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Wednesday, July 20, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Court tosses email subpoena
By andrew Selsky
Associated Press
BEND (AP) — A federal
appeals court, seeking to
protect former Oregon Gov.
John Kitzhaber’s right to pri-
vacy, ruled on Wednesday
that an attempt to access a
cache of messages from his
personal email accounts as
part of an influence-peddling
probe “is unreasonable and
invalid.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals panel reversed a
lower court’s order allow-
ing emails from Kitzhaber’s
private accounts — some of
which contain official busi-
ness — to be subpoenaed.
The higher court said the
subpoena was “unreasonably
overbroad” and should have
been quashed.
The development shows
how complications can
result when officials use pri-
vate email accounts for offi-
cial correspondence. Hillary
Clinton, the presumptive
Democratic party nominee
for president, ran into prob-
lems when she used a private
email account to conduct
official business as secretary
of state.
Clinton’s use of private
email raised concerns about
keeping top-secret govern-
ment information secure.
In contract, authorities are
now confronted with having
to determine how to access
emails from Kitzhaber ’s
personal accounts that
could be relevant to their
investigation.
Judge Marsha S. Berzon,
writing the opinion for
the appeals court, said
the U.S. District Court
needed to “prevent the
trampling of Kitzhaber’s
reasonable expectation of
privacy.”
Investigators cannot
simply get copies of all
Kitzhaber ’s emails, the
appeals court said, noting
that they “include many pri-
vate details unrelated to his
official duties regarding him
and his family, as well as pri-
vate communications with
his personal attorneys.”
Berzon suggested a neu-
tral third party sort through
the countless emails in
Kitzhaber’s private accounts,
whose content is on state
computers.
Kitzhaber’s contention
that his communications
with lawyers working for the
state of Oregon is protected
by attorney-client privilege
was rejected by the appeals
court.
“Kitzhaber ’s commu-
nication with his private
attorneys should receive all
the protections normally
afforded by the attorney-cli-
ent privilege. But he may not
himself invoke the privilege
to protect his communica-
tion with attorneys for the
State of Oregon,” Berzon
wrote.
Gerri Badden, spokes-
woman for the U.S.
Attorney’s office for the
district of Oregon, told
The Associated Press in an
email: “The investigation
continues.” She declined
to comment on the court’s
ruling.
Kitzhaber ’s attorney,
Janet Hoffman, did not
immediately respond to a
phone call or email seeking
comment.
Kitzhaber resigned in
2015 amid suspicion that
his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes,
used her relationship with
him to earn lucrative con-
sulting contracts. The couple
has denied wrongdoing. The
FBI has issued subpoenas
for emails and thousands of
other records for review by a
grand jury.
Wednesday’s ruling noted
that copies of Kitzhaber’s
personal emails were
archived on a state govern-
ment computer. It said that
in his second term as gov-
ernor, he declined to use an
official email address and
instead established an “offi-
cial” Gmail address and
requested that those emails
be archived.
He also used a private
Gmail account and one
hosted at att.net, and he
commonly used those “to
communicate with senior
staff for both personal and
state business,” the appeals
court said. Emails from the
personal accounts, which
were handled by the same
device, were also archived
on state computers, appar-
ently without Kitzhaber’s
knowledge.
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City snapshot
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
• The update of the bas-
ketball/tennis courts located
in the southwest corner of the
Sisters Elementary School
playground is complete and
they are open for use by the
public. A final addition of
lights on a timer for night play
on the courts will be installed
by the Sisters School District.
The renovation of the courts
has been a joint project by the
City of Sisters and the school
district.
• The new permanent rest-
rooms at Clemens Park are
scheduled for delivery on
July 29. The infrastructure of
power, sewer and water has all
been installed. The concrete
pad for the building is sched-
uled to be finished this week.
• Sisters resident Kris
Rérat has been appointed to
the City’s Parks Advisory
Board. Rérat was formerly
a preschool teacher at The
Little Cloverdale Preschool
before she retired to help her
husband Phil in their busi-
ness, Swiss Mountain Log
Homes. According to her
application, Rérat has some
previous parks experience.
• Mid Oregon Credit
Union, with branches in
Bend, Redmond, La Pine and
Madras, is planning to open
a new branch in Sisters, to
be located on the north side
of town near the Deschutes
County Sheriff’s Substation
at Barclay Drive and Larch
Street. They are currently hir-
ing employees.
• According to Patrick
Davenport, community devel-
opment director, the City of
Sisters is the fourth-fastest
growing city, on a percentage
basis, in the state of Oregon.
Davenport said that growth
might be even more robust if
more contractors were avail-
able to do the building.