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Computer experts point to White House failures in e-mail controversy
US President Bush, who expresses disdain for e-mail, the White House system of electronic record-keeping is a good match. Even if Bush used e-mail, it might get lost in the problem-plagued White House computer system.
"I don’t want you reading my personal stuff," the president explained to newspaper editors three years ago on why he doesn’t send electronic messages.
On Capitol Hill and in federal court, a congressional committee and two private groups are pushing for information on how the White House has handled its e-mail for the past six years and whether officials there complied with records-retention laws.
The picture emerging from testimony and court filings is one of disregard for fundamental principles that well-run private companies adhere to routinely. By one estimate, over 1,000 days of e-mail are missing from various White House offices.
"I would call this negligence," said Mark Epstein, director of technical services for Cataphora Inc., a California company that specializes in retrieval and analysis of electronic information.
The White House’s first mistake, Epstein and other technical experts say, was moving to a new e-mail setup without first setting up an archiving system that would allow speedy, reliable searches and recovery of electronic messages.
"This is the first time I’ve personally run across this kind of process for archiving; the White House relied on human beings to do specific manual processes on a regular basis and I would not recommend it," said William Tolson, who has consulted on e-mail problems for hundreds of companies and state and local governments.
Tolson is co-author of the book "E-Mail Archiving For Dummies" and director of legal solutions marketing at Mimosa Systems Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.
The White House e-mail troubles began in 2002 with a decision to upgrade electronic message capabilities and move from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange.
Prior to launching Microsoft Exchange for e-mail, there should have been full-scale testing of an archiving system, e-mail experts said. In addition, both the existing archiving system and a new one should have run at the same time until the new system was fully proven.
Two federal laws, one carrying criminal penalties, require preservation of White House e-mail. At the end of Bush’s presidency, e-mail and other White House records will be turned over to the National Archives.
The White House began work on archiving issues in 2002, but "essentially, development ... was delayed after the 2004 election," according to a National Archives document produced at a hearing Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
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