U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

62–947 PDF 2011

FEDERAL ELECTRONIC RECORDS MANAGEMENT: A

STATUS REPORT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY,

CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 17, 2010

Serial No. 111–94

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

AHN ‘‘JOSPEH’’ CAO, Louisiana

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND NATIONAL ARCHIVES

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

JUDY CHU, California

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

DARRYL PIGGEE, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 17, 2010 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Ferriero, David S., Archivist of the United States, U.S. National Archives

and Records Administration, accompanied by Jason Baron, Director

of Litigation, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; Paul

Wester, Director, Modern Records Programs, U.S. National Archives

and Records Administration; David M. Wennergren, Deputy Assistant

Secretary of Defense for Information Management, Integration and

Technology, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Defense; and Valerie C. Melvin, Director, Information Management and

Human Capital Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office .............. 7

Ferriero, David S. ...................................................................................... 7

Melvin, Valerie C. ...................................................................................... 27

Wennergren, David M. .............................................................................. 18

Wester, Paul .............................................................................................. 12

Hunter, Gregory S., associate professor of library and information science,

Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus; Carol Brock, certified

records manager, representing ARMA International; and Anne

Weismann, chief counsel, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in

Washington .................................................................................................... 59

Brock, Carol ............................................................................................... 69

Hunter, Gregory S. .................................................................................... 59

Weismann, Anne ....................................................................................... 78

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Brock, Carol, certified records manager, representing ARMA International, prepared statement of .................................................................. 71

Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Missouri, prepared statement of .................................................................. 3

Ferriero, David S., Archivist of the United States, U.S. National Archives

and Records Administration, prepared statement of ................................. 10

Hunter, Gregory S., associate professor of library and information science,

Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, prepared statement of ........ 62

Melvin, Valerie C., Director, Information Management and Human Capital Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 29

Weismann, Anne, chief counsel, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility

in Washington, prepared statement of ........................................................ 80

Wennergren, David M., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Information Management, Integration and Technology, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Defense, prepared statement of ....... 20

Wester, Paul, Director, Modern Records Programs, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, prepared statement of ...................... 14

(1)

FEDERAL ELECTRONIC RECORDS

MANAGEMENT: A STATUS REPORT

THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INFORMATION POLICY, CENSUS, AND

NATIONAL ARCHIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:20 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Clay, Norton, Driehaus, Cuellar, Chu,

Issa, and McHenry.

Staff present: Darryl Piggee, staff director/counsel; Anthony

Clark, professional staff member; Charisma Williams, staff assistant; Ron Stroman, full committee chief of staff; Leneal Scott, full

committee IT specialist; Rob Borden, minority general counsel; Jennifer Safavian, minority chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Adam Fromm, minority chief clerk and Member liaison; Justin LoFranco, minority press assistant and clerk; Christopher

Hixon, minority senior counsel; Ashley Callen, Sery Kim, and Jonathan Skladany, minority counsels; and Mark Marin and Molly

Boyle, minority professional staff members.

Mr. CLAY. Good afternoon. The Information Policy, Census, and

National Archives Subcommittee will now come to order.

Without objection, the chairman and ranking minority member

will have 5 minutes to make opening statements, followed by opening statements not to exceed 3 minutes by any other Member who

seeks recognition. And, without objection, Members and witnesses

may have 5 legislative days to submit a written statement or extraneous materials for the record.

Welcome to today’s hearing, a status report on Federal electronic

records management. My opening statement, which I would have

made now, will be entered into the record. However, I would like

to address an issue that the minority raised during a hearing held

by this subcommittee last week on reauthorizing the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

My Republican colleagues repeatedly questioned the accuracy of

the information provided by a witness, Dr. Ira Berlin, on his disclosure form. I had thought that we had resolved the issue during the

hearing last week when Dr. Berlin answered the increasingly unpleasant questions directly. However, in a letter dated yesterday,

June 16th, to Dr. Berlin, signed by Mr. Chaffetz of Utah and Mr.

Jordan of Ohio, the minority continued to assert that Dr. Berlin

2

was not accurate and completely forthcoming in his disclosure form

and his testimony.

Further, the minority asked the Archivist of the United States,

Mr. Ferriero, during the hearing for his opinion about duplication

among grant programs, and the Archivist gave his opinion. I concur

with his opinion, as did the many expert witnesses who came before the subcommittee, that the NHPRC is not duplicative of other

programs. And yet, in a second letter, also dated yesterday and

sent to Archivist Ferriero, Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Jordan suggest

that the Archivist was not accurate during his testimony at the

same hearing.

In both letters the minority strongly suggests that the witnesses

were not truthful and urged them to reflect on their testimony and

correct it as soon as possible.

Let me state unequivocally and for the record that Dr. Berlin

completed his disclosure form accurately and thoroughly. He has

provided the subcommittee, and the minority has received a copy,

with this information that confirms his form and his testimony was

accurate and complete.

I also want to state for the record that Archivist Ferriero was

asked his opinion and he gave it truthfully. The minority may certainly disagree with that opinion, just as they may fundamentally

misunderstand the nature of the NHPRC, its critical value to this

Nation, the distinction between teaching at a university and representing that university, and the differences among Federal grant

programs. But to suggest that either of these distinguished witnesses were anything but candid and forthright when appearing

before this subcommittee is disgraceful.

I think the minority owes both Dr. Berlin and Archivist Ferriero,

who is here today, apologies for the way they treated these honorable and widely respected witnesses.

Now I will yield to my colleague, the ranking minority member,

Mr. McHenry, of North Carolina, to respond to what I just said or

for an opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

3

4

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you. And I appreciate

your courtesy in working with me on this subcommittee, especially

on this important issue. I see that my ranking member is here.

This is an issue that I think was dealt with and would be better

addressed by the ranking member, so I would be happy to yield to

the ranking member.

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman, and I join with the ranking

member of the subcommittee reiterating that all we want to do is

maintain the importance of this committee, which requires all witnesses be sworn, that they all make signed statements before they

testify as to their truthful testimony, and that we be able to check

that for consistency.

Last week, I know the chairman is aware of this, we were halfway through and people were still getting the paperwork right. We

asked for no more than we would give if the shoe was on the other

foot, and we hope to be held to that standard in the future.

Having said that, certainly it is not our interest today to slow up

our witnesses from testifying because of failures previously, so I

would yield back the time to the gentleman.

Mr. MCHENRY. I thank the ranking member. Thank you for clarifying that.

In the interest of what is happening today, I appreciate the panel

being here today. We are talking about a very important issue that

Archivist Ferriero and I have discussed personally, and I know is

of distinct interest to him in his new position. And much of what

we are talking about now has a much longer time period that we

are discussing than the current leadership of the Archives.

So, having said that, we want to talk about how we are going to

move forward. Certainly, it is important that we have the Archives

efficiently and effectively fulfilling their mission to secure our Nation’s records. Our history can so easily be lost by a misplaced computer file, records destroyed, theft, and all these discussions that

we have had previously in this subcommittee with testimony from

the Archives, from the testimony from the GAO, from the IG, and

that record is there; it is established. We have millions of records

lost and we want to ensure that, going forward, we are able to keep

records.

Archivist Ferriero was quoted on May 25th in the Washington

Post as saying, ‘‘I think the electronic records archive is probably

the biggest, most complex visible and important project that we

need to get running. Citizens will be able to, from their home, at

any time of the day or night, access the records of government. All

the agencies now are experimenting with electronic records and our

job is to make sure that we have created the capacity to ingest

these records, keep them for perpetuity, and make them available

in perpetuity. So that, I think, is my biggest chore.’’

That might be an understatement. It is certainly a large chore,

and that is what we want to discuss today.

The GAO has highlighted some of these challenges in recent reports and criticized the Archives for failing to accurately disclose

program costs, schedules, and performance. In addition to sharing

the GAO’s concerns, I think as we all do, I am concerned about the

fact that 21 agencies failed to participate in the Archives records

management self-assessment. The self-assessment is a critical tool

5

for the Archives to evaluate the progress of each and every agency

as they transition into digital records management systems.

I think this is the larger issue overall of modernizing our Federal

Government so that we have a 21st century bureaucracy, not a

1920’s bureaucracy. And, unfortunately, we have the worst of both

worlds currently with a quasi-digital, yet quasi-paper management

technique, or lack of even management, period.

As I mentioned before, boxes of paper documents fill dozens of

the Archives’ warehouses across the country. These are the records

of our Federal Government and certainly important to the history

of our country. And a warehouse is susceptible to fire, flood, burglary, and so many of the other challenges based on just storing in

that form.

Finally, I would say that even storing digitally, the question is,

50 years from now, how can we access these things. As a layperson

and as individuals, 20 years ago we had a DOS prompt. Nobody

uses a DOS prompt anymore. Well, except a few Federal agencies

still. Google didn’t exist 20 years ago. I mean, everything is evolving so quickly, so the importance of getting it right now, so that

we can build on this, is certainly very important.

