HUD Refuses To Release Secretary Marcia Fudge's Email Address in Response to Reason FOIA Request

Cabinet officials often use pseudonymous email accounts, but declaring them secret from records requests is another matter altogether.

Want to know Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge's government email address? Too bad, it's a secret.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Reason, HUD released a list of email addresses for all political appointees—with two exceptions. The agency redacted HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge and Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman's addresses, citing an exemption from releasing any records that would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

"The interest of the general public in reviewing those portions of government documents does not outweigh the individuals' right to privacy," Sandra Wright, the chief of HUD's FOIA office, wrote.

The withholdings are an unusual and concerning attempt to conceal one of the most basic pieces of information about a public servant: their contact info.

Glancing at the consistent format of every other address on the HUD list, one could make a reasonable assumption about Fudge's address, but one would likely be wrong. You see, cabinet members and high-ranking officials often use pseudonymous or alias email accounts.

For example, while he was vice president, Joe Biden used at least three pseudonyms—"Robin Ware," "Robert L. Peters," and "JRB Ware"—on emails that mixed family and government business.

The practice has been fairly widespread since the Clinton administration. Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lisa Jackson used the alias "Richard Windsor" and her private email address in communications with lobbyists. Former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch also used alias email addresses. Trump-Era EPA administrator Scott Pruitt had four government email addresses.

Administrations have defended using alternate email addresses as necessary for high-level political appointees because of the flood of emails to their public inboxes. However, the practice worries transparency advocates and watchdog groups because it creates doubts over whether FOIA offices are performing complete searches, and whether communications are being properly archived.

Reason was curious about what pseudonyms high-ranking Biden officials are using, so we filed FOIA requests in September of last year to cabinet-level agencies requesting the email addresses for all political appointees, including pseudonyms. To its credit, HUD is the only agency so far that has produced any documents.

Reason is filing a FOIA appeal to challenge the redactions. While officials may argue they need a secret inbox to get work done, convenience is not a factor in the balancing test between the public's right to know and the privacy interests of government employees. Notably, HUD does not consider the release of dozens of other political appointees' email addresses a privacy concern.

HUD's position is also undermined by the fact that other agencies have turned over similar records in response to FOIA requests. The Health and Human Services Department released former Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' secret email address to the Associated Press in 2013.

HUD's public affairs office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Comments

[damikesc]

Why do courts play along like this is not one of the more blatant attempts to evade FOIA? A court can easily say "If you did not want this invasion of privacy, you were provided a government email address to use for work and chose not to"

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[DesigNate]

I believe you can find the answer under the fuck you, that’s why, clause.

[sarcasmic]

yep

[Quicktown Brix]

Email your FOIA appeals to [e-mail]

[Minadin]

Meanwhile, a TSA director was arrested by CBP in Atlanta last week:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/2739673/tsa-official-arrested-by-border-patrol-in-georgia-for-outstanding-warrant/

[JesseAz]

Not sure what the complaint is, we all know Joe recognizes the constitution. I'm sure everything is on the up and up.

[Longtobefree]

"constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

Say what? Personal Privacy?! Over a government email account? Paid for by MY taxes?

Say it ain't so, Joe - - - - - - - -

[Longtobefree]

Forgot the tag line -

"Most transparent administration ever"

[Mickey Rat]

Personal privacy is, perhaps, the most ridiculous excuse for not releasing the address. There is no expectation of privacy at one's work, especially if one works for the government.

On the other hand, if you think a cabinet level official is personally reading a publically available email address without a staffer winnowing the spam out, you are naive. They are undoubtedly using hidden e.sils to conduct official business as those are the one that will actually be useful.

[n00bdragon]

This is what's confusing to me. Why is her government email address considered personal privacy? What personal things could she be doing with it that would be invaded by knowing what it is? Is there a office bathroom with "for a good time, write [e-mail]" scrawled on the wall? Why is her address, specifically, more private than the email addresses of other HUD employees? If she's concerned about spam, I could easily write spam email to the entire department now. That seems much worse than spamming one person. I guess some government employees are more private than others.

[Elmer Fudd the CHUD 2: Steampunk Boogaloo]

Some are very important Party members in good standing. So they are (D)ifferent.

[HorseConch]

It really doesn't matter. All that matters is that these are the people between us and Hitler. They play by the law and follow the constitution to a T.

[A Thinking Mind]

They're just really embarrassed that she's still using FudgePacker99@hotmail

[HorseConch]

I think you have her confused with the Secretary of Transportation.

[Sevo]

Should'a taken a page from the hag and set up her own illegal com center to dodge the FOIA.

[Dan S.]

Oh fudge! They won't release Fudge's e-mail, they will fudge the facts about it instead.

[TangoDelta]

I'd put even money on the "official" address being something like [e-mail] but like Hillary Clinton she probably has a side account that she uses for official business and simply ignores the easily guessed one or has all incoming emails to the "official" address filtered to /dev/null

[Chumby]

Does Fudge use the pronouns Her-shey?

[Smack Daddy]

Who knows these days. You can choc it up to o-lot of gender dysphoria.

