Under the Environmental Protection Agency’s new FOIA regulations which were implemented back in July, the EPA is no longer accepting request submissions via email, joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation in requiring requests be made through an online portal or snail mail.

In today’s digital era, streamlining public records request should be a breeze. Yet, states like Kentucky are still imposing laws that favor requesters who send in their request the old-fashioned way.

What’s considered public record or not is not a new debate. But the increasing prevalence of social media use amongst government agencies and officials, such as Twitter, brings up a new debate: If you delete social media posts on an official account, is it a violation of public records laws?