"Email kept me connected to Floridians" - Jeb Bush

February 10, 2015 1:59 PM

Jeb Bush has published all of the (unredacted) emails he sent and received as Governor.
posted by Going To Maine (95 comments total)

Does this mean somebody hacked his email and he's trying to get out in front of it?
posted by contraption at 2:02 PM on February 10, 2015 [11 favorites]

In retrospect, I should have gone with The Verge's subhead: Florida Man Strikes Again
posted by Going To Maine at 2:03 PM on February 10, 2015 [19 favorites]

I absolutely love this. All governors should do it.

And holy shit, did Jeb Bush (and his interns, presumably) answer a lot of email. Even if much of it was just referrals to another person.
posted by fshgrl at 2:05 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2001, at 12:59:09pm, a man e-mails Bush and offers to "help serve my country in a government or intelligence position" and lists his name and his Social Security number, which are re-published here. I'm not sure why this wasn't redacted to protect his privacy.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:07 PM on February 10, 2015 [34 favorites]

Does this mean somebody hacked his email and he's trying to get out in front of it?
posted by contraption at 4:02 PM on February 10

I think it means he is running for President.

He claims you can get these all through a simple request under Florida's Sunshine laws. I don't know if that is true, but I have heard before that Florida has one of the most expansive sunshine laws in terms of what you can get, so it it wouldn't surprise me. That being said, it probably was a snafu to not redact SSN and other sensitive data.
posted by dios at 2:07 PM on February 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

Asked for comment [about the emails including unredacted SSNs], a Bush spokesperson said that the emails are an “exact replica” of those on public record that are available at the Florida Department of State and are “available at anyone’s request under Chapter 119 sunshine laws.”

Legality aside, what an incredibly stupid move.
posted by Etrigan at 2:07 PM on February 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

"No I am not aware of unisex bathrooms at the rest stops. I will check into it."


"I am sorry about the sentence about the unisex bathrooms"
posted by saturday_morning at 2:09 PM on February 10, 2015 [6 favorites]

The ultimate argument against aristocracy are the children of the rich.
posted by The Whelk at 2:10 PM on February 10, 2015 [43 favorites]

Does this mean somebody hacked his email and he's trying to get out in front of it?

I don't think so, for two (admittedly dumb) reasons.

1) In the Terry Schiavo story that showed up here a few weeks back, a running thread was Bush dealing with folks through email. I think that he considers that an important part of his administration and his governing tactics.

2) When Bush published his campaign announcement on Facebook, I thought that this was a really cool way to show that he was tech-savvy and was going to be running a hip, up-to-date campaign. A friend of mine who is a politically minded, netroots-type person was more interested in the fact that Bush had used a Facebook Note to make the announcement. I know zilch about Facebook, but my friend explained that Note is a dated thing that no one uses anymore. So the campaign was being both behind and up-to-date at the same time. I'd classify publishing your emails and also failing to protect citizens' information as the same sort of behavior.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:10 PM on February 10, 2015 [10 favorites]

Gee, I wonder if that guy who sent his SSN in an unsolicited email ever got that intelligence job.

Actually, I seriously do.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:11 PM on February 10, 2015 [20 favorites]

I think it means he is running for President.

Yeah, I'm sure they know that the media would have requested these emails eventually and this way anything newsworthy gets burned out before most people are paying attention. Plus, by now surely all but the dumbest politicians know to keep anything the least bit shady out of their public email.
posted by ghharr at 2:11 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

All these apologies are pretty charming, actually.
posted by maryr at 2:15 PM on February 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

>...my friend explained that Note is a dated thing that no one uses anymore.

