Managing a large enterprise IT system across multiple domains requires a far different technical background (and an understanding of the unwritten folklore) than does successfully setting up even the most secure home network. Here at ZATZ, we've published more articles on enterprise email than just about anyone else. Even so, it took a huge amount of time, access to the top IBM and Microsoft IT professionals, and a considerable forensics effort to discover these key problems with White House email:

• The wildly out-of-date 1939-era Hatch Act still governs much of how information travels in Washington;
• Much of White House email travels through the open and unsecured Internet, with terrifying national security implications;
• Aggressive compliance with the Hatch Act may have been used as an excuse to bypass government servers, thereby giving a reasonable-sounding excuse to circumvent the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act;
• Questionable migration of email systems right in the middle of a build-up to war;
• Apparent lack of comprehensive archiving and retrieval strategy;
• Apparent lack of comprehensive mobile device management strategy;
• The lack of an administration-spanning professional IT management structure.

I am concerned that both Judge Facciola's and Representative Waxman's investigations are destined to fail, since a vast percentage of White House email isn't managed by the EOP or any of the people the Oversight Committee is asking to testify. In fact, due to the White House's enthusiastic compliance with the 1939-vintage Hatch Act, most of the incriminating email messages Mr. Waxman is looking for probably never existed on government systems.

In effect, he's probably looking for email in all the wrong places. If he's trying to find incriminating evidence regarding the firing of White House attorneys, my guess is he won't find it on EOP backup tapes.

Because the discussions were undoubtedly political in nature, any "smoking gun" messages were, instead, probably sent through the RNC's GWB43.com mail system. That's an IT infrastructure managed by "some guy in Tennessee" rather than by the Chief Information Officer, Office of Administration, Executive Office of the President.

So even though Tony Fratto said "We have absolutely no reason to believe that any emails are missing," he might be employing just a bit of magician's misdirection. Those emails might not be missing.

But what about all the White House message traffic of a political nature? When it comes to archiving the RNC's mail traffic, former Pittsburgh lobbyist and current Deputy Press Secretary Fratto had this to say:

I can't speak to the RNC's system of archiving and storing email. All I can tell you is that the email on the White House computers, we have no reason to believe that any email or other data are missing.

One final thought: if the shoe was on the other foot, if the FBI was investigating a private citizen, agents wouldn't just politely ask for backup tapes. Agents would seize every single piece of computer equipment and exhaustively dig through every single hard drive and digital media asset. Of course, that sort of thing can't be done with the White House.

Can it?

Bain McKay is Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist of CIRI Lab Inc. where he and his research team build advanced Knowledge Management technology using the latest methods in Cognitive Science and computing technology. Bain can be reached at bmckay@cirilab.com or at http://www.cirilab.com.