@gmail.com, it isn’t a felony. As long as I am not trying to defraud anyone and make them think I am Owen.
By all means. Go for it. Double dog dare ya.
I’m gonna guess Owen already has a good lawyerman in his contact list, but even a 1st-year law student would have you by your gonads.
Dad29, you keep saying that he “is hiding something”… No proof yet. What is “something”??? You can’t even get proof he didn’t comply with all the open records request. Like I said… if it comes out that he did that, I will be ALL FOR prosecution to the fullest extent.
The email could have been just discovered and still burned months or years ago. Maybe it got out to someone else?
MJM… So are you going to prosecute someone who has Warren.Spahn.fan@??? Are you dumb enough to think THAT is illegal? Where do YOU draw the line? Again. Warren.Spahn is NOT his legal name, nor was he trying to convince anyone. But sure, go ahead and keep arguing how it is a “felony”. There are so many technicalities that you can easily use with this. It makes you look stupid.
MJM. I will await the cops to show up with the paperwork.
>And still, no one has PROVEN that when requested he didn’t provide emails from that account as well as his publicly known account! When that happens, file the charges.
Serve those papers Dumdum… Ever’s own office is on record stating over 17,000 emails exist from that account between 2018 and 2023.
Are you dumb enough to think THAT is illegal?
Far less dumb than you to think that it isn’t.
Since you have already demonstrated a sorry lack of reading comprehension…
(2) Whoever, for any of the following purposes, intentionally uses, attempts to use, or possesses with intent to use any personal identifying information or personal identification document of an individual, including a deceased individual, without the authorization or consent of the individual and by representing that he or she is the individual, that he or she is acting with the authorization or consent of the individual, or that the information or document belongs to him or her is guilty of a Class H felony:
(a) To obtain credit, money, goods, services, employment, or any other thing of value or benefit.
(b) To avoid civil or criminal process or penalty.
(c) To harm the reputation, property, person, or estate of the individual.
Re-read that until you understand it. Try, at least.
Where do YOU draw the line?
Well, duh. Using some one else’s name without the authorization or consent of the individual
Warren.Spahn is NOT his legal name
Keep diggn’.
I will await the cops to show up with the paperwork.
Well, that will be up to the surviving Spahn relatives in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Once I send them a screen shot. And your IP.
Little Jason is still behind. Hey little buddy, no one is clear if the Spahn emails were or were not included in any open requests. My guess is they were and the address redacted. But no one has said.
Try and keep up slugger.
MJM. I am done repeating the same thing to you.
The problem with this is that it is an obvious attempt to evade open records requests. If someone requests emails from Tony Evers how is a clerk in the open records department supposed to know about the alias email addresses?
Another problem is that people may list their request as wanting emails on a subject from the known email addresses, This might allow open records to technically say no responsive records were found when those emails were under the alias address. The big problem with this is that open records law does not care where the records are, it cares about the content of the records. This is what caught up Hillary Clinton, but no reasonable prosecutor…
Looks like now we need a law specifying government communications plainly specify who originated them.
Mike, I think it depends on how the open requests are made. If you ask for all emails between 2 dates related to a specific subject, then they are obligated to hand over ALL of them. I don’t know if you need to make requests based on exact individual email addresses, which I am fairly sure is not the case based on some sample FOI letters.
And my guess is that the clerk isn’t the one pulling the emails directly. That would get handed up to an Email administrator who would go into their retention vault and pull whatever the request was.
Personally, if I was the Email Admin there, I would just create an alias (not an entirely new email account) and then setup filters & rules for specific incoming addresses. But, it depends on how private you want to keep certain email accounts. Does your assistant have access to your account for scheduling or filtering? etc.
I am done repeating the same thing to you.
That’s good, because the more you repeat yourself the dumber you sound.
My guess is they were and the address redacted.
Q: Why would Phoney’s DOA black out the Spahn addy in the few emails supplied just recently to WRN while claiming “ Making this email address available would significantly hinder the Governor’s ability to communicate and work efficiently”, if, according to Phoney nEvers hisself, the account “has been inactive for years” ?
Its funny how childish you (and others) sound when you think you are clever with dumb nicknames like “Phony nEvers”. Instead, you just come off confusing and ignorant. But hey, when you have no proof of ANY wrong doing, go for name calling. Seems to have worked really well.
