Elected Officials Eleude Public with Private E-Mail

We may never know whether Gov. Sarah Palin is conducting the public's business on one of the non-governmental accounts she uses.

News reports have demonstrated that Palin routinely uses a private Yahoo e-mail account to conduct state business. Others in the governor's office sometimes use personal e-mail accounts, too.

They are not alone: Use of private e-mail accounts has become quite the rage in governments grand and small. If this debate sounds familiar, it is. The Bush administration generated headlines last year after it was disclosed that more than 80 White House aides, including senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, used private GOP e-mail servers for government business. The controversy surfaced during congressional investigations into White House contacts with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

Gov. Palin knows that, and so does every other public official across this great land of ours, from governors to city council members. They also know that it is awfully convenient to use private e-mail accounts for their personal correspondence. Increasingly wired with Blackberrys and iPhones and PDAs, these e-mail addicts have also come to realize that the Google or Yahoo e-mail can instantly create a tantalizingly private communications channel for official correspondence, too.