Comment Re:An all-time lawsuit low... (Score 1) 326
To be clear here, without this lawsuit there was a real question whether these emails would actually be saved for posterity at all. While they apparently are currently in a state where they could be recovered, if they were just left abandoned or outright thrown out, they would never be viewable at that point. While there may be limited short term payoff, there is the long term issue of eventual public accountability. (With emails becoming public after 7 years for instance potentially having actual consequences for former members of the Bush administration.)
It should be noted that there are genuine emails it probably is in the interests of the US as a whole to restrict from public access for awhile. I.E. where we have spies placed in North Korea and Iran, or simply pretty insulting sentiments about specific leaders of other countries. (If you knew the moment an administration left office such a view on the leader would be made public, you would be reluctant in many cases to give an honest opinion via email period.)