In a win for government transparency, the California Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that correspondence related to government business must be available to the public, regardless of whether it is stored on a government or private account:
Consistent with the Legislature's purpose in enacting CPRA [the California Public Records Act], and our constitutional mandate to interpret the Act broadly in favor of public access, we hold that a city employee's writings about public business are not excluded from CPRA simply because they have been sent, received, or stored in a personal account.
The decision, which overturns a lower court ruling, applies to any form of communication held on private accounts, including emails, text messages, and voicemails, if it pertains to government business.
Ted Smith, a community activist, had made a request in 2009 to the city of San Jose for access to correspondence pertaining to a development project. The city turned over some information held on government accounts but refused to release information that was sent on officials' private email accounts. Smith sued the city, arguing that information pertaining to government business should be open to the public regardless of where it was sent from or stored, and on Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed with him. As the Los Angeles Times notes:
The ruling does not require government to search the private devices of employees. But it said employees could be required to write declarations explaining how they searched their accounts, what they found and why they decided certain communications were not public records.
Hopefully this will mark a precedent for government transparency advocates across the country.