Bush White House failed to archive e-mails

The Bush administration failed to archive the vast majority of e-mails sent during a 21-day period between 2003 and 2005, according to two watchdog groups that reached a settlement with the government.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive filed a lawsuit against the White House in 2007 after learning the administration had lost track of millions of e-mail messages that were supposed to be archived under the Presidential Records Act. Last year the Obama administration settled the case by agreeing to audit archived messages and backup tapes for 21 separate days flagged for having suspiciously low e-mail traffic.

The backup tapes revealed that 83 percent of e-mail messages from the days in question were not archived. The groups claim those messages would have been lost if not for the lawsuit, and argue the days in question are only the tip of the iceberg. Now they are asking David Ferriero, archivist of the U.S., to examine the rest of the backup tapes to help identify more missing e-mails.

"As shocking and disturbing as these results are, they only tell part of the story," writes CREW Chief Counsel Anne Weismann and National Security Archive Director Thomas Blanton in a letter to Ferriero dated May 17. "Indeed, based on our analysis of the data, we believe there remain a large volume of unrestored emails on backup tapes that, absent further action, will be forever lost to history."

Weismann said the tapes are now in the possession of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which will release them to President George W. Bush's library for public consumption after a gap of twelve years.

"Even the backup tapes didn't catch everything," Weismann said. "We now know there were holes in the system the Bush administration used to preserve e-mails. Pretty big holes, it was pretty poor."

She said information currently on the backup tapes is completely inaccessible, which is why she wants Ferriero to restore all of them so the messages can eventually be part of the public record. The Obama administration already restored messages from the tapes for an additional 40 days identified by the two organizations as suspicious. Those messages have been sent to the NARA.

Weismann contrasted the Bush administration's approach to preserving electronic communications to the current White House, which she said has better policies in place.

"I think they are actively trying to make sure those policies are complied with. And when they get evidence of the problem, they don't ignore it," she said, adding that the Bush administration's technical personnel were aware of the e-mail archiving problem for years and chose not to act.

Weismann also commented on the recent reprimand of White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin, who used his personal e-mail account to communicate with his former Google colleagues about technology issues facing the Obama administration in violation of federal policy.

She called the incident "troubling" but said there was "no smoking gun" that McLaughlin intentionally used his personal account to conduct official business. Weismann said she is concerned that the White House is too focused on the technology aspect of transparency and not paying enough attention to document preservation.

"There's very few agencies dealing appropriately with electronic records and e-mail," Weismann said. "It's a complicated problem, it tends to make people's eyes glaze over."