Discussion > Another look at the NASA email retention policy
Whereas a British citizen would be pissed off. Unless, as a result of their anger, they'd drunk too much, in which case they'd also be pissed, as well as being pissed off.
Oct 12, 2012 at 8:50 AM |
Martin A
Martin A
This post is in reference to: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/10/5/the-liberal-war-on-transparency.html?lastPage=true&postSubmitted=true
The statement in question is this apparent claim by GISS’s Associate Chief Larry D. Travis in an affidavit:
"Once a[n agency] employee accesses his or her [agency] email via his or her personal computer, those emails are no longer located on any server at [the agency]; in other words, the act of accessing a specific email deletes that email from the ‘spool’ on the server. [The agency] does not currently have (nor has it had in the past) a centralized backup of [agency] email traffic.”
In 2008, a report from the Office of Inspector General came out with regard to NASA email management and policies: http://oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY08/IG-08-010.pdf
This report stated: "Of the 40 senior management officials surveyed, 37 (92.5 percent) were noncompliant with regulations and requirements to identify, designate, store, and retain official e-mail correspondence." As a result, it made a series of recommendations for improvement which the NASA Chief Information Officer duly replied that he was on top of the situation.
In light of this, I find it even more incredulous that Larry Travis made such a statement in an affidavit. I don't unfortunately have a link or date to that affidavit but I think it's clear it is dated much later than 2008 and in direct contradiction to the recommendations of that report to improve email management and retention policies at NASA.
To me, this is simply unbelievable. If I was an American citizen I'd be pissed.