And I think the American people should be concerned about this

because it is our history and our records, and we want to be able

to look at our records today just as we look today at records from

100 years ago, and the nice written correspondence with the

squiggly handwriting, and we can look at handwriting and judge

those things. We are in a different day and age.

So I am interested to hear the testimony. I do think this is important. I certainly appreciate the chairman calling this important

hearing and, with his work that we have done together on this subcommittee and his willingness to work across party lines, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. I thank the ranking member too. I see that the ranking member of the full committee is still here, and the two colleagues that wrote these letters, Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Jordan, are

not here. Perhaps staff can find them somewhere and perhaps they

want to offer up an apology to the Archivist, as well as the——

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. I yield.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. We stand by our letter. We recognize that

anyone’s interpretation of the letter is subject to many things, but

as of this moment we still have inconsistency in the Archivist’s previous testimony as to duplicate grants and so on. We don’t consider

that there were false statements, but they do need to be corrected

for the record. I will be glad to inform both Members to come down.

Mr. CLAY. I know that Professor Berlin did correct the record or

state it for the record, his involvement. Here is the point. The point

is that we should not invite witnesses here and then continually

berate them even after they leave through communications from

the full committee.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman——

Mr. CLAY. I have the letters here, Mr. Issa, and I think it is inappropriate.

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, I speak for the full committee; the other

two Members do not. It is our intention to hold accountability while

6

not berate any witness or have anything other than respect for

their accurate statements. And if they are inaccurate, give them

full opportunity to correct the record.

We know that mistakes happen in live testimony all the time,

and we have no intention of doing anything more than making sure

that the final record is correct. So on behalf of the full committee,

if anything was taken other than that from our letter, I apologize.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. MCHENRY. And, Mr. Chairman, I reserve the right to berate

witnesses if they are from BP.

Mr. CLAY. We will continue with the hearing.

Let me introduce our first panel. Our first witness will be the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero. Mr. Ferriero has led

the National Archives since his confirmation last November. He

previously served as the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New

York Public Library, the largest public library system in the United

States. Mr. Ferriero earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in

English Literature from Northeastern University in Boston and a

Masters Degree from the Simmons College of Library and Information Science, also in Boston.

Mr. Ferriero is accompanied by Mr. Jason Baron, who has been

the Director of Litigation for the National Archives since 2000. He

is a frequent public speaker on the subject of the Federal Government’s obligations with respect to the preservation of electronic

records and he is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, which happens to be my alma mater.

After the Archivist, we will hear from Mr. Paul Wester, the Director of Modern Records Program at the National Archives. Mr.

Wester joined NARA in 1990 as a graduate student also from the

University of Maryland. He has delivered speeches on electronic

records issues and NARA’s strategic direction for Federal records

management.

Our next witness will be Mr. David Wennergren, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Information Management, Integration and Technology, and Deputy Chief Information Officer. He is

also the vice chairman of the U.S. Government’s Federal CIO

Council. Mr. Wennergren received his Master of Public Policy from

the University of Maryland, a continuing theme.

And our final witness on this panel will be Ms. Valerie Melvin,

Director of Information Management and Human Capital Issues

within the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s Information

Technology Team. Ms. Melvin is also a graduate of, you guessed it,

the University of Maryland, with a B.S. degree in business administration and a Master’s degree——

Mr. MCHENRY. And I must chime in. I got married 2 weeks ago

and I married a graduate from the University of Maryland.

Mr. CLAY. We are so happy that you married up.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you. [Laughter.]

Mr. CLAY. Archivist Ferriero, it looks like you are the only one

who is not a Terp. The University has connections to the National

Archives. Maybe they might want to think about granting you an

honorary degree.

I thank all of our witnesses for appearing today and look forward

to their testimony.

7

It is the policy of the subcommittee to swear in all witnesses before they testify. Would you all please stand and raise your right

hands?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. You may be seated.

Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Of course, as you all know, you will have 5 minutes to summarize your testimony. Your complete written statement will be included in the hearing record.

Archivist Ferriero, please begin.

STATEMENTS OF DAVID S. FERRIERO, ARCHIVIST OF THE

UNITED STATES, U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS

ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY JASON BARON, DIRECTOR OF LITIGATION, U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND

RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; PAUL WESTER, DIRECTOR,

MODERN RECORDS PROGRAMS, U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; DAVID M. WENNERGREN,

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, INTEGRATION AND TECHNOLOGY,

DEPUTY CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT

OF DEFENSE; AND VALERIE C. MELVIN, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN CAPITAL ISSUES, U.S.

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

STATEMENT OF DAVID S. FERRIERO

Mr. FERRIERO. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, congratulations, and Congresswoman Chu, I am David Ferriero. I am

the Archivist of the United States, and thank you for providing me

the opportunity for the National Archives and Records Administration to testify about governmentwide Federal records management

and the central role that records management plays in the accomplishment of the mission of the National Archives.

The backbone of transparent and accountable government is good

records management. To put it simply, the Government cannot be

open or accountable if it does not preserve and cannot find its

records.

NARA believes that across the Federal Government agencies can

do more to fulfill their records management responsibilities, particularly with regard to the exponential growth in electronic

records.

NARA’s records management approach is grounded in three principles: Federal agencies must economically and effectively create

and manage records necessary to meet business needs; Federal

records must be kept long enough to protect rights and assure accountability; and, third, Federal records of archival value must be

preserved and made available by the National Archives for future

generations.

Most Federal agencies need to do a more effective job managing

their records and other information assets to meet their business

needs, to protect or assure accountability for the citizen or the Federal Government, and to ensure records that document the national

8

experience are preserved and made available for future generations

in the National Archives.

Agency heads and senior leaders must work with NARA, the Office of Management and Budget, and General Services Administration, as well as with groups like Chief Information Officers Council,

the Federal Records Council, and the Federal Web Managers Community to develop the information technology tools necessary to

manage electronic records in a cost-effective way.

The technical changes associated with developing the IT tools for

electronic records management are not insignificant. The lack of effective tools today is due in part because heads of agencies and senior leaders across the Federal Government have not been held accountable in meaningful ways for meeting their Federal records

and information management obligations. The Federal Government

spends $80 billion annually on information technology, most, if not

all, of which create or receive Federal records in some form. Developing cost-effective electronic records management tools that work

and then integrating them into agency IT systems is essential to

managing this national asset.

Over the past 10 years, NARA has developed a substantial body

of electronic records management policy and guidance. The policy

includes the first full revision of Federal records management regulations in nearly 25 years. The endorsement for civilian agency use

of Department of Defense Electronic Records Management Application Design Criteria Standard, the development of the Records

Management Profile, and associated tools for use by Federal agency

CIOs to help them think about and account for records management and enterprise architecture; and the issuance of Federal

records management guidance on topics such as managing Web

records, managing records in a multi-agency environment, and

using email archiving applications to store and manage Federal

records. All of our electronic records management policy and guidance documents can be found on our Web site, Archives.gov.

In the past 18 to 24 months, NARA has been much more assertive in exercising its statutory authority in this area and reporting

on its activities. However, work remains to be done by both NARA

and the Federal agencies in creating, preserving, and making available the electronic Federal records that are part of the Nation’s

documentary heritage.

Our Nation’s historical record hinges on the ability of each Federal agency to effectively manage their records. Heads of agencies

and senior leaders across the Federal Government need to understand that the records and information they and their organizations are creating are national assets that must be effectively managed and secured so that the public can be assured of the authenticity of the record. Heads of agencies and senior leaders need to

be held accountable for managing these assets. Not only is it required by law in the Federal Records Act, effective records management, adequate and proper documentation of the Federal Government’s activities and transactions is good government and a necessary condition of an open government.

To more fully explain the concerns in the electronic environment,

my colleague, Paul Wester, Director of Modern Records Programs

9

at NARA, will discuss the results of two recent analyses completed

by NARA’s National Records Management Program.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today, and I look forward to answering any questions that you have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ferriero follows:]

10

11

12

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Archivist Ferriero.

Mr. Wester, we will proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF PAUL WESTER

Mr. WESTER. Good afternoon, Chairman Clay, Ranking Member

McHenry, and Congresswoman Chu. My name is Paul Wester, and

I am the Director of the Modern Records Programs at the National

Archives and Records Administration. I am pleased to appear before you today to provide a status report on Federal electronic

records management.

On April 20th, NARA issued a report entitled, ‘‘Records Management Self-Assessment 2009: An Assessment of Records Management Programs in the Federal Government.’’ In this report we analyzed the responses to a self-assessment survey NARA sent to 242

Federal cabinet level agencies, their components, and independent

agencies. The goal of the self-assessment was to gather data to determine how effective Federal agencies are in meeting the statutory

and regulatory requirements for Federal records management.

Based on our analysis and scoring of 220 agency responses, we

rated 36 percent of Federal agencies as being at high risk and 43

percent of Federal agencies as being at moderate risk in their

records management programs.

