Cities Tighten Rules for Websites, E-Mails

By Breanne Gilpatrick, The Miami Herald

Sep. 24–Point. Click. Send. Then check the inbox for political fallout.

As more government business is done online and more politicians join the Internet blogjam, more elected officials and public employees are learning the hard way to think before they post. That’s because on the Internet, most of what is said can’t be unsaid — or unsent. And in an age of rapidly evolving technologies with long electronic memories, those e-mails, blog postings and Web pages can haunt them for years to come.

"[People] used to talk about a paper trail," said Rod Scher, publication editor at Smart Computing magazine. "But now there’s an electronic paper trail and it’s automatic and comprehensive and pretty permanent."

So, like many big companies, more governments have turned to clear-cut e-mail and Web policies aimed at erasing gray areas in cyberspace.

This summer, Cooper City commissioners approved a Web policy prohibiting elected officials from putting links to personal Web pages on the city’s website. Other governments around South Florida, including Pembroke Pines, Hollywood and Broward County, have policies reminding employees and elected officials to be careful what they send, because on city- or county-owned e-mail accounts, they consider everything a public record. And in other parts of the country, cities even have rules for managing blogs by elected officials.

Supporters of the policies say they discourage Web surfers from using taxpayer money for personal e-mails and Web browsing.

They can prevent a strongly worded blog posting from being confused for city opinion. And they take the guesswork out of what links to post on the city website or what e-mails to release as public records.

‘A SAFEGUARD’

"Basically, it’s a safeguard for the city," said Joe Graziani, Pembroke Pines project manager for Internet technology.

Some supporters of city Web policies also argue they can help prevent elected officials from suffering electronic political fallout.

And there has been plenty of Internet fallout in recent months.

Earlier this year, for example, one potential Broward airport director lost the job after MiamiHerald.com posted the vulgar e-mails he sent from his last government job, in which he insulted Broward commissioners and the county’s main airport.

One Pompano Beach High School teacher was suspended without pay after an investigation concluded he showed his students his MySpace page, which included profanity and talk about drugs and sex.

This spring, North Florida state Rep. Donald Brown, a DeFuniak Springs Republican, outraged many of Miami-Dade’s legislators when he used his state-issued e-mail account to forward a cartoon implying taxpayers were subsidizing illegal aliens.

HOLLYWOOD SCANDAL

And in Hollywood, hundreds of e-mails released last year charted an alleged 18-month lobbying scheme that led to the felony conviction of suspended Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom for official misconduct.

Elected leaders have long been taught that what they say can — and, come election time, probably will — be used against them. But the easy forwarding of the online world now allows some e-mails and Web postings to spread like electronic wildfire. And, as technology and public records experts point out, it’s getting easier to follow that electronic trail.

In Florida, many government e-mails are public records and state law generally requires them to be kept on e-mail servers or on disk for at least three years — long after they have disappeared from someone’s inbox.

But sometimes, a damaged computer hard drive or missing computer can destroy e-mail records, which became an issue in the Hollywood lobbying probe. And state public-records law does contain a list of exceptions.

Web-archiving systems allow users to see snapshots of old Web pages long taken offline.

And with Wikiscanner, a searchable database of Wikipedia edits unveiled earlier this year, Internet users can learn that someone used a city computer in Pembroke Pines to make more than 20 edits to articles on Slavic dialects, Russian history and one Ukrainian soccer club; and that people using one city of Miami Beach computer made edits to seven articles, including one about the 1990s video game Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

On a more serious note, someone at a computer registered to the Florida Legislature deleted a reference to a DUI charge against state Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs.

"If you’re an official, I think you have to understand that every time you’re writing on a website . . . it’s essentially the same thing as saying it to the press," said Ryan Singel, a staff reporter at Wired News, the online arm of the technology magazine Wired.

CAUTIOUS MAYOR

Davie Mayor Tom Truex, one of the first South Florida politicians to join the online blogjam, said he tries to avoid posting anything he wouldn’t say in person.

"If you really want to say something," he said, "you’re better off picking up the phone and calling someone."

But some politicians, like Cooper City Commissioner John Sims, argue Web policies and Internet horror stories alone aren’t going to change what they say on their personal sites. And as long as they don’t use city resources for their blogs or electronic newsletters, the city generally can’t stop them, either.

"Let’s face it, we all have our viewpoints," said Sims, whose blog often criticizes city policies and officials. "I think I have a right to state my views, especially in relation to the city and how it conducts its business."

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