| By Bob Weaver
Both federal and state governments are fighting to protect e-mails from being disclosed to the public under public information laws.
The e-mail fight is added to a cauldron that ignores the statues once-passed by the USA as a leader in freedom of information.
The Bush administration has denied access to tens of thousands of e-mails regarding the Iraq war, environmental issues, invasion of personal privacy, spying, torture and political problems, using executive privilege to "protect America from terrorism."
West Virginia University is facing the e-mail release problem related to a Freedom of Information Request by a Pittsburgh newspaper, regarding a diploma issued to Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter, allegations say she did not earn a degree.
The release of public information by state agencies has been centralized in Charleston.
In rural areas, local governments have not caught up with e-mail communication, but that will change.
Public access to government and agency e-mails is highly limited, officials contend they are not the same as a hard-copy document.
To complicate matters, many officials have taken to using "personal" laptop computers to do business, then saying they have the right to privacy on their own computers.
Federal and state government maintain a position they can selectively choose which e-mails they want to release, allowing officials to operate in secret.
Officials also claim they can destroy e-mail records, indicating they do not belong to the public under the Public Information Laws.
WV's Freedom of Information laws have been modified with exclusions 100 times since the bill passed the WV legislature.
The Associated Press in a statewide investigation county-by-county gave many government agencies an "F" for non-compliance to the state's sunshine law.
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