Did someone from the state superintendent’s office spy on a former employee’s personal messages?

Did someone at the Department of Public Instruction illegally monitor a formerly employee’s personal text messages using her old work laptop?

Allegations of improper surveillance surfaced this week at a hearing about the ongoing controversy surrounding the state’s K-3 reading assessment contract with Texas-based Istation. That multi-million dollar contract was awarded in 2019 after state Superintendent Mark Johnson ignored his own expert evaluation committee that recommended giving the contract to a different company, Amplify. Johnson was subsequently dishonest about the what the expert panel concluded.

Now, at a Department of Information Technology hearing this week in Raleigh, new allegations are raising more disturbing questions about DPI.

The allegations involve text messages from former DPI employee Carolyn Guthrie, who served as K-3 Literacy Director from 2012-2017. Guthrie was no longer employed with DPI when its evaluation committee considered the reading assessment contract, but her texts revealed a phone call with a member of that evaluation committee about Johnson appearing to insert himself inappropriately into the evaluation process. Johnson and DPI later used the text message exchange to say confidentiality had been breached and the bid process had been tainted.

How did Johnson get access to those text messages, which clearly came from a computer screenshot? Johnson initially said they came from a “whistleblower” and later said he had simply been “made aware” of the messages. If that’s true, Johnson’s office has gone more than a year without finding out how someone might have gained access to a former employee’s computer. Only this week, after questions from the editorial board and WRAL, did DPI spokesperson Graham Wilson say: “We do not know where the text message came from. We are conducting an investigation to try to find out.”

That question may already have been answered. At the DIT hearings in Raleigh this week, Amplify attorney Mitch Armbruster detailed how Guthrie had a text message forwarding feature set up on her DPI laptop that allowed her to read and write messages from her personal iPhone. Guthrie apparently forgot to turn off the feature when she left DPI but later realized her phone was still pairing with her old DPI laptop. The evidence, said Armbruster, suggests that DPI may have improperly obtained Guthrie’s private texts.

Guthrie did not return messages left this week by the editorial board.

If true, such an interception of electronic communications could be a felony in North Carolina. Johnson’s office should promptly address questions and provide details about whether Guthrie’s work laptop was accessed by any DPI employees or officials, how often, and by whom. Also, why wasn’t the laptop purged upon Guthrie leaving?

A spokesperson from N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein’s office told the editorial board Thursday: “Because our attorneys represent entities on various sides of this issue, we are unable to comment.” Late Thursday, Wilson added: “DPI doesn’t conduct surveillance on employees’ devices.”

As for DPI and the Istation contract, testimony from this week’s hearings has affirmed that Johnson inappropriately intervened in the reading assessment bid and is ill-equipped to lead DPI, where employees operate under a culture of fear and uncertainty about their superintendent. Voters can decide in 2020 if that’s what North Carolina wants in a lieutenant governor, a race Johnson declared for in November.

At the least, the Department of Information Technology should invalidate the Istation contract, and the attorney general’s office should investigate whether someone spied illegally on a former state employee.

(This editorial has been updated to clarify that Carolyn Guthrie’s text messages were about a conversation with a DPI evaluation committee member but did not include that member.)

This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 10:45 AM.