Google Buzz Exposes White House Internet Policy Advisor Andrew McLaughlin's Email List; Congressman Has Questions

When he signed on with Google's privacy-challenged social networking service last month, White House Internet policy director Andrew McLaughlin unwittingly exposed to the world a list of the people he emailed the most from his Gmail account.

Google Buzz eventually adjusted its privacy settings. But McLaughlin's list was already out of the bag.

Now Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wants to know if McLaughlin was using his Gmail account for White House business -- which would be a violation of the Presidential Records Act, the law that requires the conservation of official White House documents. Correspondence of a personal, non-business nature -- or that predated his arrival at the White House -- wouldn't be an issue.

Issa sent McLaughlin a letter today with some related questions.

McLaughlin, ironically, came to the White House from Google, where he was its director of global policy.

"It appears, by your own admission, that the people you e-mail most from your Gmail account include several senior colleagues within the Obama Administration, including Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Director of Citizen Participation, and former Google coworker, Katie Jacobs Stanton," Issa writes in his letter.

"Additionally, your list of followers suggests that you remain actively engaged with more than two dozen individuals currently employed by Google, Inc, including a number of senior lobbyists and lawyers."

McLaughlin's overly public Buzz profile was first disclosed by conservative rabblerouser Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com Web site last week.

California-based advocacy group Consumer Watchdog filed a Freedom of Information Act request last week seeking copies of McLaughlin's emails to Google employees, expressing concern about his "cozy relationship" with his former colleagues.

Although McLaughlin's profile has apparently now been deleted, Google's cache still contains some of McLaughlin's frustrated exchanges about Buzz's privacy settings.

Neither McLaughlin nor the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he is deputy chief technology officer, had any immediate comment on Issa's letter.

By contrast to this administration, which has made strict adherence to transparency rules a priority, the Bush White House made an absolute mockery of the Presidential Records Act, with senior officials frequently using Republican National Committee email accounts for official business (Karl Rove alone sent more than 140,000 emails through his RNC account), and casually deleting countless White House emails that were supposed to be archived for posterity.

Comments

[newsmctado]

03:33 PM on 04/09/2010

"By contrast to this administration, which has made strict adherence to transparency rules a priority, the Bush White House made an absolute mockery of the Presidential Records Act, with senior officials frequently using Republican National Committee email accounts for official business (Karl Rove alone sent more than 140,000 emails through his RNC account), and casually deleting countless White House emails that were supposed to be archived for posterity."

First off, let me say that I have no love for the Bush WH and its flagrant abuse of the FOIA. That being said, I am becoming frustrated with a constant theme seen on Huffpost, often from Mr. Froomkin, that seeks to deflect criticism of the current administration by basically saying "Yeah, well Bush did it too and he did more!". The above statement has absolutely nothing to do with article, except to deflect the criticism to another body. That's not honest journalism, that's public relations.

[Ifticar2]

05:28 AM on 04/09/2010

Now it makes sense as to why Google pulled the advertisements from Canadian Pharmacies. Google used to verify that the Canadian Pharmacies that it allowed to advertise were legitimate. Now that they do not allow such advertisements consumers are now at risk.

[lespool]

08:21 AM on 04/09/2010

What? Since when did consumers with a layman's view of pharmaceuticals prescribe ‎their own medicine? Consumers do not need to be inundated with drug advertisements. ‎Far better pharmaceutical companies spend their money on research instead of ‎spending it all on advertising and repackaging old medicine for new uses.‎

[Ifticar2]

02:12 PM on 04/09/2010

Surely, you are just pretending to be naive.

I have a prescription for a drug related to my breast cancer treatment. That drug costs me $2200 for a six month supply in the USA. It cost me $350 for a six month supply from Canada. That drug was neither invented in the USA nor is it made in the USA.

The repackaging of old medicine was one of the things the Google had assured that you would not get from a Google advertised Canadian Pharmacy.

[rougebaisers]

04:16 AM on 04/09/2010

Just imagine what the Chinese know.

[clearwaterclearmind]

01:20 AM on 04/09/2010

"this administration, which has made strict adherence to transparency rules a priority"

bwa-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[tel8034]

12:46 AM on 04/09/2010

When Darrell Issa gets answers from $arah Palin about why she made a CONSCIOUS decision to have herself and her staff use PERSONAL e-mail accounts to conduct state government business, then he can ask questions of McLaughlin.

Rethugs are such HYPOCRITES.

[Aerows]

10:23 PM on 04/08/2010

If he was using a non-journaled email account to conduct business, yes, it's a violation. It was a violation when the Bush White House did it, and it's a violation if this guy was using it to conduct business.

[PennP]

11:30 PM on 04/08/2010

Yeah, but there is one upside: He'll never be able to get any of the emails deleted completely if they've run through Google. Shame old Karl wasn't on gmail.

[VoteThemAllOut]

08:40 PM on 04/08/2010

It is funny how when it was Bush the left had an absolute convulsions about it and know it is nothing to worry about; he was just talking with his old friends. Nothing that met the applicable Presidential Records Act was going on.