Earlier this week NARA completed and issued a report entitled,

‘‘NARA’s Electronic Records Project, Summary Report: Fiscal Year

2005 through Fiscal Year 2009.’’ In this report we detailed Federal

agency compliance with NARA Bulletin 2006–2002, NARA Guidance for Implementing Section 207(e) of the E-Government Act of

2002. In this Bulletin, issued in December 2009, NARA formally established a September 30, 2009, deadline for all Federal agencies

to submit records schedules to NARA for all of their existing electronic records systems. It also required Federal agencies to schedule new electronic records systems as they are developed.

By the September 30, 2009, deadline, NARA had received electronic records scheduling reports from 160 of 240 Federal agencies

for a 67 percent response rate. Of the reporting agencies, 42 percent were considered low risk. However, 25 percent of the reporting

agencies were categorized as moderate to high-risk agencies, having submitted schedules to NARA for less than 90 percent of all of

their electronic records systems. Thirty-three percent of agencies

did not respond to the deadline at all.

We are troubled by the results of this report, as well as the selfassessment of Federal agencies’ records management programs.

Even though these are baseline reports, we are troubled by the potential levels of risk to Federal records. Overall, the results are unacceptable. We in the agencies need to find ways to do better.

Toward this end, we have undertaken a number of activities.

First, we are working to increase awareness of electronic records

management requirements and raise accountability for noncompliance. Second, in conjunction with an audit from NARA’s Office of

the Inspector General, we are undertaking a year-long study of

ways to improve NARA’s oversight of records management practices. We expect this work to be completed in June 2011.

13

NARA is also reviewing areas where it maybe useful to clarify

the direction in which the Federal Government must move to improve the management of electronic records.

While we will likely identify others in the course of our analysis,

there are two broad areas that we know we must examine now.

First, we need to identify cost-efficient ways to ensure that agencies manage electronic records electronically and do not rely on

paper-based recordkeeping systems to manage electronic records.

We need to transition away from traditional print and file recordkeeping systems.

Second, given the special long-term preservation and access challenges associated with electronic records, NARA plans to identify

ways in which Federal agencies can be encouraged to transfer preservation copies of permanently valuable electronic records to the

National Archives as soon as possible for safe keeping.

If NARA is not actively engaged with agencies to fully understand the electronic formats in which records are being created and

used, then records may be at risk. As part of its comprehensive review of records management practices, NARA will review options

for mitigating this particular risk.

As we state in our strategic plan: Fundamental changes in the

Federal Government’s business processes, and in the wider information management environment, have critical implications for the

records life cycle. Today, the Federal Government creates the bulk

of its records and information in electronic form. To deal with these

challenges and carry out our mission, NARA must provide leadership and be more agile in adapting to change in information technology and in the Federal recordkeeping environment.

NARA’s role as the Nation’s record keeper is vital to the future

of our Nation. Without a vigorous, forward-thinking records management program, we risk losing the information that documents

the daily work of our government and ultimately the history of our

Nation.

We look forward to meeting these challenges and carrying out

the mission of the National Archives and Records Administration

in the years to come.

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss Federal electronic

records management with the committee, and I look forward to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wester follows:]

14

15

16

17

18

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Mr. Wester.

Mr. Wennergren, you are up.

STATEMENT OF DAVID M. WENNERGREN

Mr. WENNERGREN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McHenry,

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the

opportunity to appear before you today.

The information age is providing tremendous opportunities for

the Department of Defense to improve operational effectiveness

through the accelerated and expanded use of information technology. Paper-based business processes are being transitioned to

electronic-based solutions.

And thanks to technology advances like service-oriented architecture and the advent of Web 2.0 tools, new information capabilities

can be delivered much more rapidly today than we even dreamed

possible a few years ago. There is an imperative to have information tools in place both to realize the power of information sharing

and to address crucial issues of information security.

Accompanying this pervasive transformation is the ever-increasing importance of electronic records management. And while the

challenges that we encounter in implementing electronic records

management are significant, we are committed to ensuring compliance with records management rules and regulations, as well as

ensuring that records management solutions are transparent to

war fighters, relatively simple to use, and aligned with business

processes. We have policy and standards in place to address the life

cycle of management of records and to ensure compliance with

NARA policies.

I would like to take a moment and highlight our electronic

records management application standard. This standard identifies

the mandatory requirements for records management application

software. It leverages our joint interoperability test command to

certify applications as compliant and allows DOD components to

procure and implement compliant-records management application

software. We are pleased that the standard was endorsed by NARA

in 2008 and recommended for use by all Federal agencies.

Like all large organizations, we face several challenges in this

work: the scope of deploying records management applications

across a 31⁄2 million person organization; the need to also simultaneously ensure legacy IT systems are compliant; and the imperative of having a work force that is trained and adept at electronic

records management.

While DOD already maintains trained records managers

throughout the organization, information technology advances have

shifted records management responsibilities from central records

management organizations to individual employees. Consequently,

our training efforts have expanded to ensure the entire work force

understands the importance of making records management an integral part of daily operations.

In closing, we are committed to working with NARA to ensure

we effectively address records management, while simultaneously

transforming the Department.

19

Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to appear, and

I am happy to answer any questions that you have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wennergren follows:]

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Ms. Melvin, you have 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF VALERIE C. MELVIN

Ms. MELVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member

McHenry, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to participate in today’s hearing on the electronic records management in

the Federal Government. As you have requested, I will provide

some background on the roles of agencies and NARA, and briefly

discuss some of the challenges of managing electronic records.

As you know, the Federal Records Act requires agencies to have

programs and appropriate systems to manage information documenting government functions, decisions, and other important

transactions. If such records are poorly managed, individuals might

lose access to legitimate benefits, the Government could be exposed

to legal liabilities, and records of historical interest could be lost

forever. Poorly managed records also increase the costs of responding to FOIA requests or litigation-related discovery actions and impede accountability and efficiency.

Nonetheless, as we have long reported, records management has

historically been subject to neglect, in part because it is not a core

agency mission. A major challenge for agency records managers is

to make the case for investing in records management in an environment of limited resources.

Although agency heads are ultimately responsible for their agencies’ records, NARA has a role in improving Federal records management through providing guidance, assistance, and oversight. In

its oversight role, NARA is responsible for conducting inspections

or surveys, conducting records management studies, and reporting

the results.

However, in 2008, we reported that NARA had not fully used its

oversight authority, as it had not conducted any inspections of

agency programs since 2000, nor consistently reported the results

of its oversight activities. Accordingly, we recommended that NARA

implement a new approach to oversight that more fully used its existing authority.

In response, as has been mentioned already, NARA developed an

oversight strategy that included the agency records management

self-assessment survey, which it recently reported on. NARA had

said that it plans to use annual surveys to provide an overall picture of Federal records management and to inform its oversight activities, including inspections.

As weaknesses reported in NARA’s survey indicate, giving priority to records management remains a major challenge. Effective

records management, electronic or otherwise, requires investing

time and resources to analyze the information an agency receives,

produces, and uses to fulfill its mission. This allows an agency to

determine what categories of documents and informational records,

and it can then associate its records with information that will help

it find and use those records, and finally dispose of those no longer

needed.

Electronic records are particularly challenging because of their

complexity, ever-increasing volume, and decentralized environment

in which they are created. In the desktop computer age, individual

28

users create and store large numbers of documents, particularly

email, and it is difficult to get users to distinguish record from nonrecord material and treat it appropriately.

Even when electronic record keeping features are integrated into

email systems, users may resist having to categorize every email

they send or receive. In an ideal situation, records would be automatically identified and captured, with little or no user intervention. Technology that aims to automatically categorize records is

beginning to appear, but its effectiveness will depend on devoting

resources to proper implementation and the context of established

records management programs.

As our work has demonstrated, technology is a tool to help solve

problems, not a solution in itself, however. Like any technology,

electronic records management systems require careful planning

and analysis of agency requirements, business processes and information, along with the necessary management attention and resources to ensure effective implementation.

The long history of records management neglect suggests that

raising its priority will not happen easily. However, several factors

could encourage progress: first, NARA’s public scoring of agency

records management programs could raise their profile within

agencies; second, greater recognition of the increasing risk posed by

weak management of electronic records and information could focus

management attention; third, the recent Open Government Directive includes specific requirements for records management as part

of its push to make more information public. This could help make

records and information management a more central agency mission. Finally, congressional oversight, such as this hearing, could

also help raise the priority given to this important issue.

Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement, and I

would be pleased to respond to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Melvin follows:]

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Ms. Melvin.

We will now proceed to questioning of the witnesses on the 5-

minute rule, and we will begin with the gentlewoman from California leading off the questions.

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well, I was alarmed to hear about the results of the NARA study

that 79 percent of all agencies are at a high or moderate risk of

improper destruction of records, and the numbers are disturbingly

high. Let me ask do you have the proper authority to carry out

your statutory and regulatory responsibilities, Mr. Wester? And, if

not, are there specific legislative changes that need to be made in

order to ensure that NARA can properly carry out its mission?