Not sure that's true. I see friends use Notes from time to time, usually for more lengthy, substantive thoughts or announcements. And it's not like there aren't a ton of regular posts to his FB page.
posted by BurntHombre at 2:16 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile: Chris Christie Waging 23 Court Battles To Keep State Documents Secret

It seems that a governor either shares too much or too little.
posted by Fizz at 2:23 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

BTW, the "email the governor" page has a big disclaimer saying that the email will be published on the web and that you shouldn't include personal information.
posted by smackfu at 2:23 PM on February 10, 2015 [12 favorites]

(That is for the current governor.)
posted by smackfu at 2:24 PM on February 10, 2015

It's laudable that he is willing to put this out there. You may agree or disagree with his leadership, but at least he is being very open about what it is.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:27 PM on February 10, 2015 [16 favorites]

Wow, he responds (politely) to a lot of crank e-mails.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:28 PM on February 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

Whee. Bush vs Clinton, 2016. Meritocracy. Hard work and determination. Proof that anyone can make it in America, it doesn't matter who your parents or family are.

Shaping up to be the perfect electoral matchup for highlighting "what's wrong with the USA" in these days of strengthening oligarchy and American decline.

For a country founded on rejection of monarchy, USians sure have a weird thing about dynasties. (If it is Bush vs Clinton, 2012 will have been the only election in my lifetime with no Bush or Clinton running in the primaries or general for president or VP.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:28 PM on February 10, 2015 [18 favorites]

Maybe I'm just cynical, but to me this seems like a couple things:

1) as said above, getting anything interesting buried under a landslide, far enough away from primaries and the campaign to be waved off as old news;

2) "I released all the emails! (The ones you know about anyway)." He gets to look transparent, while all the shitty shady stuff was done via another email, an aide, or over lunch.

For a country founded on rejection of monarchy, USians sure have a weird thing about dynasties.

Pfft, Americans love monarchy. They elect a new king every four years.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:30 PM on February 10, 2015 [7 favorites]

And how long has the "email the governor" page had this disclaimer?
posted by halifix at 2:30 PM on February 10, 2015

BTW, the "email the governor" page has a big disclaimer saying that the email will be published on the web and that you shouldn't include personal information.

Well if I knew that whatever I wrote to the governor would appear on the web, that would certainly keep me from sending any email to him at all. So that would work very well if that was your aim.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 2:31 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Let's not forget Sarah Palin's Yahoo address, after all.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:32 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

by which I mean her @yahoo.com address, not her recent speech in Iowa
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:32 PM on February 10, 2015 [80 favorites]

For a country founded on rejection of monarchy, USians sure have a weird thing about dynasties.

I don't recall Hillary Clinton's father being president. Did I miss something?
posted by srboisvert at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2015 [12 favorites]

Funny how Republicans would have one believe there is no difference between the Clinton family and Bush family.
posted by notreally at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2015 [7 favorites]

I don't know if that is true, but I have heard before that Florida has one of the most expansive sunshine laws in terms of what you can get

Yep.

Fla. Stat. §668.6076
Public records status of e-mail addresses; agency website notice.
Any agency, as defined in s. 119.011, or legislative entity that operates a website and uses electronic mail shall post the following statement in a conspicuous location on its website:

Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.

There's a reason I prefer pen and paper when communicating with such...uh...entities.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 2:34 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Hm. Actually, that "email the governor" page is specific to Scott Walker anyways. I hope the Bush website had this... all the way back in 1999, or whenever the email was created.
posted by halifix at 2:34 PM on February 10, 2015

Writing on pen and paper just ensures that your email address is private, not that your correspondence is.
posted by smackfu at 2:35 PM on February 10, 2015

"I released all the emails! (The ones you know about anyway)." He gets to look transparent, while all the shitty shady stuff was done via another email, an aide, or over lunch.

If he did anything else he would have to be deeply deeply stupid. After all Daddy was a director of the CIA in addition to being a president.
posted by srboisvert at 2:35 PM on February 10, 2015

And how long has the "email the governor" page had this disclaimer?

According to The Wayback Machine, sometime between July 21 and August 6 of 2013.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:36 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

His signature on the released emails says:

> Please note: Florida has a very broad public records law.
> Most written communications to or from state officials
> regarding state business are public records available to the
> public and media upon request. Your e-mail communications
> may therefore be subject to public disclosure.

