Gov. Bob Ferguson set the principles of the sport. On Feb. 17, 2025, he announced that he was suspending Washington’s auto-deletion of Microsoft Teams chats, a coverage that was quietly erasing tens of hundreds of thousands of public information each week, pending a six-month assessment.
That deadline has come and gone. It has been seven months. What has the general public obtained?
Silence.
If Ferguson wanted extra time, he may have stated so. He may have introduced an extension, defined the complexities, and invited public enter. As a substitute, he’s deserted his duty totally, leaving the individuals to surprise why transparency solely applies when it’s handy.
This isn’t a minor bureaucratic slip. It’s a breach of belief. The legal professional common’s personal Model Rules warn that auto-deletion insurance policies are harmful. His employees issued memoranda years in the past flagging Office 365 and Teams as creating obvious risks: unreliable searches, incapacity to protect information, publicity to litigation. Businesses had been warned that the regulation demanded better care, not shortcuts.
The issue was by no means that the governor lacked discover. The issue is that when confronted with it, after defending what he knew shouldn’t be defended, he promised management and transparency, however has delivered neither.
And the assessment he promised? Carried out behind closed doorways. No hearings. No legislative engagement. Even the Washington Coalition for Open Authorities, the state’s main open authorities watchdog, has repeatedly reached out to the governor’s workplace to supply experience. They’ve been ignored.
This secrecy straight contradicts the spirit of Washington’s Public Data Act. The PRA’s preamble says: “The individuals … don’t give their public servants the proper to determine what is sweet for the individuals to know and what’s not good for them to know.” But Ferguson is doing precisely that … deciding behind closed doorways what the general public might and will not know.
In the meantime, the destruction was staggering. WaTech staff acknowledged that tens of millions of chats were being erased every week. Whole streams of presidency enterprise, together with conversations about avoiding transparency, vanished.
In court docket, Ferguson and his successor, Lawyer Normal Nick Brown, have compounded the issue by advancing probably the most cynical authorized arguments possible: that if the government destroys records before a request is filed, the public has no remedy. In different phrases, the sooner and extra totally an company erases the individuals’s information, the extra insulated it turns into.
For 2 males who ceaselessly rail towards the anti-democratic habits of President Donald Trump, how do they sq. this paradox? They denounce secrecy in Washington, D.C., whereas defending it in Washington state. They warn towards autocracy within the different D.C., whereas working an accountability course of at residence with the transparency of a locked vault.
So what now?
First, Ferguson should launch the assessment instantly. He should additionally launch, or higher but, publish on his web site now, all information and communications pertaining to his suspension and assessment, together with any authorized recommendation from the Washington Lawyer Normal’s Workplace. His workplace has been slow-walking responses to public information requests on this matter. That delay is unacceptable.
Second, auto-deletions should be ended completely. No extra loopholes, no extra “transitory” excuses. A report is outlined by its content material and performance, not by how inconvenient it’s for an company to retain it.
Third, the Legislature should step in. This course of can’t be left to govt fiat. Lawmakers should codify protections for digital communications, Groups chats, textual content messages and different platforms in order that our most fashionable information don’t grow to be our least accountable.
Lastly, any reform should embody unbiased oversight and public engagement. The PRA belongs to the individuals. Its administration can’t be left to businesses which have already proven a willingness to use its gaps.
Washington as soon as led the nation in open authorities. The individuals adopted the PRA to forestall precisely this form of bureaucratic erasure. Ferguson’s failure to fulfill his personal deadline is not only a missed deliverable. It’s a flashing warning mild that our most elementary democratic safeguards are being handled as non-obligatory.
Ferguson set this course in movement, he set the deadline, he made the choice to deal with this behind closed doorways. He can’t now conceal from the people who find themselves owed an evidence.
The individuals’s proper to know is overdue.