I will wait here for ANY proof… but my guess is that none will come and it will be just another ho-hum “controversy”.
Release the 17,000 e-mails from, the pseudo-account. Then let’s decide if this is nefarious.
And I, for one, am appalled that anyone would use a fake name to represent themself on the internet.
Its funny…
…sad, actually, how you steadfastly shout NO EVIDENCE!!! when it has been clearly shown that Phoney nEvers has lied and the DOA has lied, both in the purpose of hiding evidence you claim doesn’t exist.
It’s funny – sad, really – when confronted with obvious obfuscation you skate around it like Michelle Kwan
It’s funny, hilarious even, that you maintain Warren Spahn is not Warren Spahn’s legal name.
No MJM. All I am asking is to SHOW me the evidence that a FOI request wasn’t completely fulfilled when asked. Any right wing WI group can make a request, or that HAS made a request can verify. Yet, none of them are?? You can believe that he is hiding something, and he MAY be. But you still have NO PROOF. And FWIW, Scott Walker did this and it was OK. But Walker also was using a PRIVATE email address, server, & wifi network, to do gov’t business, which is NOT OK.
And again, I am saying Warren.Spahn isn’t Warren Spahns legal name. Tell me which of these are acceptable to you for an email?
w.spahn@
warrens@
warrenspahn.fan@
not_warren_spahn@
If I name my bar trivia team “Warren Spahn”… is THAT a felony?
Email aliases are not official documents. They are pointers. Coming from a guy whose handle is MJM. Those BETTER be your initials or you may be committing a felony. LOL
Fling enough monkey-poo at it and hope the techno-babble will confuse the masses.
JonnyV, my man, someone blew out your pilot light if you actually believe your own bullshit.
Dad29, the law is nothing but a form of techno-babble. But that doesn’t make ANY of my points less relevant. These laws were written in a time before we had things like email, aliases, login names, etc. There is the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law.
And I 100% believe that using a different name as an email address is NOT a felony. Unless, I am using it to try and defraud someone. My guess is that EVERY ONE of those emails had Tony’s signature file identifying himself.
If I knock on your door and answer and say, “Hello my name is Wade Boggs. haha, No, not the baseball player. Just a funny coincidence.” Did I just commit a felony because I identified myself as a different name that IS the same as a famous athlete?
You all are trying SO hard to come up with things to hold against him that it looks petty. Do you have Evers Derangement Syndrome?
As I said, if the email address wasn’t provided for a FOI request, then charge him. That is a beyond the pale. So, prove that and go from there. But man… an email alias. I smell desperation.
All I am asking is to SHOW me the evidence that a FOI request wasn’t completely fulfilled when asked.
Try this and read the linked story.
And I 100% believe that using a different name as an email address is NOT a felony
On STATE-PAID AND OWNED DOMAINS, it is felony fraud, pal. I hope you understand the difference between “TAXPAYER PAID” and “NOT TAXPAYER PAID.”
Call yourself Karine Jean-Pierre on Yahoo (it fits.) But you can’t do that on the FedGov email system.
>And I 100% believe that using a different name as an email address is NOT a felony.
Now that you’ve said that we all know that you’re an idiot and a partisan dick. We all suspected it or believed it… Now all know it as fact.
So Dad29 is moving goal posts now. It isn’t illegal in some places but IS in others. Show me where it says you need to use YOUR legal name on govt run email systems.
MJM. No proof, just speculation and “could haves”. I won’t hold my breath waiting for evidence.
Jason, we are on a partisan website… we are all partisan hacks. Just that some of us are not blinded by hate and rage. Ask your 3rd grade teacher to explain that.
No proof, just speculation
It’s not “speculation” when the proof you asked for is a proven and known fact: Both Phoney nEvers and the DOA failed to release FOIA requested emails.
That it’s right there in front of your face yet you refuse to acknowledge it makes Jason’s description of you also a proven known fact.
MJM… you need some basic reading comprehension skills. Here… DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE.
“It raises a host of legal questions.
