If I were a GOP Congressman, I would introduce bills to do the following:
- Repeal the Freedom of Information Act
- Forbid any part of the Executive Branch, excepting for overseas offices, from banning the use of personal emails for the conduct of official government business.
The FOIA has proven itself to be ineffective in producing a transparency when faced with determined resistance. We end up getting sanitized information from the corrupt and the unvarnished truth from the moral; the former get protected and the latter get embarrassed or worse. The cost simply is not worth it.
For the latter, a similar argument can be made. It is unenforceable, and restrains only those whose ethics do not need restraining; the dishonest simply ignore such restrictions.
This is a conversation we should be having. After all, there is nothing wrong with failing to be forthright with FOIA requests, nor in avoiding those inconvenient government email systems. At least, I hear very smart people saying this. And the voters don't care, anyways, they say. Let's get these bills on the calendar, and open the floor for debate.
[Edited to add: On second thought, let's hold up and take time in drafting these bills. The wrong time to debate something is when something is fresh in the news; that leads to rash decisions and poor legislation. No, a better approach would be to take some time and wait until the current furor wanes. Once it is all behind us, when we've moved on, when the current story is old news, then that is when we should engage in this very public debate. I am certain the press will take interest.]
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