Record Keeping in the Digital Era
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:14 pm
A story in this morning’s Statesman about the TYC scandal served as a reminder of a constant source of frustration when filing records requests with the governor’s office. The story is about who knew what and when in Perry’s camp, but it also contains this nugget: “the governor’s office routinely deletes its e-mail after seven days, Black and Royer (Perry spokesmen) say.” Huh? That’s like the Observer shredding any issue more than three days old. E-mails are, after all, government records, and seemingly subject to the same retention requirements as other formats, such as written memoranda and photographs.
We called the agency in charge of record preservation, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, looking for clarification, but haven’t heard back from their spokesman. On the commission’s website, the e-mail policy says, “All e-mail sent or received by an agency is considered a state record. Therefore, all e-mail messages must be retained or disposed of according to the agency’s retention schedule.”
Two particular types of correspondence call for longer retention:
(1) Administrative Correspondence, 1.1.007 - Incoming/outgoing and internal correspondence, in any format, pertaining to the formulation, planning, implementation, interpretation, modification, or redefinition of the programs, services, or projects of an agency and the administrative regulations, policies and procedures that govern them. Subject to Archival review. Retention: 3 years.
(2) General Correspondence, 1.1.008 - Non-administrative incoming/outgoing and internal correspondence, in any media, pertaining to or arising from the routine operations of the policies, programs, services, or projects of an agency. Retention: 1 year.
Emphasis added, and there is some question in the specific case of the TYC-related e-mails whether those records would fall into these categories. But in general, “Seven days for e-mail (retention) is not a good thing for open government,” said Katherine Garner, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “To shred them after seven days is ridiculous. These things can be saved.”
If nothing else, the TYC scandal and the national hubbub over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys show why it benefits the public to keep emails around longer than a single news cycle.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
And it also shows why the Gov and DOJ have a vested interest in seeing that those records are NOT kept.