Mr. WESTER. Thank you very much for the question. What we

need to do in the coming years, conduct our analysis of our current

statutory authorities and the policies that we have in place right

now to see what kinds of limitations we have with the authorities

and policies we have right now to improve records management.

My sense of it is there are things that we can do in the policy

arena, in the guidance arena, and with making agencies more

aware and publicizing the different aspects of either lack of attention or poor management of records within agencies that I think

will be able to help us improve records management within agencies. In the meantime, we need to conduct the analysis of our statutory authorities and the guidance and regulation that we already

have to see if it meets the needs that we see as the National Archives, as well as the needs that Federal agencies have to better

manage their records.

Ms. CHU. So you think there might be some extra authority that

you may need, but you have to do the study first?

Mr. WESTER. I believe that is true.

Ms. CHU. Because I noted that out of the 240 Federal agencies

that were supposed to submit to you by September 2009, only 160

even responded. What can you do to make them respond? And are

we to assume that the rest that did not respond have even worse

records?

Mr. WESTER. I don’t think we should assume that they have

worse records. Some of the issues that we have with the agencies

who were non-responsive have issues of resources within their organizations that have kept them from getting the submissions in

on time. We have had our staff following up on agencies who did

not respond and we have subsequently gotten materials back from

them. But what our reporting has helped do is raise the issue within those agencies, because a lot of the agencies have found out from

the publication of our report and the distribution of our report in

the press and in other arenas, they have found out that their

records management programs are not up to snuff and senior leadership within those agencies has taken a greater interest in this

issue and has helped to highlight it and make changes or increase

the emphasis on these issues within those agencies to make the

awareness higher and that agencies will be able to devote resources

to answer the questions in the future and help us be able to followup on issues that arose from that survey.

Ms. CHU. So again going back to the authority, what can you do

to make them respond? And also if you inspect an agency’s elecVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:56 Feb 14, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\62947.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
51

tronic records program and you have a suggestion for change, what

can you do to make them respond to whatever you suggest?

Mr. WESTER. Within our current statutory authority, we have the

authority to go into an agency and conduct an inspection, go in and

inspect records, inspect how agencies are managing those records.

We also have the authority to make reports to Congress and to

OMB, both to Oversight Committees as well as the Appropriations

Committees to make those issues aware to the funding sources and

the oversight sources, both executive and in the legislative branch.

We also have the authority to continue to followup on those reports and make reports to the public on how well agencies are

managing or not managing their records, following up on those inspections, and that is what we intend to do with the inspections.

Ms. CHU. And what if they don’t respond?

Mr. WESTER. We would bring these issues to the attention of

more senior folks in the agency and to the Oversight Committees

and the Appropriations Committees. That is the authority that we

have currently.

Ms. CHU. Ms. Melvin, you suggested that perhaps the authority

that NARA has has not been utilized to its maximum. Could you

explain that?

Ms. MELVIN. Yes. Following up, actually, on a 2008 report that

we issued and which we discussed on NARA’s oversight and the extent to which it had been undertaken, our concern was that we believe that NARA has authority that it had not used fully; and we

based this on the fact that in recent years NARA had not conducted inspections.

At the time that we looked at it in 2008, they were primarily performing studies; however, we found that they had not conducted

any inspections since 2000. At that time we made recommendations to NARA as far as increasing its inspections to look for opportunities, to have a more comprehensive evaluation and provide a

more governmentwide picture.

We recognize that they now have done the survey, and we would

look at that as a first step toward moving in that direction, but

clearly, from our perspective, we think that there are opportunities.

We have seen that they have been really good at putting plans in

place, but from the standpoint of actually following through to actually conduct oversight through inspections, in particular, and

looking at more thoroughly, I should say, at what agencies are undertaking in the way of records management is something that we

would like to see more of.

Ms. CHU. And how many of the 245 agencies have formal record

retention policies? And of those that don’t, what can you do to

make them get a policy, Mr. Wester?

Mr. WESTER. Most of the agencies, virtually all the agencies have

records retention policies. The issue is the validity of those policies

given how old some of them are, how current they are, and how

well they cover different aspects of changing records management

environment. Where we have moved from a paper environment to

an electronic environment, some of those policies have not kept

pace with the issues that those agencies need to confront as they

manage their records.

Ms. CHU. OK, thank you. I see my time is up. I yield back.

52

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you all for your testimony.

To Ms. Melvin’s point, Mr. Wester, the followup, the inspections,

can you respond to that?

Mr. WESTER. Yes. We are going to be launching an inspection

starting next week with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and

the Under Secretary for Intelligence to take a look at how email

is managed within those two organizations.

Mr. MCHENRY. So you are beginning that process?

Mr. WESTER. We are beginning that process right now.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK.

So, Ms. Melvin, to your point, how well has NARA, in your view,

implemented the recommendations of the GAO in order to move

forward on electronic records management?

Ms. MELVIN. On electronic records management specifically?

They have been working to implement our recommendations. We

have seen some implemented, but from the standpoint of our overall recommendations, I believe the recommendations for the 2008

report are still in process, so we have not fully seen that they have

been fully implemented at this time.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK.

Dr. Ferriero, thank you for your testimony. We have had this discussion before, that you are taking an agency that has some personnel challenges. We have some good folks at NARA and you have

explained that, but there is a lack of motivation among a large

group, and you have to change the culture. With electronic records

archive, you inherited, I will say that clearly, you inherited a problem here. It is over budget, behind schedule. What progress is

being made?

Mr. CLAY. Excuse me. Mr. McHenry, let me just state that NARA

is building the electronic records archive, ERA, to maintain that

small percentage of records that they receive, but this is not the

subject of the hearing. The hearing is on the Federal Records Act,

not ERA.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Well——

Mr. CLAY. Hopefully, we can confine our questioning to the Federal Records Act.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK, I didn’t think that was a problem. I have

asked a variety of questions of Dr. Ferriero, and this is one that

I keep bringing up. I just want to see that there is progress being

made because——

Mr. CLAY. There will be a hearing in the future on ERA.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Well, then, Mr. Chairman, do you want to

ask questions, then? I will yield my time to you, because this is of

interest to me in terms of progress being made, and I didn’t realize

I was limited by the scope of the questions.

Mr. CLAY. Well, I mean, look, the witnesses are here to talk

about the Federal Records Act.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Well, all right.

Well, self-assessment. You mentioned the self-assessment. The

SEC didn’t respond. Even the Congressional Budget Office didn’t

53

respond. How in the hell do we get these agencies to respond, Dr.

Ferriero?

Mr. FERRIERO. For me, the self-assessment was the baseline that

we need to move forward. As you heard, NARA has not exercised

its inspection authority since 2000, and this was the beginning of

a reestablishment of our authority. I will be communicating directly with the agencies who haven’t responded with some reasons

for noncompliance with our direction, and we will continue to followup with them.

For me, the self-assessment is kind of the beginning of identifying those agencies that are in most need of help, and we need to

focus on those particular agencies especially to ensure that they get

the support and guidance that is available from NARA.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. You used the word accountability a number

of times in your testimony. Do you have the ability to hold these

agencies accountable?

Mr. FERRIERO. I believe we do. Put yourself in the situation of

an agency that hasn’t had any authority exercised over them for 8

years, and all of a sudden they get a demand for a self-assessment.

There is an attitude that develops that they don’t take it seriously,

and I would guess that we experienced some of that in this process.

Mr. MCHENRY. Mr. Wester, do you want to comment on that?

Mr. WESTER. What I would like to say is that we have launched

a new assessment for 2010 that we launched in the middle of May,

and as part of launching the self-assessment for 2010, the Archivist

sent personal letters to each of the agency heads, and I have to say

that the response that we have gotten from the senior levels of

agencies has been much more robust than it was when we had

done it in the previous manner before Mr. Ferriero came on board

in November.

So I think we are making great strides with the agencies in raising the awareness at the senior levels about this issue, but, as the

Archivist said, we need to followup with the agencies to make sure

that they continue to complete the self-assessments and, more importantly, continue to improve their records management programs.

Mr. MCHENRY. All right.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Cuellar of Texas, you are recognized.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

My questions are more procedures dealing with relationships

with agencies, NARA and GAO. GAO has done a series of reports,

and I think they have been mentioned. The one in 1999, where

they recommended several things, including conducting a governmentwide survey of the programs and the information used. Instead of using a governmentwide baseline assessment survey, I

think it was more limited in scope, is that correct, Ms. Melvin?

Ms. MELVIN. That is correct, yes.

Mr. CUELLAR. OK. Then in 2002 there was another report and

NARA came up with a strategy for a comprehensive report on that,

but again there were some issues there, is that correct?

Ms. MELVIN. That is correct, yes.

Mr. CUELLAR. All right. Then, of course, we are looking at your

current report here also. But I guess my question to the panel is

54

GAO comes up with recommendations and then what happens? I

mean, the purpose is to improve the process. What happens? What

happens in the process when a report comes up from GAO?

