The Obama administration is under fire again as new details surface of officials in departments such as Health and Human Services having secret email accounts to filter "unwanted messages."
The Associated Press reported that while the number of officials using the separate email accounts is unknown and much of the investigation has yet to conclude, the Labor Department requested more than $1 million from the AP for the release of the list of addresses attached to its agency.
Protected under the Freedom of Information Act, the AP asked for the email addresses of the officials more than three months ago when they learned that a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was believed to have used separate email accounts at work.
Other agencies that have been flagged in the investigation include: the Labor Department, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, the department of Commerce, the department of Agriculture, the department of Veteran Affairs, and Transportation.
"A treasury Department spokeswoman, Marissa Hopkins Secreto, referred inquired to the agency's FOIA office, which said its technology department was still searching for the email addresses," the AP reported. "Other departments, include Homeland Security, did not respond to questions...about the delays of nearly three months. The Pentagon said it may have an answer by later this summer."
Two hundred forty addresses of appointees from the Heath and Human Service Department have been turned over plus an additional three email addresses for Secretary Kathleen Sebelius alone.
Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, believes the addresses are an indication of a lack of transparency in those agencies.
"What happens when that person doesn't work there anymore? He leaves and someone make a request (to review email) in two years," he said. "Who's going to know to search the other accounts? You would hope that agencies doing this would keep a list of aliases in a desk drawer, but you know that isn't happening."
The AP published Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' secret account because she is a higher-ranking official who presides over bereau's like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as well as historical legislation like Obamacare.
The White House has declined to comment.