Did the governor provide emails using the Warren Spahn account to people who requested his emails or communications on various topics in the past via open records requests, as required by law? Or were those left out? Was the hidden account designed to circumvent the public’s or media’s right to know about the business the governor is conducting using state resources as a public official? How could the public and media reasonably be expected to know that the email address even existed when attempting to monitor the governor’s actions through open records requests?
If the governor’s office has received open records requests asking for Evers’ emails – or just topics that Evers discussed in the secret Warren Spahn emails, and they did NOT provide them to the requesters, then they are in violation of state open records laws.”
Lots of “Ifs, maybes, and questions”. But NOTHING verified. Not in the article, not in Owens post, not by anyone who requested emails. No one has said anything YET. It is possible he did, but until someone verifies it… you are guessing and hoping.
Maybe from now on, you should copy articles into ChatGPT and say, “explain this to me like I am in 3rd grade, like Jason”. That would probably help you a lot.
Speaking of needing reading skills, let’s revisit…
You: All I am asking is to SHOW me the evidence that a FOI request wasn’t completely fulfilled when asked.
Guess you missed comprehending this part…
We sent an open records request in September 2023 asking for all communications to and from “warren.spahn@wisconsin.gov” from 2018 to September 2023. We sent the request to both the state Department of Administration and the governor’s office.
The governor’s office simply denied the request…
Weirdly, the DOA arbitrarily narrowed our request to a different time frame (through 2021) and to a couple of DOA officials (but not the secretary of DOA, for example)
Need I mention – for a third time – that Phoney claims the Spahn account has been dead for years yet the DOA behaves otherwise?
But NOTHING verified
Again, your absurdity stands.
.
Reality vs. The Leftoids.
It’s hopeless, MjM.
jv is our very own Dan Goldman…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vlIW1JIBhJA
In another context, “The Other McCain” describes both jonnyV and the local press:
This is the hivemind of the Borg in action. These people contradict themselves without hesitation, and the media will ignore the contradictions, because they are partisan hacks who consider it their duty — their only stock in trade as “professional journalists” — to advance the interests of the Democratic Party. Such people consider themselves qualified to determine what is “misinformation,” and will applaud the government censoring any viewpoint that displeases them.
See: https://theothermccain.com/2023/12/02/matt-taibbi-vs-the-borg/
Like it or not, the request for “all the emails” has a right to be denied. According to WI state law, the request must be “reasonable”.
The request must be reasonably specific as to the subject matter and length of time involved.
• The purpose of the time and subject matter limitations is to prevent unreasonably burdening a
records custodian by requiring the records custodian to spend excessive amounts of time and
resources deciphering and responding to a request.
https://www.doj.state.wi.us/sites/default/files/office-open-government/Resources/PRL-GUIDE.pdf
If the requestor feels that they were denied unreasonable, they can take that to court. And from where I stand, asking for 17000 emails without any true subject matter falls under that specification. YMMV.
Match an old request, and verify if the Spahn emails come with. This isn’t a tough job. That will answer your questions.
Again, not holding my breath on this.
@Daddio, Jason: Goldman v. Borg. Hmmmmmmm. A mix of both, but in this case I’d go with the Goldman theory outweighing the Borg: shear stupidity, ongoing…
Like it or not, the request for “all the emails” has a right to be denied. According to WI state law, the request must be “reasonable”.
So, the law is the law, yes?
This you?…
Dad29, the law is nothing but a form of techno-babble. ….. These laws were written in a time before we had things like email, aliases, login names, etc. There is the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law.
So, the law isn’t the law is the law isn’t the law.
Make up yer friggn mind.
And from where I stand,….
Where you stand has zilch relativity to anything (even if you are knee-deep in it).
….. asking for 17000 emails without any true subject matter falls under that specification.
WRN didn’t ask for 17000 mails emails. That is simply the result found by Phoney based on the time frame in FOIA request.
Phoney’s response took two months.
Really? Had to be the easiest search ever: TO .or. FROM = “warren.spahn@wisconsin.gov”. Probably took all of an hour or two given such files are isolated in specific directories, even in archives, and you only need search the first k or two of each file.
BTW, it’s interesting that you did not include this bit of Kommy Kaul’s opinion piece, just a few lines down from the part you quoted:
The fact that a public records request may result in generation of a large volume of records is not in itself a sufficient reason to deny a request as not properly limited.
