Elon Musk has been busy within the state of Texas recently. The town of Austin allowed him to start operating Tesla Model Y robotaxis on its streets, and he helped kill a bill that will have regulated autonomous vehicles. He also had his hands in a number of other laws that profit each Tesla and Musk’s other corporations, especially SpaceX. So earlier this 12 months, ProPublica submitted a request to see the emails between Governor Greg Abbott’s office and Musk, in addition to his associates. Now, the Governor’s office is fighting their release, claiming they include “intimate and embarrassing” information, ProPublica reports.
If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because Tesla recently fought the discharge of data on what it told Austin officials about its plans for its so-called robotaxis. This time around, though, the Governor’s office reportedly agreed, at the least initially, to release the requested emails. In actual fact, they charged the Texas Newsroom $244.64 to achieve this, but after the check cleared they modified their tune, claiming all those emails are literally confidential, they usually want Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to maintain it that way.
Based on Abbott’s public information coordinator, releasing those emails “would have a chilling effect on the frank and open discussion obligatory for the decision-making process.” He also claimed they include “information that’s intimate and embarrassing and never of legitimate concern to the general public, including financial decisions that don’t relate to transactions between a person and a governmental body.” Hmmm… intimate and embarrassing, you say?
$244 down the drain
Now, before you go assuming which means Abbott used his official government email account to debate weird sex stuff with Musk, it is best to know the Texas AG’s office includes a bit that explains the common-law privacy exception to the Texas Public Information Act and states that so long as it’s not related to official government transactions, “personal financial information” is taken into account “generally highly intimate or embarrassing and have to be withheld.” So while they cannot prove there is not any weird sex stuff in there unless they release the emails, the actual contents of the emails could also be way more boring than you’d hope.
That doesn’t suggest it’s normal to cover months of emails between the Governor’s office and considered one of the richest people on this planet behind the common-law privacy exception, though. When ProPublica spoke with Bill Aleshire, a Texas-based attorney who makes a speciality of public records law, he was reportedly “appalled” by Abbott’s try and achieve this. He said “it’s commonplace” for the federal government to make use of the exception to maintain records from going public, “[b]ut he’s used to it being cited in cases that involve children, medical data or other highly personal information — not for emails between an elected official and a businessman.”
Unfortunately for all of us and particularly those that still live in Texas, the state’s Supreme Court recently decided that only it may well determine whether or not state officials are complying with public records laws appropriately. “Right away, it appears they’ve charged you $244 for records they haven’t any intention of supplying you with,” Aleshire told ProPublica. “That’s shocking.”
For now, though, it’s as much as Texas AG Ken Paxton’s office to determine whether or to not release the emails. And as everyone knows, Paxton is a morally upright gentleman who you’ll be able to at all times rely upon to do the fitting thing.
This Article First Appeared At www.jalopnik.com
