Letter to the Editor
To the Editor,
There has been growing confusion around public records and the use of email file formats, such as MSG and EML. Recently, the Town Attorney and Alderman LaCroix suggested these files are unsafe or easily manipulated. That claim is misleading and distracts from the real issue, preserving the integrity of public records.
MSG and EML files are original email files. They are not documents recreated later or compiled for convenience. They are the actual container that holds an email exactly as it existed when it was sent or received. A simple way to think about it is a sealed envelope. Everything that belongs with that email lives inside that container.
That container includes:
• The sender and recipient
• The date and time
• Routing information showing how the message traveled
• Attachments
• And hidden technical data, known as metadata, that verifies authenticity
All of this information exists together inside one structured file¹.
This matters because metadata is how authenticity is verified. Metadata shows when an email was created, whether it was forwarded, how it moved through mail servers and whether it has been altered. This is why digital forensics professionals preserve emails in their original MSG or EML format when accuracy and integrity matter².
