i L i n d . n e t

Watching various bills attempting to spread the secrecy virus, it seemed appropriate to accept an invitation from the folks at WikiFOIA and the State Sunshine and Open Records blog to join the Sunshine Blogger Project to test the availability of e-mail records sent and received by governors.

My request was delivered to Gov. Lingle’s office on Friday. One copy went by e-mail, and I also hand-delivered a printed and signed copy. The request is straight-forward, covering all governmental email sent or received by the governor’s office during the four day period of February 1-4, 2008.

Generally, under Hawaii’s law: “All government records are open to public inspection unless access is restricted or closed by law.” [Section 92F-11 HRS]

And “government record” is defined [Section 92F-3 HRS] as “information maintained by an agency in written, auditory, visual, electronic, or other physical form.” That appears to clearly include e-mail.

I’m assuming that the governor’s office will respond and provide the e-mails. It’s always best to start out with a positive attitude. But we’ll see. Stay tuned.

Speaking of the governor, the Star-Bulletin’s Richard Borreca had an interesting column yesterday in which Lingle, among other things, that former chief of staff Bob Awana was unfairly scrutinized by the media based on unsourced allegations.

How about the sourced allegations? Here’s what Associated Press reported last month:

He has not been charged with a crime, but public defender Pamela Byrne has said he arranged for women in the Philippines to go on dates with him and businessmen from Hawaii in exchange for favors including money and trips.

AP also cited Byrne in a December story:

Patkar’s defense attorney, Pamela Byrne, has said Awana arranged for his girlfriend and another woman to go on dates with Awana and trade delegates from Hawaii.

Lingle said she asked Awana if his contact with the woman occurred on official state trips and he said no.

Sourced. Related to public business.

Enough said.