In Where Have All The Emails Gone?, I made six formal recommendations:

• The Hatch Act is in conflict with national security concerns with regard to White House email and must be amended to allow, if not require, White House staffers to use secured government systems for all email communication -- political or otherwise.

• White House email needs to be managed by a dedicated IT team that lives across administrations, with a professionalism and procedural base similar to the Secret Service Presidential Protective Detail.

• Political email for incumbents also needs to be managed by the same team.

• Archiving needs to be managed by this same IT team, and the entire cumulative library of archives will need to be checked and migrated every four years as technology and file formats change.

• We need a better understanding of phone/BlackBerry use, especially if these things get lost. I recommend that all mobile phones used by White House staffers be managed by this same IT team.

• Although not directly an email issue, the conflict between the intent of the Presidential Records Act and Executive Order 12,233 needs to be explored. Information must be made free.

If anything, the hearings this week have reinforced just how important my recommendations are. These six steps may be the only path that will prevent the problems explored by the Committee from happening with future administrations.

Russ Lipton is an independent Web consultant and can be reached at headduffer@duffer.com.