Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to
Archives’ Electronic-Record Policy
The Supreme Court rejected without comment March 6 an appeal by librarians and historians who opposed a federal rule allowing agencies, with the approval of the head of the National Archives, to destroy electronic mail and other computer records as long as they keep a copy on paper or microfilm.
The lawsuit challenged a directive from National Archivist John Carlin authorizing the destruction of records if agencies retain a hard copy. The plaintiffs, who included the American Library Association, the American Historical Association, and Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen, argued that paper records cannot be searched and indexed as easily as electronic ones, the Associated Press reported March 6.
The case appealed a decision last August by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that overturned a 1997 order by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman instructing the National Archives to issue a plan for the retention or disposal of electronic records before erasing them permanently.
Posted March 13, 2000.
|