I mean, if I was part of NARA, I would say, ‘‘OK, I agree with

the recommendations’’ or ‘‘I don’t agree with the recommendations.’’

But if I do agree with the recommendations, let’s see how fast we

can implement it.

Who wants to be first?

Mr. WESTER. I will go first. To talk about what we have done at

the National Archives over the time period that you have described

in relationship to the engagements that we have had with GAO,

what we have done is we have gotten the recommendations, we

have taken a look at how we can respond to them, and we have

made plans and attempted to address each of the recommendations

that have been brought before us and have tried to make strides

in dealing with the recommendations and improving records management, electronic records management within the government.

One of the things that has been a challenge for the National Archives during this time period has been the change of the records

environment within agencies across the Federal Government.

When our work began, more or less in 2000, which is probably a

good marker to use for this discussion, we were in a transitional

period across the Federal Government, where we had a lot of agencies who were still primarily paper-based organizations that were

increasingly using electronic records.

From 2000 on, what the National Archives had to do was figure

out how to address the increasing electronic records challenge within the government and develop guidance and policies, and promulgate those guidances and policies and update our regulations to

help agencies know what to do to better manage their electronic

records.

So there was a long period of time when we spent a good deal

of resources on that issue, and it has only been in the last probably

18 to 24 months, perhaps a little longer than that, that we have

gotten a body of guidance and regulation in place that we are able

to now hold agencies more accountable specifically to electronic

records issues across the government.

So it has been, as you observe, a long journey for us, and it has

probably taken us too long, but that is the path that we have gone

on in trying to be responsive to the issues that have been brought

before us by GAO, as well as the environment that we find ourselves in with the Federal agencies.

Mr. FERRIERO. Could I respond to that also?

Mr. CUELLAR. Yes, sir.

Mr. FERRIERO. As the head of the agency, I treat these reports,

as well as the reports from my Inspector General, very seriously.

These are, in lots of cases, early warning signs for me in terms of

where we need to correct action and, as I said, these reports have

my full attention.

Mr. CUELLAR. Anybody else?

[No response.]

Mr. CUELLAR. And I will close up with this, Mr. Chairman. I

guess, in trying to improve the process and get better results, if a

recommendation comes in and you truly disagree with it, because

55

there will be times that we are going to disagree. GAO is not 100

percent correct, just like we are never 100 percent. Then I understand you can go ahead and have a dialog on that. But once you

all accept the recommendation, we are hoping that at that time

that you all, as fast as possible, within certain contours, implement

that as soon as possible.

Mr. Chairman, I will just ask GAO. Any thoughts on that?

Ms. MELVIN. Whenever we make the recommendations, we are

hopeful that an agency will consider them in the fullest. Again, our

concerns had not been so much with the fact that they were not

planning toward efforts, but that we did not see the level of investment in those efforts, if you will, to make sure that there were——

Mr. CUELLAR. Excuse me. The commitment, right? I think that

is the term that you used in here, the commitment?

Ms. MELVIN. We wanted to see definitely a greater commitment

to trying to get a governmentwide look at what was happening in

Federal records management. We did see the agency take steps,

but steps that, from our position, fell short of what we thought

were necessary for them to have or to provide the necessary oversight and to be in a position to influence agencies, if you will, to

have better records management programs in place.

Mr. CUELLAR. OK, thank you. And I know it is difficult, complex,

ever-changing, but I appreciate all the efforts that you all do.

Thank you.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Cuellar.

Mr. CUELLAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. McHenry, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. MCHENRY. Dr. Ferriero, just to followup with what we have

discussed before, in terms of improving morale. What has your approach been? What progress have you made?

Mr. FERRIERO. I am putting a lot of faith in the governmentwide

employee viewpoint survey, and I am pleased to report that 83 percent of NARA employees participated this year, compared to 52

percent last year. They got personal email messages from me; they

got voicemail messages from me; I did video to encourage people to

participate; and here again we are expecting the results within a

couple of weeks.

This will be another baseline for me in terms of just how bad

things are in terms of morale. We have established a task force to

help me work through these issues as we start getting the results

to improve the environment, the culture of the agency.

It has my full attention. As I said before, this is the most important thing that I have to worry about. We have to get this right

in order to do everything else that the agency has before it.

Mr. MCHENRY. You have served at large institutions with significant technology, both New York universities, more of a quasi-governmental agency. You have had a variety of information protection

background. How far behind or ahead would you rank the Archives

and what you are walking into in comparison to those other sectors

you have worked in?

Mr. FERRIERO. Is your question around technology or is it around

protection of collections?

Mr. MCHENRY. Both.

56

Mr. FERRIERO. OK. In terms of technology, it feels very similar

to probably the environment 15 years ago in terms of what I would

describe as everyone doing their own thing. This figure that I cited,

$80 billion a year on information technology, is a huge figure, and

it reminds me very much of the university environment years ago

where every department was able to do their own thing, buy their

own systems, and then enterprise systems came in and kind of reduced the costs associated with that.

So there is some of that I see at work now. I think some of the

ideas around cloud computing that I am hearing will address some

of those issues. And there are some examples of enterprise systems

that are underway, but it is in the early stages, I would say, reflective of the amount of money that is being spent.

On the collection side, we have established a holdings protection

task force. As you know, we have had some problems in terms of

materials that are lost, and we are serious about correcting those

problems and creating a sense of urgency around that within the

agency, all 44 facilities across the country.

Mr. MCHENRY. Is it a greater challenge, in your view, the protection of electronic data, rather than some of the traditional paper

forms of data collection? I mean, do you have sort of a greater concern with one——

Mr. FERRIERO. It is more complicated. It is more complicated because of threats to access to destroy electronic information, to

change it. So ensuring the authenticity of that original record is

certainly more complicated than the paper environment.

Mr. MCHENRY. OK. Because Archives certainly has a long history of being able to protect that traditional data.

Mr. FERRIERO. And to ensure that 100 years from now you are

looking at what was originally created. Exactly.

Mr. MCHENRY. And is that part of the struggle, being able to create a system by which future generations will be able to retrieve

this electronically?

Mr. FERRIERO. And that those digits get migrated as technology

changes. Exactly.

Mr. MCHENRY. Well, thank you. Thank you for your candor.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. McHenry.

Mr. Wennergren, the DOD has established a standard for records

management applications that has been endorsed by NARA. Is this

something that the Department simply created once or is it continually revised and improved?

Mr. WENNERGREN. Yes, sir, it is a continuing process. We have

actually dozens of tools from many different companies, different

operating systems. We have a whole market basket of tools that

have gone through this compliance process, so we look at them, we

make sure that they are going to meet the needs, and then we publish those lists of preferred products, if you will. And then our

agencies can go buy those products and be assured that they are

going to get a product that works for them. With NARA’s endorsement, it has sort of opened the door to others to take advantage

of that too.

We also have examples inside of the Department of Defense. The

Navy, for example, has a records management compliant product.

It is on hundreds of thousands of desktops; it has millions of

57

records. So we have great successes within the Department of people using those tools, but now we have a lot of interest from others.

So we have other Federal agencies, States, local governments, even

some other nations that have come to find out what these preferred

products are and how they can take advantage of using them too.

Mr. CLAY. So you are pretty much spreading the gospel, so to

speak, to other agencies and to other countries about records management.

Mr. WENNERGREN. Yes, sir. If we get a line to secure products

that work well and are interoperable, that is always the best approach. So we are happy to have any agency come ask us for the

information about how we do the compliance process. The products

that are certified are available on the Web site, so anybody can go

look at them and go buy the one that they choose.

Mr. CLAY. Exactly how many agencies would you estimate have

adopted some of your practices?

Mr. WENNERGREN. See, I don’t have a good answer on that, sir,

because what I know is that lots of people come and ask for information, but at DOD I don’t keep track of then what they go and

buy. So I have a list of like literally 80 or 90 organizations that

have come and asked us about how do you do the certification testing and all that sort of stuff, but then we don’t keep track if the

city of Illinois came and was interested, we don’t actually know

whether they go and buy them or not, because they would go buy

them directly from the vendor.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you for that.

Ms. Melvin, examining the challenges of electronic records is not

something new for GAO. However, this administration has been

more proactive about transparency than previous Presidents. How

will the Open Government Initiative help with electronic records

management?

Ms. MELVIN. Well, the Open Government Directive that was put

in place does have within it a requirement that agencies include in

their plans a link to a Web site that would provide information on

their records management programs.

Mr. CLAY. Let me ask you about Members of Congress. A lot of

us have BlackBerries. We have official business on there; we also

may get an email from our children, from our parents, from our

wives, saying, ‘‘on your way home would you stop at the store and

get some milk.’’ I mean, is it up to the Members to decide what is

official and what is not? If we wanted to save our records for our

offices, we pretty much make that determination?

Ms. MELVIN. That is one of the critical issues that we point to

in the statement that I provided to you today. From the stand of

email in particular, there are numerous challenges relative to the

complexity, relative to the content, the context of the email messages.

