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Monday, October 20, 2008

Palin Email Charges: $15 Million

MSNBC reports that Governor Palin's office is quoting $15,000,000 as the copying cost of a records request for all (16,000) state employees' emails. The cost for one person's emails, Todd Palin's in this case, is under $1,000. Alaska will only print them on paper and then charge for copying.

This is disappointing. Palin has numerous reformer qualifications. But taking the 1990s approach of printing out emails and charging for the paper copies is not what a reformer should do.

We assume this story is true but MSNBC is not exactly objective about McCain or Palin (to put it mildly). Presumably there was a letter from the Alaska state government quoting these charges so it's probably a true story.

UPDATE: A lawyer from the Axis Law Group correctly noted that the number of employees is 16, 000, not 160,000 as previously noted.