So not exactly hiding the fact.
posted by smackfu at 2:37 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's laudable that he is willing to put this out there.

Oh yeah, data dumps with no due diligence are totally laudable.

Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.

There's a big difference between email addresses and email contents.
posted by kmz at 2:38 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

So... anybody know some free tools for parsing .pst files? (Asking for a friend.)
posted by Going To Maine at 2:42 PM on February 10, 2015

There's a big difference between email addresses and email contents.

I think the notice is correct, actually. Your correspondence is public either way, since it's still a public record, but if you want your email address private, don't email.
posted by smackfu at 2:42 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh yeah, data dumps with no due diligence are totally laudable.

Compared to silence, yeah. I'll just be here waiting for Hillary to release constituent email replies from her time in the Senate. This contact is what leadership is as far as a lot of people are concerned. I vote for a Republican state senator in my district year after year because he delivered excellent constituent services to me, it's what the job is really all about.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:45 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Honest to God I have nightmares about having a job like this. Just thousands and thousands of emails, from people who want something or need something or want me to do or know something, and nobody but me to answer them. It's like a Cenobite version of my actual, personal job.
posted by penduluum at 2:50 PM on February 10, 2015 [10 favorites]

*For a country founded on rejection of monarchy, USians sure have a weird thing about dynasties.*

What weird thing is that? Other than the Adam's, Harrison's & Bushes, and a couple of more distant relations (e.g. Roosevelt's), we've managed to *not* have presidential dynasties the vast majority of the time. Not even a Kennedy, tho fate did sorta intervene there.
posted by kjs3 at 2:54 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

He says he “spent 30 hours a week answering emails". I'm not sure that this is the best use of a Governor's time. It reminds me of Rob Ford's approach of returning every phone call himself, and personally attending to each individual constituent's pet problems. It may be a winning approach for some voters, but It's not good management or leadership.
posted by Kabanos at 2:54 PM on February 10, 2015 [11 favorites]

thanks, libpst!
posted by Going To Maine at 2:55 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I vote for a Republican state senator in my district year after year because he delivered excellent constituent services to me, it's what the job is really all about.

If "constituent services" means "act in a way that benefits me personally," then no, that is not what the job is about.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:56 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

There's a reason I prefer pen and paper when communicating with such...uh...entities.

Dear Governor Shoggoth,
posted by Going To Maine at 2:57 PM on February 10, 2015 [7 favorites]

Maybe state laws should be adjusted to deal with the realities of the email ecosystem? I know everyone likes the idea of complete transparency in communication, but in practice everyone on this list is going to be spammed to hell and back. Addresses should not be released unless there's a good reason for it; maybe a personal, non-automated request should be necessary for the release of each address. So you can get the address if you really want it, but every single one isn't released for spambots to harvest.

People shouldn't have to register for throwaway email accounts to email their government.
posted by Mitrovarr at 2:57 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Whee. Bush vs Clinton, 2016. Meritocracy. Hard work and determination. Proof that anyone can make it in America, it doesn't matter who your parents or family are.

Hillary's father was a small-business owner and her mother was a homemaker. Her brothers have not had successful careers in politics. Prior to marrying Bill, she was already seen as a potential presidential or senatorial candidate, and was part of the team that helped bring down Nixon.

Bill's father died when he was a baby, his mother was a nurse, and his step-father was an abusive, alcoholic car salesman. His half-brother has not succeeded in politics, either.


JEB's father is a former president, his grandfather is a former senator and Wall Street executive, and his brother is a former president.

One of those three is not like the others.
posted by miguelcervantes at 2:59 PM on February 10, 2015 [75 favorites]

He says he “spent 30 hours a week answering emails". I'm not sure that this is the best use of a Governor's time.

I'll take it a step further. That is fucking insane. That disqualifies him for higher office, full stop.

Can you imagine learning that Obama spent 30 hours per week answering emails? Instead of, say, working directly, face to face, with his cabinet, the Joint Chiefs, members of Congress and foreign leaders?

