US News

Team O’s e-mail ‘secret’

President Obama’s political appointees, including Secretary for Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, are using secret government e-mail accounts to conduct public business, according to a new report.

Administration officials insist the separate aliases are necessary to prevent their in-boxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages.

But the scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery, The Associated Press review found.

Most US agencies failed to turn over lists of political appointees’ e-mail addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act.

The AP asked for the addresses following last year’s disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate e-mail accounts at work.

The secret e-mail accounts complicate an agency’s legal responsibilities to find and turn over e-mails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests.

Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.

Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses includeing the Labor Department and HHS, said maintaining non-public e-mail accounts allows senior officials to keep separate their internal messages with agency employees from e-mails they exchange with the public.