Snooping stopped after the election
The blocking and vetting of politicians’ emails continued during the last Horowhenua District Council election campaign, a leaked report shows.
Then on October 10 last year, two days after the election, the council’s controversial emailinterception practices stopped.
Council chief executive David Clapperton ordered staff to ‘‘immediately’’ end the process where he required emails in and out of the council be diverted to him if senders were on a ‘‘blacklist’’, the report shows.
The list featured addresses belonging to two councillors, including now-mayor Michael Feyen, and at least nine other Horowhenua residents.
Seven of those addresses, which had 168 emails intercepted over a period of 41⁄2 months, belonged to associates of Feyen. Only one email each was blocked from the other two addresses listed.
The council has offered no comment about why the interception practices stopped, or the timing, apart from pointing out Feyen and councillor Ross Campbell were told in 2015 that all emails to the council from them would be screened until the end of the term.
The internal auditor, whose draft report was submitted in March this year, called the email practices ‘‘extremely high risk’’.
The district council slated the quality of that report, however. A statement from the council described the audit report as ‘‘incomplete and substandard’’.
Finance, audit and risk subcommittee independent chairman Philip Jones said due process had not been followed, which included seeking responses from staff.
The auditor raised warnings about the way a staff member was recruited without advertising the job, and then monitoring of his employment seemed to be lacking. There were also high fuel card spending limits and the chief executive’s request a tracker be removed from his staff car was raised as a concern.
Management’s response in the full report leaked to the Manawatu Standard said a full recruitment process did not have to take place for every hire.
Council management indicated it would put in place measures for better fuel card security and reduce the $1500 single-transaction limit to $200.
Clapperton has said in earlier statements that the blocking process was set up to protect staff from abusive messages.
Last week he said emails from some constituents to councillors, rather than just staff, were also intercepted.
The latest information shows the auditor found emails that were not abusive were among those blocked, and most of the intercepted emails were from councillors.
Communications officer Lacey Wilson said that in the case of the ‘‘blacklisted’’ councillors, Feyen and Campbell, both were told in 2015 all emails ‘‘coming into the building’’ from them would be ‘‘quarantined for the remainder of the triennium’’.
The report said in some cases those receiving intercepted emails after Clapperton released them would have been able to ‘‘discover that their emails had been opened’’.
The auditor recommended a full investigation into the legal implications and possible breaches of privacy, saying ‘‘there could be reputational risk, as it brings to question the issue of trust and transparency’’.
It is understood the audit is being reviewed by KPMG, and this report is to be tabled at a finance, audit and risk subcommittee meeting on August 9.