And where you stand has zilch relativity to anything (even if you are knee-deep in it).
Contrary to your misguided belief that “subject matter” pertains to a specific email’s “subject”, the subject matter of the FOIA was the fraudulent identity used by nEvers as an email addy.
Indeed, the WRN FOIA request was extremely specific as it requested only specific addy referenced emails and attached docs. Compare that to a request “for records pertaining to MKE stadium funding” which would include written docs, meeting minutes, schedules, etc, etc., … and emails.
>No MJM. All I am asking is to SHOW me the evidence that a FOI request wasn’t completely fulfilled when asked. Any right wing WI group can make a request, or that HAS made a request can verify.
I really don’t understand where you are coming from on this JV. The article says the DOA noted that there were more than 17,000 emails, but to date only a handful have been handed over. If you won’t accept that, what other proof could be given than that the requestors have not yet been given the emails requested and that what has been handed over has been redacted? The ARTICLE CLEARLY STATES that they have not seen most of those 17,000 emails from the request.
The only proof you will seem to accept is to exonerate, by providing all 17,000 emails. There is no way for us to prove a negative here, however YOU could prove they were all handed over by finding them online and giving us a link. All any of us can do is point you to the article showing the reported non-compliance, and as a liberal, you are not beholden to accept any proof from a conservative anyway, so why ask?
And under the moving the goal posts genre…
>Like it or not, the request for “all the emails” has a right to be denied. According to WI state law, the request must be “reasonable”.
According to you, they can provide every proper email and deny access to any improper emails under that statement. Silly. The article does also note the the username was technically illegal, but like jaywalking it would not ever be taken to trial. So I could go along with a private email being under a different name, but aren’t you the one who brought up letter vs spirit of the law? Isn’t it against the spirit (not to mention the letter) to hide public emails by changing email names while in public office with the express purpose of hiding the contents of the emails? I don’t see you successfully defending the spirit or the letter of the laws here.
T. I am not disagreeing that the 17000 emails were not handed over. But, the crux of this is whether some previous FOIA request was not fulfilled because of this other email account. As if Evers was trying to hide something. And this is what they have ZERO proof of. And for the record, I am not confident one way or another if that happened.
Not turning over the 17000 emails is a state decision. You can’t just ask for “all the emails” from a period of time based on the law. you need to have some sort of subject or scope to narrow them down. So, in this case, they restricted the timetable. I personally don’t even think they should have done that, they should have denied it and just said, “Give us something relevant to search on.”
Currently the request is, “Give us all the emails so we can see if you have given us all the emails in the past.” And that is a request they are not forced to comply with because it isn’t narrowed down. Ultimately what they need to do is reference a previous FOIA request against the emails that they do have and see if they overlap or not.
The funny part of this is that anytime a FOIA request comes in, we all TRUST that they have given us all the emails regardless of what the results are. This has been the way forever. Being an email admin myself, I have been requested for large swaths of emails due to lawsuits and you do your best to provide all the required information, but you never are 100% sure you got them all. Usually my requests involve a number of employee names, a file number, some key words, and a time period for me to search through.
And if someone is making a FOIA request asking for all the emails to “tony.evers@” and not asking for “All emails to Tony Evers”, they already are failing because the first request could exclude any emails sent to a group that “tony.evers@” is a part of, but not directly to him. An example could be to imagine there was an email group called “all.governors@” and that include all previous state governors. The first request of all emails to “tony.evers@” would NOT include those by the letter of the request. This is why I don’t have an issue with alternate email addresses being used, no one should be making their FOIA requests based on the actual email address, and I doubt that many do.
And as I have stated about the actual naming issue. It is possible that by the exact letter of the law a judge could say that this was a felony (which isn’t in the spirit of the law). But I also can see a judge throwing it out (more likely) and saying that the alias of “warren.spahn” isn’t the given name of “Warren Edward Spahn” and that email addresses are not considered a formal use of someone’s name and that no one would reasonably believe that it is the formal use of the name. And I think that could be the letter of the law AND the spirit of the law. Just depends on what judge you probably get.
DAMN!! The popcorn’s good!!
>As if Evers was trying to hide something. And this is what they have ZERO proof of.
