Michael Kineavy

Coakley: Mass deletion of City Hall e-mail an MIS screwup, not a criminal act

adamg — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:50:03 +0000

The state Attorney General's office said today no charges are warranted against mayoral aide Michael Kineavy for deleting e-mail because he was just doing what he and other City Hall employees were told to do: Purge their inboxes every day because messages would be stored on a back up server - which turned out not to be the case.

The AG's office says Kineavy did nothing intentionally wrong and it's not his fault the City Hall e-mail system didn't work the way IS told employees it did. Investigators found no evidence that Kineavy "double deleted" e-mail in a deliberate attempt to purge messages from what turned out to be a non-existent server.

Investigators found that while the city did have backup systems, they were intended only for recovery of key records after a disaster - which meant that when a worker deleted a message from his or her inbox, it quickly disappeared into the ether, rather than being saved.

See the comments below for a statement from the AG's office. Full report.

Coakley: Almost done with probe of City Hall e-mail deletion

adamg — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:58:01 +0000

The Dorchester Reporter catches up with the attorney general on her probe into the way Menino aide Michael Kineavy deleted zillions of e-mail messages. Doesn't sound like there's much of a there there, but possibly some lessons-learned sort of recommendations for updates to the state public-records law.

Attorney General still hasn't decided what to do about Boston City Hall emailgate

adamg — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:44:19 +0000

Five months after the Secretary of State's office concluded Menino aide Michael Kineavy "inappropriately" deleted e-mail, the state Attorney General's office continues to consider what to do about the matter.

"The investigation into the Kineavy email matter is ongoing at this time," spokeswoman Emily LaGrassa said today.

Kineavy's back

cynical — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:31:10 +0000

Menino's aide is still under investigation, but it seems like he was really missing his job too much to stay away.

State: Kineavy shouldn't have double deleted

adamg — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:53:59 +0000

The Globe reports Secretary of State Bill Galvin has ruled Michael Kineavy "inappropriately" deleted e-mail messages that should have been preserved as public records. He's referred the case to Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is no doubt relieved she won't have to decide what to do until after Nov. 3.

A plea for voicemail at City Hall - and an offer of a discount at Victoria's Secret

adamg — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:14:15 +0000

The city quietly posted a new batch of e-mail messages to Michael Kineavy Friday evening. Among the messages, a February, 2009 plea from Bryan Glasscock, director of the city environment department, for help in convincing Mayor Tom Menino to reconsider his decision to yank out all of City Hall's voice-mail systems:

City Hall releases second batch of e-mail

adamg — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:37:07 +0000

The E-mail Archives of Michael Kineavy now has a second set of e-mail copies from the infamous old PC, the one Kineavy didn't remember getting replaced.

Kineavy e-mail now online

adamg — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:53:27 +0000

At least, the stuff they've found so far that hasn't been turned over to the feds. And as PDF copies of print copies, instead of raw text files, of course.

Here.

If you find anything interesting, post here.

Via Blue Mass. Group.

Kineavex

adamg — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:56:10 +0000

Looks like somebody in Boston really enjoyed Wacky Packs as a kid:

Attorney General's office starts to consider City Hall e-mail

adamg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:44:47 +0000

The Globe reports that Martha Coakley's office says it is now "involved" in Secretary of State Bill Galvin's effort to get City Hall to recover and turn over all those deleted e-mail messages.

Corruption? What corruption?

adamg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:26:03 +0000

Mike Ball reminds us of all the stories circling around Boston, most of which seem unlikely to affect upcoming elections:

The Mayor's top aide deleting thousands of emails, including those likely relating to subjects of federal corruption cases.

A mayoral candidate with a long history as Council president in foiling public access to public meetings and records.

A Senate candidate who refused to prosecute or even investigate corruption.

A Councilor running for re-election under federal corruption indictment.

E-mail aide takes unpaid leave

adamg — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:44:54 +0000

The Globe reports Michael Kineavy is stepping down, at least for awhile.

Mayoral aide only person on earth who can't recall getting a new computer at work

adamg — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:52:24 +0000

That's the position city officials are taking on releasing the news that the reason they couldn't find several thousand e-mail messages from Menino aide Michael Kineavy was not because of some "glitch" but because, as the Globe reports, they were sitting in an old computer that had been swapped out from Kineavy's desk.

That explanation also doesn't really explain the disappearance of the e-mail messages, since Boston City Hall uses a server-based mail system, which is supposed to keep copies of a person's e-mail, but, well, you can see why Michael Flaherty might just call for an independent investigation into what happened to the e-mail: "At first, they were infrequent email users. Then it was a glitch. Then it was a double delete. Today we are being told a computer was replaced days after the Globe request for emails. This appears to be a cover-up."

City to post those 5,018 e-mails, but not as text

adamg — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:13:19 +0000

The Globe reports Boston will hire a company to "scan" all the internal City Hall messages to and from Michael Kineavy and then post those (so sounds like PDFs, although maybe they'll make it even more fun and post 5,018 GIF images). No word on the other messages, the ones the city claims would cost $250,000 to retrieve - or the messages that were forwarded to the feds.

Scheming Kineavy

Kaz — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:36:47 +0000

The Boston Globe has made available a sample of the 5000 e-mails that City Hall finally coughed up related to Kineavy (these are e-mails from other people's mailboxes that included Kineavy in the To/From/CC fields not from his own mailbox, because he was double deleting his e-mails to avoid archival).

Particularly telling as to Kineavy's motivation for double-deleting all of his e-mail is a heavily CC'd discussion related to 2009 Saint Patrick's Day breakfast roast jokes. Kineavy ends the discussion with his colleagues by stating:

"reminder...even though we are joking...these are foiable" (Freedom of Information Act-able)

This shows that he was obviously WELL aware of the MA Public Record Law and actively seeking to help others at City Hall avoid it with their own potentially damning e-mails.