I mean, the product manager that's literally in charge of Gmail should not even be spending 30 hours a week answering emails.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:59 PM on February 10, 2015 [15 favorites]

This OP really needs to be corrected. Bush did NOT release all of his emails. Per Politico,

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush released thousands of emails on Tuesday from his days as the Florida executive, and apart from the sheer number of emails shared — some 250,000 — the more startling numbers were the ones found inside.

There were hundreds of thousands of other emails that were not released, for obvious and perhaps not-obvious reasons.
posted by blucevalo at 3:00 PM on February 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

Adding, if he spent 30 hours a week answering emails, you know there had to be upward of a million total from his two terms. (Which if I'm recalling right there was.)
posted by blucevalo at 3:02 PM on February 10, 2015

Can you imagine learning that Obama spent 30 hours per week answering emails?

OTOH, I bet there is a lot more than 30 hours wasted in an executive's weekly schedule on bullshit meetings, that would be much better spent answering emails. "Sorry, got to meet with the Super Bowl Champs and take photos for a couple of hours."
posted by smackfu at 3:06 PM on February 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

Jeb is much more of a technocrat than his brother W.
posted by fraxil at 3:11 PM on February 10, 2015

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush released thousands of emails on Tuesday from his days as the Florida executive, and apart from the sheer number of emails shared — some 250,000 — the more startling numbers were the ones found inside.

There were hundreds of thousands of other emails that were not released, for obvious and perhaps not-obvious reasons.

This is an interesting point, as the articles do largely just say that thousands of emails were released (and the Post notes that reporters already had copies). It doesn't seem clear, however, that there are still "hundreds of thousands" of unreleased emails. There could be five or there could be five or five hundred or five million.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:20 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

There were hundreds of thousands of other emails that were not released, for obvious and perhaps not-obvious reasons.

Do you have a source for that? 'Cause the line you quote doesn't say that, and neither does the article you pulled it from.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:31 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

A friend of mine who is a politically minded, netroots-type person was more interested in the fact that Bush had used a Facebook Note to make the announcement. I know zilch about Facebook, but my friend explained that Note is a dated thing that no one uses anymore. So the campaign was being both behind and up-to-date at the same time. I'd classify publishing your emails and also failing to protect citizens' information as the same sort of behavior.

If you type a long enough status update, FB will fall over to Notes without asking instead of letting you have a huge status update. Whoever made the post probably just posted that much text and didn't worry about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:35 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Florida tried this 8 years ago with their county records. Turns out realtors and other dumb people love to pencil in buyers' social security numbers in the margins of official paperwork. The county recorder used the same "public records" excuse not to redact any of this private info. Predictably, the slashdot crowd doxxed her using her office's own website.
posted by ryanrs at 3:40 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Jesus Christ, I clicked on Part 1 of 6 of a specific day in 2001 (before 9/11) and it was 620 MB. I can see pretty clearly why these executives need a staff.
posted by crapmatic at 3:49 PM on February 10, 2015

Jeb is much more of a technocrat than his brother W.

A link to this showed up in my LAist feed:

New Jeb Bush Chief Technology Officer Deleting Old Tweets About “Sluts”

Time magazine reported on Monday that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has hired Ethan Czahor, a Santa Monica-based techie who co-founded Hipster.com, to be chief technology officer for his political action committee, Right to Rise.

After the story of his hiring broke, tweets on his Twitter account started disappearing. The Twitter account is linked from his personal website. The count this morning was 177 tweets

posted by Room 641-A at 3:52 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

Pseudonymous Cognomen: "For a country founded on rejection of monarchy, USians sure have a weird thing about dynasties. (If it is Bush vs Clinton, 2012 will have been the only election in my lifetime with no Bush or Clinton running in the primaries or general for president or VP.)"

Jesus Christ. Again with this?

I'll let Banky_Edwards demolish this argument, again: The Clintons are not a dynasty. The Bushes are.
posted by scrump at 3:53 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

If "constituent services" means "act in a way that benefits me personally," then no, that is not what the job is about.

