Brickbat: Up in Smoke

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been deleting her text messages, including those from Jan. 7-8, 2025, when she was flying back from a trip to Ghana while wildfires burned in Los Angeles. City policy says records should be kept for at least two years. And state law considers texts about government business as public records that must be saved. But a lawyer for the city says the rules don't apply to text messages, and Bass' phone is set to automatically delete them.

Comments

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

But a lawyer for the city says the rules don't apply to text messages our betters,

[rbike]

Hey. There's a (D) there. Those rules don't apply.

[Will Nonya]

Because the R's are so good at accountability?

[Chipper Chunked Chile Con Congress (ex NCW)]

That's (D)ifferent.

[Think It Through]

Also, what color is she?

[AT]

Don't assume their gender! That's literal actual violence!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Like she's going to get any comeuppance either way.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

But a lawyer for the city says the rules don't apply

Alberto Gonzalez?

[RC]

Having worked in records management for quite some time, text messages have been considered records for well over a decade. Based on how the legal view of digital records has evolved, there would likely have to be a specific carve-out for texts in the city policy in order for that to not be the case. Much higher probability that she's been violating the policy all along, though if the policy is old enough, I suppose they could try to make an argument that text messages weren't considered records when the policy was written.

[KiwiDude]

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, unless you are a police officer or a politican