Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin received a reprimand for using his personal email account to discuss official matters with his former Google colleagues, according to a memo (.pdf) sent by Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren.

The memo, which does not call McLaughlin by name but rather refers to "one of our employees,"  states that the deputy CTO, who works in the OSTP, broke standards of the Federal Records Act and a clause within the President's Ethics Pledge (.pdf) restricting involvement with issues related to former employers.

"The employee has been reprimanded on these issues and received additional individual training on his obligations under the FRA and the ethics pledge," the memo states.

McLaughlin's contact with his former employer became an issue after a conservative website BigGovernment.com found that his public Google Buzz contacts included many Google lobbyists and lawyers.

California-based Consumer Watchdog filed a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of McLaughlin's emails to Google and revealed the memo's existence along with copies of McLaughlin's correspondence with Google on May 18.

McLaughlin should resign, said Consumer Watchdog advocate John Simpson. "We opposed the appointment of a lobbyist to this position from the beginning," he said in a statement.

A look at McLaughlin's Gmails forwarded by him to his OSTP account shows him at times coordinating media strategy with Alan Davidson, Google's director of government relations and public policy.

In response to a statement by McLaughlin comparing American cable companies to the Chinese government and a subsequent counter-statement by AT&T, Davidson wrote to McLaughlin at his Gmail address on Nov. 23, 2009, telling him that "we've tee'd it up for the [Open Internet Consortium] gang, so some of those folks will have your back."

McLaughlin wrote back "Thanks. Never hurts to remind people of what Candidate Obama said in his technology plan."

At a later point, McLaughlin wrote Davidson that the "Key point is that mclaughlin didn't say anything about telcos, so att reaction is puzzliong [sic] (protesting too much)."

When news of McLaughlin's Google Buzz contacts broke, McLaughlin emailed Davidson and Bob Boorstin, Google's Washington, D.C., director of corporate and policy communications, on May 30 a link of the BigGovernment.com blog post. "Grump. Worse, I don't even communicate with you people!!!" McLaughlin wrote, using his Gmail account.

Davidson's response was to say "ugh, that really sucks, our press people are on it, if you can think of anything that would help please let us know."

McLaughlin responded that "it would be helpful to explain that the list of buzz contacts is not the same as 'most emailed'--there are people there I haven't emailed more than twice in 6 years."

For more:
- see the Consumer Watchdog press release
- read copies of McLaughlin's emails with Google employees here, here and here (.pdf)

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