Well with only a few of the emails ever revealed, wouldn’t that proof be unavailable to all but Evers, his cronies, and Evers’ email admin(s)? Still not sure what proof you could possibly expect from the people in the dark about what was in the emails.
I perfectly understand having multiple emails to address multiple different functionalities of the office, but if all Gov related emails are to have public access, it sure seems like all of his different addresses should be on PUBLIC record somewhere, including to the people responsible for handing out public emails to requesters.
And finding out about having a secret email address should be a perfectly good parameter for a public search.
I think it is the state clerk that handles FOIA requests. Not sure on that honestly. Like I stated, the custodian probably isn’t pulling the requests and is probably handing it off to the email admin for that stuff. The emails are NOT public. They are public records available by request, that still have the right to be redacted for personal information.
And you keep saying “secret” email. But the account had 17000 emails from many different people. I don’t know if I would classify that as a very well kept secret. It is non-public facing for certain. Having an email that doesn’t get added to 1000’s of mailing lists seems like it could be a good idea. Something that isn’t easily web crawled. Here is a sample FOIA request page: https://www.nfoic.org/wisconsin-sample-foia-request/ No where does it ask for specific email addresses to request. So, I am making the assumption that a valid FOIA request would apply to all email accounts belonging to requested parties on a requested subject.
I would honestly like to know now, how many other elected officials have email accounts other than their web facing one. Do we think that Robin Vos only gov’t email is: Rep.Vos@, Something that I found with 2 seconds of Google searching?
I am kinda over this now. It basically comes down to if you have EVER trusted that FOIA requests were done appropriately. You either do, or you don’t. And if you don’t… you have to assume that they weren’t done appropriately in the previous administration either because he had a “secret” email address that wasn’t known to the public. FOIA requests don’t ask for specific email addresses, so I don’t think it is required that we know what they all are. Maybe make a policy that when a public official leaves office that all their account aliases are made public??
But, the crux of this is whether some previous FOIA request was not fulfilled because of this other email account….. Currently the request is, “Give us all the emails so we can see if you have given us all the emails in the past.”
Now you are just makin’ it up.
WRN was seeking to discover “Who exactly else has the governor been emailing as Warren Spahn? And about what?”
Your “crux” is a secondary question raised precisely because of the result of the recent discovery of the fraud email addy, the original WRN FOIA, and Phoney’s failure to comply.
Being an email admin myself, ….
Then you should know that this…
they already are failing because the first request could exclude any emails sent to a group that “tony.evers@” is a part of, but not directly to him.
…. is false.
A DL email, external/internal, received/sent, would be archived on sender/receiver servers and stored in individual member accounts. Any emails sitting in the Phoney Warren account or archive are there because they were directed by use of the Phoney Warren account addy, not the DL addy, and are fully subject to FOIA no matter how or where they originated.
Just because you see abunchofgovs@hooters.com in the TO: field doesn’t mean the email wasn’t sent to phoney.warren@wi.gov. Quite the opposite.
And if you are subject to FOIA (or are handed a warrant or subpoena) and are requested/required to supply emails to/from thisguy@thisplace.com and you fail to include DL comms (or Listserv or any other) you will find yourself up Deep Sheet Creek if discovered.
MJM. Thanks for proving my point and agreeing with me. It doesn’t matter what the email address is, if a FOIA request is made, they will pull it the data from any email address or it will be a crime. So it doesn’t matter if we know what his alternate email address is. And FOIA and subpoenas wouldn’t ask for exact emails, and instead communications with a specific person.
And if we want to get really into the weeds on this, it could also matter what type of shared group is it? Distribution list, shared mailbox, or shared inbox. Microsoft Exchange has different versions. So depending on how they are setup, they might never end up IN the actual email box of the governor or state employee and instead in some shared pool that they have access to, but never actually IN the inbox. I haven’t been an Exchange admin in 15 years, and don’t know the best practices… we are a Google Workspace environment now, and they don’t really have a shared inbox, just distribution groups.
And with that, I am ending my involvement in this discussion. We have fully talked into a circle.
>I am not confident
>Not sure on that honestly
>So, I am making the assumption
> I haven’t been an Exchange admin in 15 years, and don’t know the best practices
>We have fully talked into a circle.
The only one circling is you, circling the drain.