It means helping the people in your constituency navigate difficult interactions with the government, and being good or bad at that is not remotely partisan.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:59 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

[i]JEB's father is a former president, his grandfather is a former senator and Wall Street executive [whose company was one of the financial architects of Nazism], and his brother is a former president. [/i]
posted by any major dude at 4:11 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Occasionally, Bush used apologies as a way to be snarky, such as his Sept. 24, 2000 reply to a representative of an organization for the disabled: "I am sorry you seem to have such a hostile attitude."

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by kagredon at 4:14 PM on February 10, 2015

The Clintons are not a dynasty. The Bushes are.

Sure, although, there is the perception out there, mostly by House Democrats, that a Hillary White House would be a return to old times.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:17 PM on February 10, 2015

The Clintons are not a dynasty. The Bushes are.

The fact that the Clintons are more like Nestor and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner than they are like the Bushes doesn't mean they're not a dynasty. (I kind of doubt that Hillary would have been able to carpetbag her way to a Senate seat if she hadn't been Bill's wife, for instance.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:23 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

One of my very first jobs working with state government in Florida was reengineering the business processes at a state site that fulfilled public records requests shortly after one of the employees had been arrested for stealing the required document reproduction fees (they used to be able to charge requestors for time and materials--I think they still can for requests over a certain size). Anyway, this is obviously designed to look great and all, but you probably won't be surprised to know there's a long tradition of governors playing games to get around our very robust Sunshine Law, so don't be surprised if we learn later there were other, unofficial email accounts that were also used (extralegally) to do state business. There's an ongoing scandal surrounding our current Republican governor over just that.
posted by saulgoodman at 4:32 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

That deeply devalues her competency, and unreasonably so; she's accomplished in her own rights.

But she wasn't from New York, and didn't live in New York when she decided that she was going to run for office here.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:36 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

That deeply devalues her competency, and unreasonably so; she's accomplished in her own rights.

Diminishing pretty much anything Clinton did or does has been a sport since she first took on the idea of universal health care and, despite her education and the research that went into creating a workable prototype for the idea that could be built upon, was heaped with scorn and ridicule while dismissed as "Bill's wife".
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 4:42 PM on February 10, 2015

Jesus Christ, I clicked on Part 1 of 6 of a specific day in 2001 (before 9/11) and it was 620 MB. I can see pretty clearly why these executives need a staff.

Based on my recent experience unpacking the files, it seems like outlook files actually compress down more than 7zipped plaintext. So this is even more emails than I thought. (Part 1 = 10.81 GB, unbundled as text.)
posted by Going To Maine at 4:51 PM on February 10, 2015

Sure, although, there is the perception out there, mostly by House Democrats, that a Hillary White House would be a return to old times.

And I bet that includes a return to the Democratic Leadership Council, triangulation, welfare reform, and the era of big government being "over".

This is why whenever some Democratic flunkee calls me asking for a donation, I give them an earful about how I'll only ever support Elizabeth Warren for president, not because I think she will run or even should run, but because I don't want to lose whatever meager progressive gains we've made during the Obama presidency to some feckless nostalgia for the Clinton years.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:52 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

by which I mean her @yahoo.com address, not her recent speech in Iowa

WE NEED PRESIDENT HOUYHNHNMS TO WHIP THE YAHOOS INTO SHAPE...
posted by ennui.bz at 4:56 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

I believe that intimating that Jeb is too smart to make mistake x, y, or z simply because his father was, among other things, head of the CIA, overlooks the many obvious public mistakes his brothers Neil and George made. By that logic they too should have benefitted from the advantage of a CIA director-father and made much more intelligent public decisions. They didn't.
posted by riverlife at 4:58 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

"Under our last president, we lost 500,000 jobs. 7.9 million people lost their health insurance. I know what you are thinking: does this guy have a brother?"
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:02 PM on February 10, 2015 [24 favorites]

" So this is even more emails than I thought. (Part 1 = 10.81 GB, unbundled as text.)"