And this is in light or around the context that historically getting

users to really be responsible for records management is a difficult

task, so you are compounding that by asking them to identify specific emails that may be a record or non-record. It is still a challenge; it is one of those that we point out is very critical for agencies to have to make a determination as a part of their records

management programs how in fact they are going to define what

58

a record is, what an email record is, and how they will categorize

that information versus personal or non-record information. It is a

very difficult task.

Mr. CLAY. Anyone else on the panel have any suggestions? Mr.

Wennergren.

Mr. WENNERGREN. Well, sir, I don’t know if I have a suggestion,

but you have hit upon one of the crucial challenges as you move

to this electronic records management world, that, in the old days

you wrote a letter and you had somebody who was the correspondence clerk, and they knew to archive that letter.

But, indeed, now everyone from our junior enlisted personnel to

our senior admirals and generals, you have to decide you are creating a record and then make sure that the email from your wife is

deleted and the email that is a record is saved.

So, again, one of the things that we all need to work on together

is making sure that the electronic tools that are available take advantage of metadata and things like that to try to help make those

decisions for you so the user isn’t stuck trying to make those decisions on their own.

Mr. CLAY. I see. I see. Thank you very much.

Let me thank the panel of witnesses for their testimony today.

This panel is dismissed. Thank you.

I would now like to introduce our second panel. Even though

none of the witnesses are Maryland Terps, we welcome them to

this hearing. [Laughter.]

Our first witness will be Dr. Gregory Hunter, a professor at the

Palmer School of Library and Information Science at Long Island

University, C.W. Post Campus. He is director of the Certificate Program in Archives and Records Management at LIU. He received

his Ph.D. in American History from New York University and is a

Certified Records Manager and Certified Archivist. Welcome to the

committee.

Our next witness is Ms. Carol Brock, here today representing

ARMA International. Ms. Brock is a certified records manager with

23 years experience. In 2007, with Ms. Brock’s leadership, GAO

earned the Archivist Achievement Award. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in digital preservation and information policy at the

University of Texas at Austin.

After Ms. Brock we will hear from Ms. Anne Weismann, chief

counsel for Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.

Ms. Weismann works extensively on access to Federal electronic

records, as well as transparency in government. She previously

served as Deputy Chief of the Enforcement Bureau at the Federal

Communications Commission and as an Assistant Branch Director

at the Department of Justice.

I thank all of our witnesses for appearing today and look forward

to their testimony.

Of course, it is the policy of the subcommittee to swear you in.

Would you please rise and raise your right hands?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. You may be seated.

Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

59

I ask that each witness now give a brief summary of their testimony. Please limit your summary to 5 minutes. Your complete

written statement will be included in the hearing record.

Dr. Hunter, please begin with your opening statement.

STATEMENTS OF GREGORY S. HUNTER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE, LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY, C.W. POST CAMPUS; CAROL BROCK, CERTIFIED RECORDS MANAGER, REPRESENTING ARMA INTERNATIONAL; AND ANNE WEISMANN, CHIEF COUNSEL, CITIZENS FOR ETHICS AND RESPONSIBILITY IN WASHINGTON

STATEMENT OF GREGORY S. HUNTER

Dr. HUNTER. Chairman Clay, Ranking Member McHenry, and

members of the subcommittee, I do want to thank you for giving

me the opportunity to testify today. The only thing that I would

add to my background that you did mention is that, in addition to

my university work, I did have a career as a working records manager; I was manager of corporate records for ITT World Headquarters, and before that I was archivist for the United Negro College Fund. So I come by my teaching this honestly, having done it

for many years, and I continue to consult for government and organizations in this area as well.

We did hear, with the previous panel, about the status of electronic records management. I didn’t think I would be able to add

anything to what we had just heard. I thought I could perhaps add

to the committee’s deliberations by talking a bit about some best

practices from the private sector, from my experience in my 30-year

career that may be applicable to some of the issues that the subcommittee is wrestling with.

In my written testimony there were several areas that I discussed at length. Today I am just going to highlight briefly a couple

of those areas for you.

The first area deals with the definition of a record. The GAO reports that were mentioned previously have one theme in common:

that the agencies are spending a great deal of time sorting out

what is a record from a non-record. And your example with the

BlackBerry is relevant as well to this. This consumes a great deal

of agency time and there is a reason for this, certainly: the records

have to be managed according to Federal requirements; whereas

the non-records don’t maintain that burden.

What I want to suggest is that, in the private sector, what I believe people are moving toward is less of a focus on record or nonrecord. In the world of electronic discovery, electronically stored information is what is discoverable, not record or non-record; and the

definition of a Federal record certainly is in law now. But the subcommittee may want to begin at the very beginning, perhaps, in its

deliberations and decide whether or not the existing definition of

record and non-record, legacies from the 1950’s, really are fruitful

for our current discussion.

In the private sector, organizations will define much more as

record. Many of those records have short-term value, but by defining them in that way we spend less time sorting out record from

60

non-record and we spend much more time trying to manage those

resources efficiently.

So the first area in the written testimony talks about record versus non-record.

The second area is the status of records management. And if people don’t understand what a record is, certainly there will be difficulty having them understand what records management is and

why they should care about that. In the written testimony, I spend

some length talking about pushing responsibility for records management down within the hierarchy. Records management has to

be seen as something helping someone’s business processes. It has

to be seen as something that is worth doing because it assists the

agencies, not just because there is a requirement for that.

So making records management emphasizing the customer service aspect of it, pushing responsibility down the organizational

chain. I know we are dealing with big problems, $80 billion worth

of budget and electronic tools to help solve this. But this still ultimately is a people profession and a people problem, and pushing

that responsibility down the chain, making managers, not just the

agency heads, but front-line managers, responsible for the implementation of records management policies and procedures.

In the private sector that is done through the human resources

structure, making certain that records management responsibilities

are detailed in your job description, that you are accountable for it,

that you are reviewed on that. So I do recommend both for managerial responsibility and records liaisons that NARA and agency

staff look at ways to push that responsibility down.

One last thing that I would like to talk about just a bit, because

I know compliance is a concern and has been a concern in the previous panel. I would like to talk a little bit about compliance and,

again, talk about a private sector model. The private sector model

is that the most successful records management programs within

corporations are working with the people in the organizations responsible for compliance. They are partnering in the corporate

world the compliance departments that were established after Sarbanes-Oxley, in particular.

In the university settings, this is working with internal audit.

And I do want to point out to the committee that one of the best

models of this is a project done by Indiana University. Under funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, they did establish guidelines for working with internal audit

to the success of both parties.

So let me conclude with just a couple of remarks.

Technology has a way of bringing issues to the fore, and as I was

preparing this testimony I was rereading a report from 1906 about

new technologies and agency responses to that. Agency managers

were concerned about efficiency; legal counsel was concerned about

evidence. What was interesting to me, though, was that the report

was from 1906; from 1906, not 2006. The report was by a group

called the Keep Commission, and they were very concerned about

Federal agencies implementing the change from the older technology of letter press books to the brand new technology of carbon

paper. So the issue sounded strangely familiar to me and maybe

61

in 2106 your successor will be here with a slightly different twist

on this.

But you will see in the written testimony I talk much more about

private solutions, and I believe that this kind of dialog, public-private discussions will lead to some of the best practices, and we

hope that, as citizens, that it will help Federal agencies as well as

private sector organizations.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hunter follows:]

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Dr. Hunter. Appreciate that analogy from

the other century.

Ms. Brock, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF CAROL BROCK

Ms. BROCK. Thank you, Chairman Clay and members of the subcommittee, for inviting ARMA International to this hearing on Federal electronic records management. I have been a Federal records

management professional for 23 years and have served several

Federal agencies and worked closely with the National Archives in

my role as a Federal records officer. I am an active member of

ARMA International, the Association for Information and Image

Management, and the Federal Information and Records Managers

Council.

We have been producing electronic records since the 1980’s, yet

we are not adept at managing them. In an effort to better address

electronic records management issues, I returned to school a year

ago to work on a Ph.D. in digital preservation and information policy. You can understand that this is near and dear to my heart.

The question of the day is: Why are electronic records so difficult

to manage? I will address three reasons why. First, managing electronic records inherits all of the traditional records management

challenges. Second, managing electronic records is fraught with

technology challenges and requires consistent records management

competencies. And, third, managing email poses additional challenges.

I also provide some recommendations, including, first, empowering and funding NARA; second, establishing a role for an agency

chief records officer; and, third, establishing a principle-based approach to records management.

So what are the traditional records management challenges?

There may be no management involvement or expectations. Senior

officials do not see records management as a vital agency function.

Also, there are no meaningful or sustaining resources. There are

limited staff resources to do mission critical work. Agencies no

longer have support staff to perform administrative tasks and

workloads continue to increase as staff numbers decrease. No staff

training or imperatives exist.

Records management awareness requires continuous enterprisewide training. Still, many Federal agency staff do not see their

work product as records and simply do not have time for training.

