Electronic Communications as Government Property

There has been a controversy (which I missed when it originally arose a few months ago) regarding what Mitt Romney and his aides did with their government computer hard drives when Romney left office as governor of Massachusetts. According to an article in the Boston Globe, Romney and his aides purchased 17 hard drives, for $65 each, and "wiped the server for the governor’s office and replaced the remaining computers in the office." The result was that all of the governor's office's electronic communications disappeared.

Romney did what nearly every elected official does when an ethics issue arises:  he said, “They all followed the law exactly as it’s written.” Let's assume that's true. Let's assume that government officials in Massachusetts passed a law or regulation that allows a governor and his aides to take all their electronic communications with them when they leave office.

This conduct may arguably be legal, but is it arguably ethical? The first and most important question is, Are these communications government property or personal property? They are government property, and public information to boot. Therefore, they must be equally accessible to every citizen of Massachusetts, and they must be purchasable at the same price by every citizen of Massachusetts.

By allowing only the office holder to have access to them and to purchase them, the law Romney says he followed seriously compromised the state's own freedom of information laws (abruptly ending public access to public information) and allowed a former official to have an exclusive right to purchase and use government property (legalized preferential treatment).

The second question is, Did this harm the public? The answer is, not only did it harm the public by preventing citizens from having access to public information, but it is also harmed the public by preventing the new administration from having access to the information.

I've seen this happen at the local level. A new administration from the other party comes into office, and the office is bare. Much of the information the new administration needs to effectively manage the community is missing. This may be intended to make life tough for the new administration, but it is also harmful to the community. The best thing for the community is for officials to act like responsible adults and help rather than hinder the next administration.

It's too late to undo the damage that was done. But it is not too late to set an example for the thousands of local and state governments that turn over their administrations every year. If he wants to show what a leader he is, Romney needs to admit (1) that what he did was wrong, (2) that government property is not in any way the property of those who fill government positions, (3) that following laws is not always sufficient in order to act ethically, and (4) that every administration owes the next administration, as well as the public, an office that is full of all the information accumulated by the last administration, including not only what is on government hard disks, but also any government-related communication that is on personal computers.

I will soon be leaving my position as administrator of the New Haven Democracy Fund. I will turn over all of my paper files, computer files, and electronic communications to my successor. Since I have no office and no government computer, all of these files and communications are on my personal hard disk. And yet they are government property. They are not mine. In any way. At all. Whatever the law may say.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

203-859-1959