JUNEAU, Alaska - The state today will release thousands of Sarah Palin's emails from her first two years as governor, a disclosure that has taken on national prominence as she flirts with a run for the presidency.
The emails were first requested during the 2008 White House race by citizens and news organizations, including The Associated Press, as they vetted a vice presidential nominee whose political experience included less than one term as governor of Alaska and a term as mayor of the small town of Wasilla.
The delay has been attributed largely to the sheer volume of the release and the flood of requests.
Alaska is releasing the more than 24,000 pages of emails in paper form only and asking news organizations to pick up several boxes of documents in Alaska's capital city, accessible by only air or water.
Reporters from several news organizations have begun arriving in Juneau and are making plans to disseminate the emails to the public.
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Palin told "Fox News Sunday" that "every rock" that could have been kicked over to uncover things in her family has been. But she also said, "A lot of those emails obviously weren't meant for public consumption," and that she expected people might seek to take some of the messages "out of context."
But there may not be any surprises about Palin in the emails. Once the state reviewed the records, it gave Palin's attorneys an opportunity to see if they had any privacy concerns with what was being released. No emails were withheld or redacted as a result of that, said Linda Perez, the administrative director for Gov. Sean Parnell, who has been coordinating the release.
The voluminous nature of the release, the isolation of Juneau and the limited bandwidth in the city of 30,000 people has forced media outlets to come up with creative ways to transmit the information.
The Washington Post is looking for "100 organized and diligent readers" to work with reporters to "analyze, contextualize and research the emails." The New York Times is employing a similar system.
The Associated Press also plans to scan the paper copies to make searchable files available to its members and clients. The state said it was not practical to provide electronic versions of the emails.