When you unzip part1 it unzips all of the parts and puts them together.
posted by I-baLL at 5:04 PM on February 10, 2015

I don't think it did, but maybe I'm misconstruing? Part 1 for me runs from 1999 to 2006. I have yet to get to the others because I don't want to blow up my hard drive.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:14 PM on February 10, 2015

But she wasn't from New York

Neither was Robert Kennedy. Bottom line, she ran a good campaign; her opponent (points if you can name him!) ran a bad one.

Not sure that failing to be dynastic is necessarily a point in the Clintons' favor. Do you make more or fewer compromises if you are striving for money and power or if you are already accustomed to them?
posted by IndigoJones at 5:24 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

On the website the email range is also from 1999 to Jan 3rd, 2007. You should also sort it by the "sent" date in Outlook as the "Received Date" seems to be off for some reason.
posted by I-baLL at 5:28 PM on February 10, 2015

wow. In my industry (social science survey research) we go through all kinds of elaborate data anonymization procedures to scrub any last trace of personally identifiable information ("PIIs," they're called, by people who say "COB" out loud) from a dataset that maybe six people are ever going to look at. You look for any potentially unique combinations of variables, disguise outlying values with a well-placed "...or more" category, fill out forms documenting all of this in detail. Then the ex-governor of Florida dumps a hundred thousand emails, phone numbers, home addresses, and socials as a publicity move. Time to start drinking I guess
posted by theodolite at 5:52 PM on February 10, 2015 [7 favorites]

Alexis and Krystle cannot run congrunently on the same ticket!
posted by clavdivs at 5:54 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

On the website the email range is also from 1999 to Jan 3rd, 2007. You should also sort it by the "sent" date in Outlook as the "Received Date" seems to be off for some reason.

Huh. Clearly, I don't understand .rar files. Oh well, easier on my drive then.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:56 PM on February 10, 2015

Actually, I'm not clear how it's fragmented. Each part unpacks to a different size, but covers the same date range.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:12 PM on February 10, 2015

Well, the email downloads have been removed (though, weirdly, not the links going to the files), but you can still browse 'em on the site.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:03 PM on February 10, 2015

Just to add another, final rider to this whole question of archive size. Browsing the files, lots of them contained blocks of garbage text from attached files (Potentially evaluatable?) I wrote a small script to kill all lines that seemed to match the template of garbage lines. That reduced the total volume of email down to <1 Gig. Could be a bug, but if it isn't then these files are quite shrinkable.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:50 PM on February 10, 2015

That makes sense, when you said ~10GB I thought "surely that includes base-64 encoded MIME attachment data" like PDFs, JPGs, etc that are essentially doubled in size plus a bit more due to carriage returns and representing 8-bit ASCII codes (all of the funky unprintable characters and such found in a random "binary" file) with 7-bit ASCII codes (the normal characters like A-Z, numbers, punctuation).
posted by aydeejones at 10:46 PM on February 10, 2015

The plain text size of an email is always dwarfed by any typical attachments (and then some, averaging across other emails) unless it happens to be a goofy Outlook "Rich Text" email with stationary and an elaborate email signature...noooooooo.

Back when I had to deal with supporting users with 100MB mailboxes I found myself saying "a picture is worth a million words" because an email saying "Hi!" might just amount to those three characters plus some overheard to describe the recipients and routing, but a JPG is going to be tens of thousands to millions of "characters" (bytes) in size. Nerderyyyyyy
posted by aydeejones at 10:48 PM on February 10, 2015

The Wayback Machine, "Contact Governor Bush", November 2006

http://web.archive.org/web/20061103185700/http://www.flgov.com/contact

No mention of disclosure. Publishing random emails from private citizens with names, addresses and phone numbers that were not even replied to is rude and has a data-drowning effect (not everything in god's creation needs to be available to posterity for as long as, well, the web servers last).
--
So did Burger King move to Texas? Confidential per F.S. 288.075 (COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS—Confidentiality of records)

Data miners should search on the "Confidential per F.S. 288.075" stuff.
posted by sylvanshine at 11:38 PM on February 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

Maybe I mis-read an article, but didn't Jeb's tech guru resign after all this heat? If so, hee hee.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 2:24 AM on February 11, 2015

I'm fine with him publishing SSNs because radical transparency is worth a few broken eggs. I'm thrilled that he cared about transparency and felt confident enough that his people hadn't committed any serious crimes, really wonderful.

