Opinion from The Des Moines Register:
I was at a dinner party not long after the scandal erupted over former Des Moines schools Superintendent Nancy Sebring’s emails. At one point, the hostess turned to me and asked, “So, why should government emails be public?”
The Des Moines Register and the Omaha World-Herald had sought copies of Sebring’s school district emails under the Iowa public records law: the Register because of Sebring’s sometimes-controversial tenure and sudden departure; the World-Herald because she was decamping Des Moines for the same job in Omaha.
[…]
And thus Des Moines has been flung into the legal, political and public policy debates that have raged around the country over public officials’ emails…
By Kathleen Richardson, Executive Secretary, Iowa Freedom of Information Council (a member of NFOIC)