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[heraclitus]

Most comments here are politicizing this as usual, but if we step back and think about what Reason's doing here in this FOIA request, is it actually in any way likely to increase government transparency?

Now, I'll gladly agree that the government shouldn't be dodging the FOIA. But I also think that requiring the public to have easy access to ALL internal email addresses will create logistical and bureaucratic problems that will cause more issues than it will solve.

Imagine if you could force the White House to publicly release the direct extension to every phone number for the phones on the President's desk. Do you think the President would ever pick up the phone? Do you think any high-ranking government official would ever pick up the phone there? Or do you think everyone will just move to a different space to actually get work done, while the phones ring off the hook from spam calls and scammers and irate morons 24/7?

The reality is that there's no actual way to get directly to the President's desk by phone without talking to a person first. You'd have to call the White House, and probably work yourself up through a couple layers of people, and then, if you convince them of who you are, you might get to talk to the President. If you're an expected caller, you might be given a different number or extension at the White House, but again it won't connect you directly to the Oval Office desk -- you'll still have to talk to a person to connect you. A similar system is likely in place for high-level cabinet members. There may be no "direct extension" that you can just dial in to get to them on a public line.

There's no equivalent filtering mechanism for email. If you send an email to an address, it's not like there's going to be someone there to say, "Let me connect you to the President." Because the only way to "talk to" the President directly via email is by the exact email address, not a 3rd-party connecting you.

If you make top-ranking email addresses all public, what you're basically guaranteeing is that no one is going to read those email accounts directly anymore. Those officials will be forced to come up with a system where 99.9% of email is likely filtered through an aide before the official actually receives the 0.01% that's actually relevant, while all the spam and crazies are handled by some underling. Or they basically end up using a "white list" of some sort for "authorized senders" to actually reach the real person -- while all other email goes to a spam account or something.

Why is that a problem? Because it's an extra layer of bureaucracy that has the potential to create errors. If there's a high-level meeting or important reminder for immediate action that is just meant to be sent as a kind of "memo" to the top official, it needs to also make through the "filter system" first. And the level of spam is likely much higher than what you'd see on the White House direct telephone line, so there's more spam to be filtered, and thus more potential that someone removes an important message by accident.

Or, conversely, whoever/whatever is filtering the spam isn't aggressive enough, and the official stops being able to use email for important matters because they can't see the "signal" from the "noise."

I do agree that every government official (even high-ranking ones) should have at least ONE public-facing email address, even if that address is mostly curated and has to be filtered by some people in their office.

But I can also see a very good reason for an "internal email" address to exist that isn't publicly known, in order to make communication efficient. In the old days, paper-copy memos might go from office to office and be delivered in a personal mailbox on a desk or something, but the FOIA shouldn't have been used to create some sort of "direct mail route" to get a letter routed directly from the public Postal Service to the President's personal mailbox either (for all sorts of security reasons, but also for efficiency reasons).

That's kind of what Reason is asking for here. And if it's granted, it just means that more official business will be transacted off of email, rather than getting the transparency that Reason imagines.

I do agree for investigation purposes that the government shouldn't be able to hide the *existence* of alternate email addresses and should be required to produce any documents that went to them if needed in an appropriate FOIA request. But come on, Reason -- actually requiring the literal addresses to be public isn't going to make government transparency better. At best, it's going to reduce transparency by forcing communication to take place where it's more efficient when email becomes inefficient. At worst, it might lead to more bureaucratic errors behind the scenes, directly caused by the inefficiency of trying to have sufficiently direct and restricted methods of communication for official purposes.

[heraclitus]

Also, to add, I do not appreciate the disingenuous way this article is framed. Yes, HUD deserves criticism for the way they responded. But you have to read almost to the end of the article to discover that HUD is the only department to actually respond to the FOIA request so far. As the article states:

"To its credit, HUD is the only agency so far that has produced any documents."

I shouldn't have to read most of the way through the article to find out that OTHER cabinet departments haven't yet complied AT ALL with ANY email addresses.

Also, Reason then disingenuously attempts to make it seem like previous administrations were more transparent. The article writes:

"HUD's position is also undermined by the fact that other agencies have turned over similar records in response to FOIA requests. The Health and Human Services Department released former Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' secret email address to the Associated Press in 2013."

Reason provides a link. I clicked on that link and actually read the article. Here's what that article says:

"Most federal agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees’ email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago."

So, again, Reason's take is confusing. They're acting like the Obama administration complied more easily by releasing "secret" email addresses, when the link they provide actually says (as in this article) that "most federal agencies" failed to comply AT ALL with the FOIA requests for email addresses, and some failed to list secret addresses -- but in ONE case they apparently did back in 2013.

Why aren't those important caveats noted here? Do better, Reason. I've noticed more and more articles in the past year that do this bait-and-switch with information: claiming one thing, but burying the larger context that makes the headline misleading or incomplete. Or including a link and claiming X is true, when the linked article actually says X is NOT generally true.

It's beyond sloppy at this point.