Last week in my post titled, "A Call to Arms: The Records Management Revolt of 2015,"
I cited the egregious rate at which records are being deleted in
federal government agencies. The State Department, for instance, deleted over 99.99% of their email messages in 2011, and even more in 2012, according to an Inspector General Investigation.
I
noted that this is not a partisan thing, that both sides have been
deleting the email trail and record of their actions, such as when the
G.W. Bush administration 'lost' over 22 million email messages during
the investigation of the firing of eight Attorneys General.
I
stated that the records management and archivists communities should be
outraged and should begin a campaign to change the laws to ensure that
the historical records of our government's actions on our behalf should
be preserved. I offered a five point plan to accomplish this:
1) Trade organizations band together and pool their resources and fashion a plan for the campaign, then expand the coalition and recruit government watchdog groups;
2) Social media campaign - planned, methodical, vigorous, widespread, with measured metrics;
3) Traditional media campaign -
TV, radio (coalition members should appear on local, regional, and
national political talk shows), print advertising (focused on the D.C.
market), and direct mail targeted to the president and all members of
congress;
4) Targeted campaign to meet with all 535 members of congress
on the issue. Beginning with a massive one million letters and
postcards, and at least 10,000 telephone calls to congressional offices
to raise awareness and request a meeting;
5) Protest march - I would be glad to lead one in Washington D.C. during the ARMA International Annual Conference & Expo Oct. 5-7, 2015.
In just one week, the needle toward good Information Governance in the federal sector has moved.
Three of the five action items above have begun in earnest!
Last Thursday, before a panel discussion on on C-SPAN titled, "Hillary Clinton's Personal Email Account" it
was announced that the IG Initiative, ARMA, AIIM, AHIMA, PRISM, and
NAID had formed an alliance to pursue policy changes in the federal
government that will result in improved record keeping. The panel
discussion was promoted on social media and streamed to a worldwide
audience.
The panelists included:
- Jason Baron, Co-Chair IG Initative
- Tom Blanton, Executive Director, National Security Archive
- Liz Icenogle, ARMA Director of Government Affairs
- Patrice McDermott, Director, OpenThe Government.org
Here are some selected quotes from the discussion:
"The
2009 NARA regulations that were in effect during most of Ms. Clinton's
tenure in office allowed for exceptional cases [to using approved
government networks for communicating] but only to a limited extent."
-
Jason R. Baron, IG Initiative
"It
is stunning, but not an isolated example. It certainly didn't begin
with this administration.... This has been a problem for many years,
since email first began to be used in government."
- Patrice McDermott,
Director, OpenThe Government.org
"We
believe that federal government has the ability to be a catalyst for
good Information Governance practices throughout our nation. When we
look at the federal practices as they stand, we see many holes."
- Liz
Icenogle, ARMA
"CIOs
across the federal government spend $81 billion dollars a year of our
money... if they do not 'bake in' [records management capabilities for
meeting] the legal requirements of saving, preserving, and accessing
FOIA requests they are wasting our money."
- Tom Blanton, National
Security Archive
"We need to have better Information Governance throughout the federal government."
- Jason R. Baron, IG Initiative
"We have a 30-year gap in the historical record of our country."
- Tom Blanton, National Security Archive
I encourage you to watch the panel discussion
and join the effort and assist in moving this issue forward to
ultimately change the laws. Contact your congressional representatives
today and join the coalition for advancing this cause.
I'd love to
continue the dialogue and debate. I invite all federal employees and
others who have an interest in records management issues to come hear me
speak at the D.C. Live Business Process Management & Records Management Conference & Expo on Tuesday, April 21, at the Capitol Hilton. I'll be giving the keynote address regarding these and other timely IG issues.
It is a FREE event packed with informative sessions. It is open to the public and private sector, with breakfast and lunch buffet provided, and there will be a drawing for free signed copies of my books.
It
will be crowded as the registration goal has already been exceeded!
It'll be a great networking opportunity and CRMs can earn ICRM credits
for attending. So register today - come join us!
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Robert Smallwood is Managing Director of the Institute for IG at IMERGE Consulting, which can be found at www.IGTraining.com.
He teaches comprehensive courses on IG and E-records management for
corporate and public sector clients. He is the author of 3 leading books
on Information Governance: Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies. and Best Practices (Wiley, 2014); Managing Electronic Records: Methods, Best Practices, and Technologies (Wiley, 2013); and Safeguarding Critical E-Documents (Wiley, 2012).
Follow Robert on Twitter @RobertSmallwood and if we are not connected - please feel free to reach out!