Gov. Beverly Perdue today toughened a policy for keeping state government e-mail that was left by former Gov. Mike Easley.
Perdue's order strips away some wiggle room state employees may have had to delete e-mail messages that they determined were not related to public business. Now employees must keep all messages for 24 hours so they can be archived every day. Employees can delete spam messages they receive. Easley's order, which Perdue rescinded, allowed employees to decide which messages were related to public business.
"Only when the doors of government are open wide, and the sun truly shines in, can we be sure that our government by the people is working for the people," Perdue said in a news release.
Perdue's order is similar to an order signed by Easley in the waning days of his administration. Several news organizations, including The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer had sued Easley over e-mail retention.
Perdue also signed an order requiring the Department of Commerce to report the names of consultants involved in economic development projects that benefit from state incentive programs.
Update: Perdue's e-mail order also creates a searchable backup system, a spokeswoman said. Most messages would be kept for 10 years.
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Re: Perdue toughens e-mail policy
Users must keep all messages for 24 hours, but do not need to keep "spam" messages for 24 hours. Hopefully, the messages that state employees don't need to keep for 24 hours will be better defined than "spam".