U.S. Archivist Gets Extension on
Electronic Records Guidelines
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman decided September 29 to give the National Archives additional time to devise regulations telling federal agencies what information in their computers must be retained and what can be permanently erased.
Public Citizen, the American Library Association, and other groups sued the archives last year over a directive issued by U.S. Archivist John Carlin allowing all federal agencies to destroy electronic records if they retain a hard copy. Last October Friedman ruled that Carlin's directive violated federal records-keeping law and he required the archives to issue a plan for the retention or disposal of electronic records.
Friedman's ruling this week gave the archives more time to develop guidelines and to appeal his original order, reported the Associated Press. The archives' lawyers had argued that "many government computer applications will come to a halt or crash entirely" if all records had to be saved until the matter is resolved.
Posted October 5, 1998.
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