GOP wants to delve into blogger’s data

An Arkansas political party is using the state Freedom of Information Act to delve into bloggers’ actions as state employees.

The Republican Party’s move on blogger Matt Campbell is viewed in some quarters as a proper use of the law that gives citizens the right to know about official government business, but it’s viewed elsewhere as an attempt to silence a critic through intimidation.

Whatever the intent, the result is that Campbell decided Thursday to stop blogging, at least for a while.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the party this week asked two government agencies to hand over Campbell’s employment, email and telephone records, among others.

Campbell, of Little Rock, has written critically of Secretary of State Mark Martin, a Republican from Prairie Grove, in Campbell’s Blue Hog Report, a blog described on its website as “unabashedly progressive, populist, and liberal in our leanings.”

The party on Thursdayalso requested information about Jeff Woodmansee, who has written posts on Blue Hog Report and works as an information-services specialist at University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law Library.

Katherine Vasilos, a spokesman for the state GOP, said that Campbell inserted himself into the political process and the party wants to ensure that the state is not paying for his blogging.

“The enormous volume of opposition research being conducted by Mr. Campbell, along with the timing of certain blog and social-media posts, prompted the party to verify whether this partisan political behavior is occurring on the state dime,” she said.

Vasilos said Campbell’s role as a public worker and his “remarkably partisan” comments may be inappropriately intertwined, and that the party believes Campbell violated Supreme Court of Arkansas employee guidelines.

Campbell is staff attorney for the Office of CriminalJustice Coordinator where his salary during the current fiscal year is $49,692, according to the Department of Finance and Administration. He has worked there preparing legal memoranda as requested by the Supreme Court since November 2009.

He said Thursday that he didn’t “believe that I have acted improperly,” but “I also do not want to give anyone the impression that my activities outside of work are in any way connected to my employers.”

This month, Campbell alleged in blog postings that Martin had used a state vehicle to commute between Little Rock and his home in Northwest Arkansas. Campbell presented no proof but inferred it from receipts and other records he had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act about gasoline purchases of the secretary of state’s office.

Martin spokesman Alice Stewart later told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that neither Martin nor any other employee of the office used state vehicles to travel to and from home except Capitol Police and some Capitol maintenance and grounds employees who are constantly on call. However, the office does not keep written logs for vehicle use.

Campbell’s several requests under the state Freedom of Information Act for secretary of state records totaled nearly 800 pages, Stewart said. She added that Campbell withdrew some of the requests after staff had compiled the requested documents.

Using the same law, the state GOP sent letters to the criminal coordinator’s office as well as the Pulaski County public defender’s office, where Campbell said he worked as an investigator from about 2006 to 2009.

In the letters, the party’s executive director, Chase Dugger, requested copies of e-mails to and from Campbell’s state account and his personal account during his state work hours, phone and cell-phone records, travel records, expenses, charges on office credit cards that may have been issued to Campbell, logs of state vehicle use by Campbell and other information.

Martin said he didn’t know anything about the party’s request.

“It is party stuff, I guess,” Martin said.

The volume of Freedom of Information Act requests the office has received was fodder for a lighthearted moment at the Rural Development Conference in Hot Springs, where Martin spoke this week. He joked that a forklift is needed to deliver the requests each day, and that Butch Calhoun, director of the Department of Rural Services, was using the Freedom of Information Act to get Martin to speak at the event.

“I picked up one right on the top and I saw Butch Calhoun and I said ‘Why in the world would he be FOIing me?’ So he and I get on the phone and I say, ‘Butch, what it is?’” He says, ‘I just want to find out if you was for free speech.’ I said, ‘Well, you have known me for six years, you know that I am for free speech.’ And he says, ‘Why don’t you come and give one?” Martin said.

Stewart said withdrawn requests cost taxpayers hundreds of dollars in man hours spent compiling documents that Campbell requested and then did not use.

Campbell said last week that he requested the documents based on information he received from an employee in the secretary of state’s office.

Tom Larimer, executivedirector of the Arkansas Press Association, said the party is within its rights to request the information.

“It’s politics, this stuff happens,” Larimer said.

“If it speaks to his performance or lack of performance of an official function, that would include his e-mail at the office. If they can get his e-mail and determine from that that he’s been using state computers and state e-mail accounts to post his Blue Hog Report, they might have a case for a complaint there,” he said.

Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said the GOP’s tactic raises questions about the party’s motives and whether the request is a “way to embarrass or intimidate [the blogger] by pulling together the information to paint a negative image of the person.”

“As a general rule, not being naive about how politics works, I think there would be better ways of addressing the criticisms of a particular blogger than trying to go after him personally,” he said.

The Media Bloggers Association is a nonprofit organization that provides legal support to bloggers facing legal action related to their blogging activity. It describes itself as a nonpartisan group.

Candace Martin, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Arkansas, who is not related to the secretary of state, said her party is waiting to see what results from the Freedom of Information request, but that she did not think Campbell’s blogging would interfere with his duties as a state employee.

“Matt has always been very independent in his reporting, and I’m sure that he makes decision that don’t influence his work,” she said. “As long as he’s not doing anything that interferes with his work, if he’s doing it after work hours, he’s just doing reporting that many people look to and like to follow.”

She said she could not say whether the GOP’s request was appropriate, since the Democratic Party is not in a position to request records on conservative bloggers, since none work for government agencies. Though the party does not always agree with what conservative bloggers write, she said they allow people to see both sides of the issues.

The state Supreme Court does not have a policy governing its employees’ activities online that would prevent Campbell from speaking freely on his blog on his own time, a spokesman for the court said.

Vasilos said the court complied with the request, but declined to provide Campbell’s e-mails, claiming they are exempt from disclosure as “working papers.” She said the party will make a followup request.

Campbell does not identify himself as a state employee on his blog’s website, and the e-mails he sent to Stewart at the secretary of state’s office, were sent using a private e-mail account. They were obtained by the Democrat-Gazette through a request under the same Freedom of Information Act.

There are no time stamps on Campbell’s Blue Hog Report posts, and a Facebook account for the blog was no longer available Thursday. The time of any post on Facebook is recorded.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, most citizens may obtain public records, regardless of the citizens’ purposes. Information about a public employee is exempt, however, if disclosure would be a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.