Electronic Communications Preservation Act
Submitted for your approval, House Resolution 5811, the Electronic Communications Preservation Act. Sigh.

H.R. 5811 was submitted to Congress by Representatives Henry Waxman, William Lacy Clay, and Paul Hodes, all of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I've congratulated this committee before for exploring such a politically unappealing topic as email. Please keep that in mind.

According to the House's Bill Summary, the bill:

Modernizes the requirements of the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act to ensure that these vital records are preserved for historians.

So far, so good. In fact, some of what the bill tries to do is eliminate paper record-keeping in favor of electronically searchable systems:

To ensure the retention of these important records, H.R. 5811 directs the Archivist of the United States to establish standards for the capture, management, and preservation of White House e-mails and other electronic communications.

Under the legislation, the White House must use an e-mail preservation system that enables electronic retrieval of e-mails and certify that the system meets the requirements established by the Archivist. The bill requires the Archivist to certify annually whether the records management controls established by the President meet these standards.

H.R. 5811 directs the Archivist to issue regulations requiring agencies to preserve electronic communications in an electronic format. These regulations must cover, at a minimum, the capture, management, preservation, and electronic retrieval of electronic communications.

In addition, the Archivist would be required to establish testing and certification standards for any electronic records management systems implemented at agencies.

Ah, but then our Members of Congress drop the ball:

The Archivist is given 18 months to promulgate the regulations. Agencies will have no more than four years following enactment of the Act to comply.

I had to look up "promulgate." It means put into action. So, once again, with something akin to disbelief, let's see what our Congress hath wrought.

Four years.

Fundamentally, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has given the next administration, regardless of who's in office, a complete and total pass on making any change to their email record keeping practices.

Now, let's see. I know attaching archiving servers to a network is hard. It might take a month or two to pick a brand, a week or so for Fedex to deliver them, and perhaps even a few weeks or even months to set them up and configure them for a given installation. Time to production: four months. Six months, tops.

Not four years. No way.

What could we do in four years? Well, we destroyed Iraq in far less time. You can get a college degree in four years. And, in four years, America went from President Kennedy's "we will go to the moon speech" and completed both the Mercury and Gemini manned space programs.