White House Details New e-mail Archiving System

Info released under settlement agreement for lawsuit over Bush White House e-mail retention practices

The Obama administration has released details about its archiving system for unclassified White House e-mail messages as part of a settlement agreement with two private groups that sued the Executive Office of the President during the George W. Bush administration over electronic recordkeeping practices.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and George Washington University’s (GWU's) National Security Archive alleged in September 2007 that the Bush White House violated federal records law in failing to properly archive millions of White House e-mail messages between March 2003 and October 2005. The lawsuit, which also named the National Archives and Records Administration as a defendant, dragged on into the Obama administration.

As a result of the lawsuit, the government has recovered, sorted and properly categorized 22 million more e-mails messages than it could find in late 2005, according to the National Security Archive. The groups say the Bush administration’s e-mail retention problem started when Bush White House offices switched their e-mail systems from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange in 2002 and didn’t put in place a new automated archiving system.

The groups and the Obama administration announced last Dec. 14 that they had reached a settlement agreement for the case. Under the terms of that settlement, the White House sent CREW and the archive a letter on Jan. 15 detailing the Executive Office of the President’s current e-mail archiving and back up system.

Brook Colongelo, the chief information officer for the Executive Office of the President's (EOP's) Office of Administration, said the EOP has used EMC Corp.’s EmailXtender as its e-mail storage system for its unclassified network since Obama took office. Colangelo said in the letter that the system:
  • Is a secure, single, centrally managed e-mail archive.
  • Automatically captures messages, including those sent or received via BlackBerry mobile handsets in near real time,
  • Can be extracted into a format for transfer to NARA’s next-generation Electronic Records Archive.
  • Archives messages in original formats with attachments.
  • Does regularly scheduled, automated back-ups.
  • Provides weekly automated audit reports.
  • Can segregate e-mails by component to differentiate between records that are covered by the Presidential Records Act and those that are covered by the Federal Records Act.
Colangelo said the system provides broad search capabilities and dashboard reports on the system’s functionality are monitored around the clock at the EOP’s network operations center. The system is stored in an off-site and secure location, Colangelo added.

CREW and the archive indicated they were pleased with the system that the White House described. “The White House appears to be approaching its record preservation obligations with greater conscientiousness than during the last administration,” Meredith Fuchs, the Archive’s general counsel, said in a statement.

Source: Fedreal Computer week.com, Jan 19 2010
By: Ben Bain
Ben Bain is a reporter for Federal Computer Week.

Views: 39

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Doc Vega's 7 blog posts were featured
4 hours ago
tjdavis's blog post was featured
4 hours ago
Burbia's blog post was featured

Mystery illness strikes Russia with fever, blood symptoms, and no cure in sight.

I guess releasing this bio-weapon upon Israeli neighbors would be hitting too close to home. I…See More
4 hours ago
Less Prone commented on Doc Vega's photo
Thumbnail

main-qimg-357a10f7111dcf87a3cc6e2afad83855

"Islam is only a phase preceding a total Talmudic rule and a new world religion."
4 hours ago
Less Prone commented on tjdavis's photo
Thumbnail

WWRJD

"I doubt a d-rat Jesus would be better. Much worse. “Politicians are the lowest form of life…"
4 hours ago
Less Prone favorited tjdavis's photo
4 hours ago
Doc Vega posted blog posts
12 hours ago
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's photo
Thumbnail

Lost History

"The Tartar wall - aka The Great Wall of China is hundreds of years old and was up and running in…"
13 hours ago
cheeki kea posted a photo
13 hours ago
tjdavis posted a blog post
yesterday
tjdavis posted a photo
yesterday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
yesterday
Doc Vega posted a photo
Wednesday
Doc Vega posted a blog post

No Place to Hide

Stumbling through this confusing lifeLike a blunt and rusty knifeSo why is there all this…See More
Wednesday
Burbia posted a blog post
Wednesday
cheeki kea posted a photo
Wednesday
cheeki kea commented on cheeki kea's blog post Vaccines Cause Autism: The Burden of Proof has been met.
Wednesday
cheeki kea posted a blog post
Wednesday
tjdavis posted a video
Wednesday
cheeki kea commented on Burbia's video
Thumbnail

Soros Will Never Recover..Elon AIR The whole Thing

"Good find Burbia. It can only get worse. Is Soros too big to fail for he has his thumb in every pie…"
Monday

© 2025   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted