Still M.I.A.: Millions of White House Emails (MoJo)

[struggle4progress]

... These are the questions the plaintiffs needed a court order to get the White House to answer (I am not making this up):

1. Are the back-ups catalogued, labeled or otherwise identified to indicate the period of time they cover?

2. Are the back-ups catalogued, labeled or otherwise identified to indicate the data contained therein?

3. Do the back-ups contain emails written and received between 2003-2005?

4. Do the back-ups contain the emails said to be missing that are the subject of this lawsuit?

To make this perfectly clear: the plaintiffs are still trying to find out whether the White House even has the emails. Meredith Fuchs, the NSA's General Counsel, told me she's doubtful that, even faced with a court order, the White House will provide full answers to their questions ...

"If we have to go down that road it uses up time and that really seems to be the goal on the administration's side—to use up the clock. Judge Facciola recognized that time is running out, but it's very sad that we're talking about the possibility that the White House may not comply with a court order. How have we gotten to that point?" ...

In the middle-to-long-term, CREW and the NSA would also like to see Congress amend the Presidential Records Act. As currently interpreted by the courts, the act does not give groups like the NSA cause of action to sue to force the White House to obey record keeping laws. Neither does current law give the National Archivist jurisdiction to monitor presidential record-keeping, as it does for federal records. So the current lawsuit is entirely under the auspices of the Federal Records Act.

Interestingly, the NSA and CREW were only able to bring their lawsuit because of the Bush administration's haphazard record keeping. It's only proceeding because the Bush administration doesn't have a system that divides presidential and federal records. (Presidential records are produced by bodies like the National Security Council that simply advise the president. Federal records are produced by bodies that have functions beyond giving advice, They are governed by a different statute.) The Clinton administration had a system that sorted emails automatically and stored them in a secure, searchable archive, but the Bush administration discarded that system when it came into office. As far as anyone outside the White House knows, that system was never replaced, so federal and presidential records were commingled ...

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6830_your_biannual_w.html