Press

PRESS

June 02, 2009

CREW Seeks Meeting With National Archives on Questions About Electronic Records Archives

Federal Agencies, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Transparency, Press Releases

Washington, D.C. - CREW today requested a meeting with knowledgeable officials at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to answer questions about the Electronic Records Archives (ERA), a system NARA has been working on since 2001 that it hopes will provide long-term preservation of electronic government records.

To deal with the obsolescence of operating systems, hardware, and software used to create and access electronic records, NARA has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on ERA, which is intended to preserve all kinds of electronic record no matter what their native format. CREW’s review of the public record, however, has raised a number of questions about the status and functionality of ERA. For example, it appears that the development of ERA’s core preservation function has been delayed, and the status of this critical function is unclear. Also uncertain is the impact on ERA of the unexpected development of a separate system needed to take in President George W. Bush’s electronic records due to delays caused by the failure after NARA’s contractor, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, to deliver a fully functional initial version of ERA. Further questions include the functionality of the various systems that have been development, NARA’s relationship with Lockheed Martin, the development of ERA’s public access function. CREW seeks a meeting with NARA officials to discuss these and other questions related to ERA.

Read CREW's letter here.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org or contact David Merchant at 202.408.5565 or dmerchant@citizensforethics.org