Critics: National Archives lax in records management enforcement

A newly released update to 1980s rules on federal records management might not go far enough to ensure agencies safeguard electronic information, because of the National Archives' lax enforcement, said records management specialists and transparency activists.

The National Archives and Records Administration on Oct. 2 issued new regulations that provide more information on managing electronic records. The guidance also tries to make the somewhat arcane subject matter more comprehensible through a question-and-answer format.

But some specialists and open government advocates said the problems that NARA and other agencies experience with storing and retrieving a growing number of e-records are due to a lack of policing, not an absence of rules. One measure that would go a long way toward safeguarding valuable information is baking automated archiving filters into the design of a system at inception, rather than later on in the system's life cycle.

"The IT world does not deal with the question generally of what information is of value for reuse, how do we identify those and then make them accessible to people. How do you make toxic emissions information accessible? It's the context," said Kenneth A. Megill, president of Knowledge Application Services, a Washington-based company that provides content management services to the federal government. "Part of the architecture should be the capture and keeping of the corporate memory, and it generally is not."

He added, "If you're going to bring transparency into the government, part of what you've got to do is to get the information, which are the government records, accessible to people." Since taking office, President Obama has issued several executive memos aimed at increasing transparency of the administration's activities.

Megill suggested that elevating NARA to a White House-level office would likely give the agency more enforcement power. Perhaps new leadership also could strengthen NARA, he added, referring to the July appointment of librarian David S. Ferriero to the position of U.S. archivist. Many previous archivists have been historians, as opposed to information access specialists. Ferriero is awaiting Senate confirmation.

"The librarian comes from the tradition of access, openness, making things available to people. Archivists, what they are interested in is preservation, making sure things don't get lost. They are not contradictory, but they can lead to tensions," said Megill, who advised the Air Force on digital information services from 1997 to 2001 and served as the first records manager for the comptroller of the currency.

NARA officials said they deploy senior records analysts at agencies to help federal IT managers use and interpret record-keeping provisions. The Archives also has pushed to ensure agency records officials have a seat at the table during the system development process, officials added.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government accountability group, often seeks e-mails from the government through the Freedom of Information Act only to hear that the records are too hard to retrieve from agencies' IT systems.

"NARA can issue all the guidance in the world, but if it's not implemented, who cares?" said Anne L. Weismann, the organization's chief counsel. "The challenges just keep getting greater and greater, with the new media and the Twitter and tweets." The new regulations cover content created in these formats, under the catchall category "electronic records," but do not specifically refer to emerging media types. The Archives offers additional directions on handling such formats through its Web site and other guidance.

"It is easier for us to issue new guidance for emerging media types than it is to constantly revise regulations," said Paul M. Wester Jr., director of modern records programs at NARA.

Wester acknowledged that "NARA and all federal agencies have challenges in managing their electronic records." Some of the challenges stem from the complexity and volume of the formats, while other struggles are due to insufficient funding or poor planning, he said.

He noted that the new guidance, for the first time, stipulates when and how NARA will conduct inspections to monitor compliance.

"NARA may undertake an inspection when an agency fails to address specific records management problems involving high risk to significant records," the regulations state. "Problems may be identified through a risk assessment or through other means, such as reports in the media, congressional inquiries, allegations of unauthorized destruction, reports issued by the [Government Accountability Office] or an agency's inspector general, or observations by NARA staff members."

Weismann said this provision, unlike most of the regulations, represents a major change in policy, but its success is contingent upon NARA's implementation.

"Electronic record-keeping [systems] I expect are going to be a major issue in inspections," Wester said. "That's where the action is," added Susan Cummings, deputy director of modern records programs at NARA.