There is No Such Thing as an E-Mail

There is a terrific diary today about the e-mails that brought down a Republican Governor.  This incident provides a good excuse to remind us all of this simple fact:  there is no such thing as an e-mail.  

E-mail is a delivery system, pure and simple.  With e-mail, one is provided with a filing system.  But there is no such thing as an e-mail  There are only documents that are delivered and stored through this system.

All of the secrecy, which Republicans excel at, to keep e-mails hidden, is really a system to keep documents hidden -- documents that the law says should not be kept hidden.  Through e-mail, people send and store memoranda (memos) and letters.  What there are are memos delivered and stored through e-mail, and letters sent and stored through e-mail, and position papers sent and stored through e-mail.  

There is no such thing as an e-mail.  There are only documents -- documents that must be made available by law.  

Everyone understands that memos are to be preserved.  Letters are to be preserved. Investigators are always combing through letters and memos in their investigations.  Historians comb through boxes of memos to illuminate the past of our presidents and other leaders.  We get the importance of preserving such documents.  

E-mails are no different!  It is simply that in today's world, the memos are in e-mail form rather than carbon copy on paper form in some filing cabinet.

If we have learned anything over the last few years, it is that vocabulary matters.  What if we simply started using phrases such as these:  "Senator ________ refused to make available his memos (sent and stored via e-mail) to investigators..."

Remember, there is no such thing as an e-mail.