Judge warned city a year ago about its e-mail deletin' ways

In this editorial:

The David Project, a pro-Israel, anti-terrorist watchdog group, has twice gone to court seeking disclosure of a broad range of documents and e-mails regarding the transfer of the publicly owned land, located near Roxbury Community College. The courts have twice rebuffed the David Project's attempts to gain access to information contained in e-mails that the BRA says have been deleted.

In his judgment of the case, Justice Ralph Gants of the Superior Court, who appears headed for a seat on the State Supreme Court, writes, in effect, that since the mosque has already been built, requiring the BRA to take special steps to retrieve e-mails is not worth the effort. This seems shortsighted. Is not scrutiny of past actions a valuable guide for the future? Gants found that Massachusetts law governing what e-mails are — or are not — public documents is not sufficiently precise. Gants's decision is certainly politically convenient. It means that a potentially embarrassing — perhaps even nasty — political fight might be avoided.

This is where Secretary of State William Galvin should step up to the plate. Galvin should seek redefinition of public-record law, so that when similar issues arise in the future, state law guarantees full disclosure. "Oops, we deleted the e-mails" should not be a plausible or acceptable defense when legitimate issues of public interest are at stake.