By Dan Froomkin, WashingtonPost.com, April 18, 2008
18 Apr 2008 // White House E-Mail Watch
William Branigin writes in The Washington Post: "Citing 'significant deficiencies' in the preservation of e-mail by the White House and federal agencies, House Democrats yesterday introduced legislation to strengthen and modernize electronic record-keeping requirements. But a private watchdog group called the bill inadequate and issued a report describing federal record-keeping as antiquated and chaotic. . . .
"Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and two other Democrats on the panel sponsored the bill after investigations showed that the White House under President Bush may have lost millions of e-mails.
"The bill, H.R. 5811, directs the National Archives and Records Administration to set standards for capturing, managing, retrieving and preserving White House e-mails and other electronic communications, and to certify whether the White House system meets those standards. The bill also directs the National Archives to issue regulations within 18 months requiring federal agencies to preserve electronic communications in an electronic format. The agencies would have up to four years to comply....
"Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group known as CREW, . . . yesterday issued a 42-page report concluding that the federal government is mismanaging its electronic records and clinging to outdated and inefficient paper record-keeping systems. It also faulted the National Archives, saying the agency has abdicated meaningful oversight responsibilities and 'assumed only a passive role' by providing agencies with little more than general guidelines."
IT expert David Gewirtz writes for NiemanWatchdog.org (where I am deputy editor) about some overlooked points regarding the missing White House e-mails. The White House's e-mail archiving system, he says, is utterly inadequate, and he suggests that White House aides no longer be allowed to use non-secure communications channels for any of their communications.