Ain't too impressed by his his legal staff, system administrators, etc. though since they could've fixed this with : sed -i 's/\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{3}/' *

We should do away with SSNs as identification anyways and learn that email isn't that private anyways. If you want real privacy then use end-to-end encryption like Pond, OTR, etc. Imho, our elected officials should not have privacy communications except in narrow circumstances, ala whistleblower protection laws.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:46 AM on February 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I suppose this hurts his prospects for the presidency because too many lobbyists cannot afford their communications, efforts, bribes, etc. made public.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:48 AM on February 11, 2015

Publishing random emails from private citizens with names, addresses and phone numbers that were not even replied to is rude and has a data-drowning effect

OTOH, Florida does automatically publish all emails to and from the current governor and executive staff within seven days via a read-only Outlook mailbox. It's called Project Sunburst. Extreme transparency is just that.
posted by smackfu at 5:32 AM on February 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

jeffburdges: " If you want real privacy then use end-to-end encryption like Pond, OTR, etc. Imho, our elected officials should not have privacy communications except in narrow circumstances, ala whistleblower protection laws."

How exactly does end to end encryption mitigate disclosure of emails when it is the recipient who is doing the disclosure?
posted by Mitheral at 6:07 AM on February 11, 2015

One headline this morningn didn't pull a punch:

Jeb Bush's email transparency experiment goes horribly wrong (update)
posted by sammyo at 6:52 AM on February 11, 2015

Florida Man Discloses Constituents Sensitive Information as Good Publicity Maneuver.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 2:40 PM on February 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Does this mean somebody hacked his email and he's trying to get out in front of it?
posted by contraption at 4:02 PM on February 10

I think it means he is running for President.

I CAN'T DO ANOTHER ELECTION BETWEEN A CLINTON AND A BUSH!
I will either move to Canada, or kill myself.
(because I know that, yet again, a Bush wins.)
posted by QueerAngel28 at 4:52 PM on February 11, 2015

Um, there's only been one Clinton/Bush election, and Clinton won it.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:09 PM on February 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Publishing random emails from private citizens with names, addresses and phone numbers […] "

This seems seriously NOT OK. Am I missing something? Rachel Maddow referred to this as doxxing private citizens … I'm inclined to agree.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:26 AM on February 12, 2015

It's NOT OK that we ever made SSNs so important. It's NOT OK that we cannot read most correspondences by our elected representatives, their approved bureaucrats, etc. anyways. etc. This is still progress.

Jeb Bush's culpability here is hiring incompetent people, which is par for the course. Remember Spot the Brownie?
posted by jeffburdges at 11:02 PM on February 12, 2015

jeffburdges: "It's NOT OK that we ever made SSNs so important. It's NOT OK that we cannot read most correspondences by our elected representatives, their approved bureaucrats, etc. anyways. etc. This is still progress.

Jeb Bush's culpability here is hiring incompetent people, which is par for the course. Remember Spot the Brownie?"

All I remember is "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie." (While trucks loaded with shipments of ice were dispatched to, and sitting in, Maine. WTF, FEMA?) W was such an incompetent fuck.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 12:18 AM on February 13, 2015

It's NOT OK that we ever made SSNs so important. It's NOT OK that we cannot read most correspondences by our elected representatives, their approved bureaucrats, etc. anyways. etc. This is still progress.

Yeah, no. Whether or not the way SSNs and other identifying information can be exploited is something we should be taking systematic steps to fix is orthogonal to the fact that Jeb and his campaign team are operating in an environment where SSNs and identifying information can be exploited and they utterly failed to do any due diligence to mitigate it.
posted by kagredon at 11:43 AM on February 14, 2015