Is this just the tip of the iceberg?

[Aerows]

10:28 PM on 04/08/2010

Sorry, no, the Bush Administration certainly used gmail for business, and it was a violation. This is a violation, too. Throw him under the bus, but you are also going to have to throw most of the Bush Administration officials under the bus, too.

Until we do, people in government are going to continue doing dumb things like using an unsecured email account to do official business, and leave us wide open to national security problems. There is a reason that the Presidential Record's Act is a law - it's not just so both sides can pick on each other. ALL of them need to follow it.

Please let me know of your bipartisan support in this matter, otherwise, continue to play apologist for Bush and his officials, while demanding accountability from the Obama Administration.

[kgb999]

02:43 AM on 04/09/2010

Well, no. Bush officials used a RNC account. As another poster notes, had they used Google - that company keeps every scrap of information which crosses their servers - we'd have been able to recover them. But yeah, Bush's email policy was pretty much a non-stop massive violation.

But I'm in favor of checking this out, especially because of McLaughlin's role and the fact that the lobbyists he was in contact with could be expected to have business that relates to his official position. It's called due diligence. If you don't check it and it turns out something shady *was* going on, it will just be worse for the administration the longer it goes unaddressed - and ignoring these signs would just ensure a later issue gets blown out of all proportion.

[GeoLee]

12:50 AM on 04/09/2010

Wrong is wrong no matter the party and as a progressive, I think this should be investigated, too and corrected.

[LeaningBlue]

08:19 PM on 04/08/2010

Someone once suggested that if a person has an appointment higher than a Director level in the executive, or anywhere on the White House staff, they should:

1. Only use a personal cell phone for personal calls;
2. Only conduct personal email on the home computer, and then never to other government employees;
3. Never fly first class, even on frequent flier miles or elite upgrades;
4. Never use their government status to extract perks or special privileges in public situations.

Not everyone follows all or even any of those rules, of course, but fewer among those who do find themselves answering embarrassing questions to congress, or looking for a new job two years into the administration.

[kgb999]

07:11 PM on 04/08/2010

The thing that concerns me here is far more that this clown is putting potentially actionable information out on Buzz rather than his seemingly over-cozy relationship with Lobbyists at his corporate home base. Although, it seems the two issues are more than superficially related.

That said, I'm kind of glad this is coming out. Google needs more oversight, not secret access to one of the administration's top IT policy makers.

[Tmboy]

06:46 PM on 04/08/2010

Non issue. Is he not allowed to have friends. Is he not allowed to email said friends. If this is an issue them i would like to see all the email that anyone that ever worked in the White house since this rule cam into being, sent from any account to anyone they may have worked with before, worked with while in the white house, or ever knew. Just to make sure they followed this law.

[kgb999]

07:03 PM on 04/08/2010

I'd be satisfied with just checking out the ones who do something that raises a red-flag. Folks shouldn't go work at the white house unless they want to be subjected to scrutiny about how they are conducting themselves.

Private contact with Google lobbyists is certainly a valid thing to question for someone in a position to influence policy that directly effects Google.

[Jim Wilson 90009]

07:08 PM on 04/08/2010

As Google's CEO said about two months ago, ‘You can’t expect privacy anymore.”

[newsmctado]

03:37 PM on 04/09/2010

Well, I believe currently you still can expect a pretty high level of privacy, but I agree that that is the direction we are going. Will it make us better or worse as a people? That we will have to wait and see.

[uncc49er]

06:42 PM on 04/08/2010

Buzz is a very bad idea.

[Email List]

06:28 PM on 04/08/2010

I don't see the big deal :) He's entitled to his own contact group and email list.

[fcsakes]

06:22 PM on 04/08/2010

Precisely why I don't use Buzz.

[kgb999]

02:50 AM on 04/09/2010

You are an administration official that would prefer to not be asked questions about who is in your personal contacts list?

Small world. Amazing.

[Mitsy]

06:17 PM on 04/08/2010

Geez...Taking transparency to a another level aren't we? Damn

[learneddemocrat]

05:57 PM on 04/08/2010

Interestingly Dan stated," By contrast to this administration, which has made strict adherence to transparency rules...." before the ususal Bush bashing. My question to Dan would be: Where IS the transparency? You see transparency in this administration? Oh wait, maybe it is so.o.o.o transparent that we just cannot see it!

[Wallysmom]

06:06 PM on 04/08/2010

This is one guy (a past Google exec) who used his google email account...PLEEEEZE stop making everything into a major Constitutional issue. Your Republican administration and RNC has been guilty of the same. You're really looking for something to make a stink about, aren't you?

[GeoLee]

12:54 AM on 04/09/2010

And it was intentionally set up that way in order to deceive...we don't' not know if this is someone in contact with old co workers or an intentional system set up to deceive like the entire Bush administration did through the RNC headquarters with the intent of carrying on a secret government.