By Mike Rosen-Molina, JURIST, March 20, 2008

20 Mar 2008 // US Magistrate Judge John Facciola Tuesday ordered [1] [PDF text; CREW press release [1]] the White House to explain why it should not be required to create forensic copies of all e-mails passed through computers in the Executive Office of the President [2] [official website] between March 2003 to October 2005. In his order, Facciola referred to a January admission by the White House that it had recycled back-up computer tapes of e-mails [3] [JURIST report] prior to October 2003, meaning that some of the e-mails may be lost, and suggested that an order to create duplicates would prevent similar losses in the future. White House officials have until Friday to respond. AP has more [4].

In November 2007, US District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ordered [5] [JURIST report] the White House to preserve all of its e-mail records after private advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [5] (CREW) [advocacy website] and the independent National Security Archive [6] [institute website] requested a temporary restraining order [7] [JURIST report] to stop deletion. The issue of missing e-mails has been an ongoing controversy in the Bush administration, arising first during the CIA leak investigation [8] into the revelation of Valerie Plame's identity, and again during controversy over the firings of eight US Attorneys [9] [JURIST news archives]. If e-mails were in fact erased, the White House may have violated the Presidential Records Act [10] [text], which requires the preservation of documents that fall into the categories of federal or presidential records.