Also, no enterprise-wide guidance or expectations exist. Record status is generally determined at the end-users desktop. Staff mingle

personal materials with their business records.

What are the technology challenges associated with managing

electronic records? Technology is not a constant; principles are constant. Electronic media obsolescence is a well known issue. If technology is not reliable, let’s employ generally accepted recordkeeping

principles. More records does not equal better recordkeeping. Popular wisdom is to save everything because storage is cheap. This

perception overlooks the cost of staff searching for information to

do their jobs, as well as the cost of fulfilling FOIA, privacy, and discovery requests.

70

Also, records management must be consistent across the enterprise. Agency staff are as wired as everyone else. Staff are storing

records on hard drive, thumb drives, home computer systems, and

in the cloud, all of which are outside of an agency’s centralized

span of control.

Finally, what are some additional challenges associated with

managing email? Staff use email for personal productivity, to manage their projects, store their drafts and reference materials, find

their records and track their work. Used in these ways, email may

never make it into the agency’s official recordkeeping systems.

Identifying records is not as easy as creating email; an email capture can be complicated.

So what we can do, we can confirm our benchmarks: the National Archives guidance, the ISO standards on information and

documentation, and the generally accepted recordkeeping principles. Also, we can create expectations and public policy outcomes.

What is needed is a commitment to create, manage, and grow a

compliant records management program. If Congress declares

agency records management a priority and links agency budgets to

compliance, we will see results.

Consider establishing chief records officers in each and every

agency. And I can say more on that later. We can give NARA

greater visibility and authority, insisting on proven agency compliance with scheduling, dispositions, and effective management of

electronic information assets. My perception is that NARA does not

have the authority to fulfill their recordkeeping mission.

And, finally, we can integrate enduring records management

principles into the operations of every Federal agency. An agency

should establish a recordkeeping program that is overseen by senior executives; informed by clear policies and procedures to train

and guide personnel; and is transparent through documentation

available to all personnel, interested parties, and regulatory and

enforcement bodies. And I have a copy of the principles and detailed maturity model, if anyone would care to see it.

Thank you again for this opportunity to comment. I look forward

to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Brock follows:]

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Ms. Brock, for your testimony.

Ms. Weismann, you may proceed for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF ANNE WEISMANN

Ms. WEISMANN. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member McHenry,

thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today about the

status of Federal electronic records management. I last testified before this committee in December 2009 on the priorities and roles

NARA and new Archivist David Ferriero should adopt. My testimony highlighted the dismal state of electronic recordkeeping at

that time across nearly all agencies in the Federal Government.

Unfortunately, the situation has not improved in the intervening 6

months.

Two years ago, after conducting an online survey submitted to

more than 400 agency records managers, my organization, CREW,

reported that the vast majority of agencies failed to take advantage

of existing technology to preserve their electronic records, and that

even knowledgeable agency employees lacked the basic understanding of their recordkeeping response obligations.

NARA’s more recent self-assessments confirm these results and

reveal, as we have heard today, the extremely troubling statistic

that 79 percent of agencies face a moderate or high risk of improperly destroying their records.

Examples abound of the widespread problems within the Federal

Government in managing and preserving its electronic records. Our

litigation against the Executive Office of the President and NARA

brought to light a wealth of evidence of the continuing and systemic failure of the Bush White House to preserve and manage its

emails.

In a recently released report, EOP documented the fact the Bush

White House archiving system failed to capture 89.4 percent of the

universe of known emails for 21 non-consecutive days. That a

President failed to preserve nearly 90 percent of some of the most

valuable historical documents is both shocking and completely unacceptable.

As a frequent requester under the FOIA, CREW often confronts

an agency’s inability to locate responsive email records. The Veterans Affairs, for example, recently explained to us its failure to locate a key email was due to the practice of the agency to store its

emails on backup tapes that periodically were recycled, even in the

face of a pending FOIA request or FOIA lawsuit.

While these persistent problems present great challenges, we believe Congress can provide a solution through legislative amendments to the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act,

and my written testimony outlines some of our proposals in that

regard.

But I would note that the Federal Records Act carves out an enforcement role for the Attorney General, but gives the Archivist no

sway over whether and how the Attorney General exercises that

authority. And I think the Department of Justice’s handling of the

apparently missing emails of former OLC Official John Yoo illustrates the problem with the existing statutory scheme. In July

2009, the Office of Professional Responsibility issued a report of its

investigation into the role Mr. Yoo played in the development of

79

the so-called torture memos. That report, made public in February

of this year, notes explicitly the investigation was hampered by the

disappearance of all of Mr. Yoo’s emails.

Almost immediately NARA asked DOJ to investigate and report

back to it, and CREW sent a letter to Attorney General Holder also

requesting an investigation. Four months later, DOJ has yet to respond to either request, and the public and Congress are no closer

to learning the truth about how and why emails central to an investigation of critical public importance are missing.

Clearly, there is something wrong with a law that says the public

must sit by idly while agency heads, including the Attorney General, refuse to act.

Nearly 20 years ago, while an attorney at the Department of Justice, I engaged in a vigorous internal debate over whether email

was even a record that had to be preserved with all of its

metadata. Today this issue is long settled as a matter of law. But

as a matter of practice, agencies continue to treat emails as readily

discardable, even while their value has grown exponentially.

Just look at the currency Elena Kagan’s Federal and Presidential

electronic records have as Congress evaluates her nomination for

the Supreme Court. Simply stated, emails are the gold we mine for

an answer to questions that perplex and worry us, or the truth behind an administration’s or agency’s controversial decisions and actions. Yet, we fail to handle these treasures with care. Congress

must act to ensure our past will be available for future generations

to study and learn from.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Weismann follows:]

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

Mr. CLAY. Thank you so much, Ms. Weismann.

We will go to the question and answer period and I recognize the

ranking member from North Carolina.

Mr. MCHENRY. Ms. Weismann, I appreciate your testimony. In

your written testimony you have a recommendation for how we can

actually ensure that the President is required to keep the data that

he is required to keep. I appreciate what you are saying; I think

you make very valid points about the last administration, about

their lack of transparency. My question to you is what can we put

in place now so that doesn’t happen again?

Ms. WEISMANN. Well, this is where I think you can consider

amendments to both the Federal Records Act and the Presidential

Records Act. I mean, in part through our litigation, the White

House now has in place what is an effective recordkeeping system,

but this has been a problem that has plagued us through many

presidencies, and we have no assurance, especially as technology

changes, that the next president will be out of compliance once

again, and that is why we think it is imperative that, at a minimum, you give the Archivist some oversight and responsibility to

at least ensure that the President has in place an appropriate system.

I understand and appreciate the constitutional problems with

dictating to the President what he or she must save and cannot

save specifically, but I don’t think you come close to those problems

if you are trying to just enforce the responsibility that they have

a system in place.

Mr. MCHENRY. So that means enhancing the Archivist’s role?

Ms. WEISMANN. Yes. At present, the Archivist basically has no

role while a President is in office.

Mr. MCHENRY. Aside from outside groups, who is the cop here

to ensure that these records are kept?

Ms. WEISMANN. There really is no cop, and that is part of the

problem.

Mr. MCHENRY. So it falls to outside groups.

Ms. WEISMANN. Well, even for outside groups there is no role, because the courts have held that, with some limited exceptions, because the statute doesn’t really spell out a role for outside groups,

that we have no ability essentially to sue. Now, there are some limited exceptions. But if you have a President who completely ignores

his responsibilities, I think it would fall to Congress, through legislation, to correct the situation.

Mr. MCHENRY. Is this a systemic issue that is made worse by different administrations, but at root is a systemic issue throughout

the Federal Government?

Ms. WEISMANN. Yes, it is a systemic issue throughout the government, without question, and I think this leads to our second point,

as to why we need some legislative fixes to the Federal Records

Act, because the roles and responsibilities that the Archivist has

even in that arena I think are still limited. And I think the best

example of that is the fact that this critical self-assessments, the

Archivist really has no legal way to compel agencies to comply.

And in that arena, as well, the courts have recognized very limited roles for outside groups like mine, so there too we are in favor

of expanding private rights of action, but we also think that you

108

can beef up the administrative enforcement mechanisms under the

Federal Records Act that will give the Archivist greater authority.

Mr. MCHENRY. Would you be willing to submit your recommendations to this committee?

Ms. WEISMANN. Absolutely.

Mr. MCHENRY. I certainly appreciating hearing those. Do you

think our Presidential library system, as constructed now, makes

it more difficult for you to retrieve those records going back years?

Ms. WEISMANN. I think there are a lot of reasons why they are

difficult to retrieve. I mean, I think too often each Presidential library tends to operate as an individual fiefdom, and I also think

you have problems with the state of records that vary dramatically

between administrations. I mean, I think if we can get to a place

where we are systematizing, if that is a word, both what Presidents

are creating and how we are preserving them and what agencies,

we will overcome that battle.

Mr. MCHENRY. Absolutely.

And that goes right into, Dr. Hunter, your definition of record.

