By Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press, May 16, 2007

16 May 2007 // A private watchdog group asked the Education Department's inspector general on Wednesday to investigate the possible improper use of private e-mail accounts to conduct official department business.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics executive director Melanie Sloan said the apparent use of such accounts is making it difficult for the group to obtain documents it is seeking under the Freedom of Information Act.

Sloan said the group's lawyer, Dan Roth, had two separate conversations recently with Education Department officials in which he was told that some information he was seeking regarding a reading program might be unavailable because it was not stored in e-mail accounts accessible to the government. Department officials told Roth that agency employees often use private e-mail accounts rather than their government-issued accounts to do official business, Sloan said.

If department employees are using private accounts to send official e-mails, and those aren't being tracked or saved, that could be a violation of the Federal Records Act, she said. The law requires agencies to preserve records of official business.

Education Department Katherine McLane disputed CREW's claim.

"Mr. Roth's portrayal of the conversation is simply wrong," McLane said. "At no time was it suggested to Mr. Roth that department officials use private e-mail accounts for official business."

McLane said department officials receive training on the proper use of e-mail and the preservation of federal records, and she said many Web-based e-mail accounts can't be accessed from Education Department's computers.

CREW was seeking information about the Reading First program, an early reading program that has been the subject of federal investigations into conflicts of interest. CREW has filed a suit to get the Education Department to release certain records involving Reading First.

Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for Education Department Inspector General John Higgins, would say only that CREW's request had been received.

The allegations come amid a congressional investigation into whether presidential adviser Karl Rove and other top White House officials conducted official business through Republican National Committee e-mail accounts intended for political work, and then deleted them in violation of a law governing how White House records are handled.