Jack McElroy said on his blog that he got Lee Tramel’s personal contact list through a routine Open Records Request and that Tramel had sent a mass email “of a political nature”.
As a name on the mass email, I went back and found it. It was a mass email sent on September 14, 2011. The political nature of the mass email was a tv news story about Obama’s Aunt.
Interesting that the only government address on the mass email was the city of knoxville email address of former Knoxville Mayor Candidate Ivan Harmon.
Let’s travel back to September 2011. On September 27, 2011 the City of Knoxville Primary Election was held. Eventual Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero missed winning the election out right in the September 27 primary, short a few votes or hundred.
It appears that 13 days before the primary election, Jack McElroy was doing some fishing in an effort to catch Ivan Harmon doing something wrong politically in his campaign for Mayor.
Of that mass email distribution list 15 names were dropped off the Jack McElroy “McElroy List”.
Let’s see who they are. Jimmy Haslam, brother to TN Governor, new owner of the Cleveland Browns, son of Big Jim Haslam, CEO of Pilot Flying J and purchaser of thousands of News Sentinels every Friday. Big Metal Shed on the Hill (KNS) employees Ansley Haman and Michael Patrick, Mike Cohen, then with Ackermann PR (now owner of Cohen Communicaions), Tracy McBroom with SRW Associates (SRW being Susan Richardson Williams, which Jack sits beside on a weekly talking heads tv show on WBIR), Randy & Robin Brown, Monica Chrysandreas, Kevin Desmond, Angela Hatcher, Kevin Lusby, Brad Mayes, Knox County Sheriffs Office employees Melinda Lynch, Kelvin Moxley and Les Mullins and April Tomlin with Knox County.
The question is since the only government address on the mass email address was a City of Knoxville email address, what right does Jack have to open record request of the county regarding personal email addresses.
McElroy will likely rely on the opinion of Frank Gibson. Last time I checked Gibson’s opinion carries no case law. His opinion is no better than the opinion of anyone else.
In addition, the private citizens have fourth amendment right protection.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/dec/20/former-commissioner-mayoral-candidate-ivan-lands/
IVAN HARMON WAS A PRIVATE CITIZEN ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2011!
Harmon's job application states he worked from 2003 until Feb. 2, 2011, under former Mayor Bill Haslam doing “field inspections to determine what needs to be done to correct the problem.”
This email was sent over 7 months later!
Why was his email NOT TURNED OFF? Was it a deliberate trap?
Remember he was using his private email for his campaign…
McElroy is clearly too involved in local politics to objectively run the KNS.
He should step down, or Scripps should pull him.
He discredits the KNS and the people who sincerely try to do their journalistic jobs on a daily basis.
Brian,
Are you are of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)?
Because the KNS violated that law when their employees Ansley Haman and Michael Patrick took a private email addressed to them and gave it to their boss Jack McElroy. This is illegal data-mining and the KNS can be sued.