On April 15, three U.S. representatives introduced H.R. 5811, The Electronic Message Preservation Act. This Act, if passed into law, would bring up to date the parameters of the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act, effectively requiring the preservation of government records in a way that current practice does not dictate. The impetus for the submission of the bill was the loss of thousands or millions of e-mails by the White House over the past several years. (Compare Messaging Security products)

As it stands now, U.S. federal agencies can preserve electronic records, e-mail and other important records just about any way they choose to do so. A report published by the General Accounting Office earlier this month found that many federal agencies are simply not compliant with the current requirements for preserving e-mail and other content, largely because archiving systems are not in place to preserve these records. (Compare Message Archiving products)

The intent of H.R. 5811 would be to reverse this – the National Archivist would be required to publish regulations that would require all government agencies to preserve electronic content electronically. Further, the National Archivist would have to establish standards for the certification of archiving and other management systems that Federal agencies chose to implement.

While H.R. 5811 is not yet law and may not be for some time because of a potential veto by President Bush, decisions like it are being implemented by some states. For example, the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security (GOHSEP) announced that it would implement ArcMail’s archiving technology to help the state cope with the vast amounts of data sent through e-mail after emergencies, natural disasters and the like.

Is H.R. 5811 a good thing? I believe it is, despite the fact that political considerations may have been a more important reason for its introduction than the fact that it reflects a sound best practice for government at all levels. That said, the latter definitely is true: government and businesses should preserve electronic documents, e-mail and other content that contains business records and make them available when, where and how they are needed.

Michael Osterman is principal analyst of Osterman Research.