Jefferson Parish’s inspector general and the parish attorney are at odds over whether the investigative office should have unfettered access to parish government’s email servers, giving it the ability to examine any parish employees’ communications.
For about three weeks, parish technology officials provided Inspector General David McClintock and his staff with a direct line to the parish email servers, allowing them to search all parish emails without running those requests through other arms of parish government. That access, which McClintock said is crucial to his office’s role in investigating fraud and abuse, was shut down last week when Parish Attorney Deborah Foshee learned of it and raised concerns about its impact on emails covered by attorney-client privilege.