Basically, the Federal Government is using the 1950’s definition,

when the rest of society is using a much more updated version, is

that right?

Dr. HUNTER. The Federal definition actually is the same one that

most States use. Most States adopted the Federal definition. Private sector doesn’t have to. Many private sector organizations use

a very similar definition. But in the world of digital recordkeeping,

there are others who are looking at it, saying that we are spending

more time trying to slice something very thin that may not be

worth the effort; that we have to manage it anyway, especially if

we are in a discovery environment. We have to find it no matter

what it is called.

So, therefore, perhaps we need to look at the fundamental and

try to minimize that sorting and slicing and dicing that isn’t really

giving us much advantage.

Mr. MCHENRY. How far behind do you think the Federal Government is in keeping records, compared to the private sector, compared to private institutions?

Dr. HUNTER. Well, if we were doing this in front of some private

sector people, they would be saying the Federal Government may

be ahead of where they are.

Mr. MCHENRY. Really?

Dr. HUNTER. I think my point is that this is very difficult——

Mr. MCHENRY. How would you say that? Is it in terms of the

technology of the Federal Government uses, or is it the policies or

is it the people? What is the advantage?

Dr. HUNTER. This is very difficult work, and as I say in the written testimony, this is a line responsibility. So some private sector

organizations have been able to push that responsibility in the

same way that human resources policies, people are accountable for

complying with that; fiscal policies, there are cops, to use your

word, who make certain that front-line managers comply with

those policies; if those same cops are able to say are you complying

with the records management policy.

So in some ways, in some private sector areas with compliance

they have been able to do better. There are some private sector

109

areas that would love to be able to have, from the previous panel,

to have an organization like the Department of Defense to push for

its business purposes a standard with the full package that then

becomes adopted otherwise. So this is just very difficult work that

must succeed as an individual line responsibility, and it is harder

in the Federal Government, perhaps, because there are more people with that responsibility.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. McHenry.

Dr. Hunter, I found your example of the Indiana University archives working on an electronic records study with an NHPRC

grant interesting. We continue to be amazed by the scope and importance of this vital program. You mentioned that you do not

think NARA should conduct audit reviews. Can you explain why

not?

Dr. HUNTER. NARA, I believe, certainly has the responsibility

and should do audits, but all day long I have been hearing the

question of is NARA, as an entity, and in the private sector we

have the same issue, is the records management department, when

it says you are not following orders, do they have the clout, are

they the cop to force a change in practice. And perhaps one solution

legislatively is to make NARA a bigger sheriff in this, to give them

more authority.

Another potential solution would be to look at the other sheriffs

who are there with the other line responsibilities and see perhaps

a strategic partnership might be the more cost-effective way to go.

So certainly I don’t think NARA has the responsibility, but I am

asking all parties to consider what might be the best cost-effective

way to discharge that responsibility.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response. Can you please elaborate

on the role of records liaisons and how you recommend agencies

can be encouraged to utilize them?

Dr. HUNTER. Records liaisons very often, again, at the grassroots

level, as opposed to the agency head level, there needs to be someone in every office who knows what is going on with the records

and needs to be empowered to do what is right and efficient with

those records. Sometimes those people are well trained and they

are enthusiastic, and other times they are people who someone

may think they have some more time on their hands, so they can

do this as well.

But again, that responsibility for that key role at the Department

level, this will break down unless the people are properly trained,

but there also is a system of accountability that, in the human resources environment, that the job descriptions reflect this responsibility; that they are evaluated on it; that their manager, in turn,

is evaluated on what they do.

So that is why I talk about this as being hard work. At some

point it does get down to the level of who is the records liaison, the

person responsible for the digital system or the paper-based system. Do they know what they are doing and are they rewarded for

taking the initiative and doing it right, or does no one even notice

that?

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Ms. Brock, your impression of records liaisons?

110

Ms. BROCK. Traditionally, records liaison officers are at too low

a level to make a difference. What we really need is information

management officers, professionals who understand the scope,

breadth, and depth of the mission and the opportunities there.

Mr. CLAY. How can Federal agencies use ARMA International’s

principles-based approach, using generally accepted recordkeeping

principles to improve their records management program?

Ms. BROCK. Chairman Clay, thank you for asking me that. There

are basic competencies in these principles: accountability, transparency, integrity, protection, compliance, availability, retention,

and disposition. And we have five different levels of compliance

with each. We could use this as a scorecard for judging programs

and for what they should be aiming to achieve for compliance. I

also see that we can use these principles to design our training, to

actually buildup our programs, and to monitor and direct how we

conduct our procurements for these tools to handle our records.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Let me ask Ms. Weismann what specific amendments to the Federal Records Act do you recommend to expand the Archivist oversight and enforcement responsibilities?

Ms. WEISMANN. Well, I think, first of all, they need to be given

the authority and clear responsibility to conduct themselves an investigation when they have evidence that there has been a violation of the Records Act. I think, as I outlined in my testimony, the

next step would be not only to make that public, but when they

find such evidence, we would recommend that it be mandated a referral to the agency inspector general.

And I think this is addressing in part something Dr. Hunter said

about looping in others. There already is, within each agency, an

inspector general that has authority to conduct investigations and

has experience with that; and I think that the findings of that

should be made public. And, again, this is where we think if the

agency still chooses to do nothing in the face of evidence of a problem, that there should be a private right of action.

We have listened very carefully over the years to NARA’s view

on its authority, for example, and responsibility to conduct investigations. CREW actually brought a lawsuit against NARA a year

or so ago based on their failures in 2000 to conduct investigations

of agencies, and we dropped our lawsuit after we met with them

and they outlined for us their plan to do the self-assessment and

a multi-phase plan that also includes inspections of agencies. And

we are truly heartened by the renewed vigor that Dr. Ferriero is

trying to bring to NARA, and I think he really is committed to

these principles.

But the problem is that we have seen in NARA, under other archivists, that it has taken a very passive role and a very passive

role of what its responsibilities are, so we think it is really critical

that the responsibility and obligation, as well as the authority to

oversee agencies, has to be made explicit in the legislation.

Mr. CLAY. And I certainly appreciate what you are saying; we

need to bolster their authority through laws.

Ms. WEISMANN. Exactly.

Mr. CLAY. Out of curiosity, how would you treat the Federal

Election Commission records and the candidate filings the same as

111

all other Federal records, or do you see a need for some type of special treatment there?

Ms. WEISMANN. I don’t think there is any need for special treatment. And I recognize the sort of complexities in relying on a definition of what is a record and what isn’t, but in large extent, within the Federal Government, each agency is going to decide what is

a record based on its central mission, and I think there is already

enough within the law itself to cover what entities like the Federal

Election Commission should be preserving. So I don’t necessarily

see a basis for special treatment; I think it is more an issue of compliance.

Mr. CLAY. OK. Thank you very much.

We will now go to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do think this is a very

important hearing. I regret that I was unable to be here for its beginning, and have only been able to come to hear part of what our

second panel has had to say. I must say first that I really think

that the government’s responsibility for recordkeeping differs

markedly from the private sector. The private sector shreds. The

private sector wants to get rid of a lot of stuff, especially if they

think we are coming.

But, actually, it is efficient for them to get rid of a great deal of

what they have, and they are at pains to do it. They, of course,

have to have some records, and they figure out, because it is an expense to keep records. They probably are better at figuring out

which ones to keep and which ones not to keep, given the expense

associated with it.

The Federal Government, on the other hand, has a governmental

responsibility to maintain records that others would consider trivial, and somebody has to decide where that line gets drawn. This

is often the history of important events are hidden in very small

and seemingly trivial communications.

I was impressed by the figures provided us before this hearing,

that almost 80 percent of agencies are either at high or moderate

risk of improper destruction of records. That is very scary, the word

destruction. That brought me to an interest I have had in the growing role of emails. There are some agencies, like those in the private sector, that communicate almost exclusively through emails. It

is becoming often here, as elsewhere, the central mode of communication. Are there special challenges that are unique to email in

recordkeeping by government? Ms. Brock or anyone else.

Ms. BROCK. Yes, ma’am, there are special challenges in managing email. Email has many components that can be hard to capture

as a group. It is very hard to tell whether an email is a record or

is not. For example, in GAO’s Report 08742, our National Archives

and selected agencies need to strengthen email management. They

include this wonderful flowchart on whether or not it is an email,

and it starts with, ‘‘is it a record’’ and it is ends with, ‘‘if in doubt,

ask your records officer.’’

Now, if we each had one of these stickers on our computer, we

would go crazy. But it does give us a flowchart for determining

records status.

112

We do indeed conduct our entire lives on email, and the separation between reference, record, and personal correspondence is also

very fuzzy.

Ms. NORTON. Somebody has to figure it out so there is some uniformity here. Of course, these agencies are very different, and you

do not expect absolute uniformity, but you have to have some baseline to begin with as new forms of communication emerge. God

help us when twittering becomes a major mode of communication.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

Having no other questions, that will conclude this hearing. The

hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

Æ