Hillary Clinton, who wants to be the Democratic nominee in next year’s U.S. presidential election, is in deep trouble. While she was Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, she routed all her official email correspondence through a private server at her home.
When this practice became known, she deleted 30,000 emails, claiming they related merely to family matters and the like. We can leave our American neighbours to decide what they make of that.
But here is the issue I want to draw attention to. Paper files, which historically made up the vast majority of government archives, were both difficult and dangerous to destroy.
That’s because they came with a chain of custody that included the clerical staff who typed them, mailroom staff who delivered them and filing clerks who logged them. Government managers have been convicted because their secretaries testified against them.
In contrast, electronic correspondence, which now predominates, can be sent and deleted without clerical staff ever seeing it. There need be no extended chain of custody.
True, there are devices that can, in certain cases, recover erased material. But not always, and even then, only if the material was known, or suspected, to exist. Otherwise, press the delete key and it disappears forever.
In 2009, during the B.C. Rail corruption trial, it was alleged relevant government emails had been erased. And just last year, an aide in the provincial transport ministry claimed he was instructed to delete emails to frustrate a freedom-of-information request. He asserted this was common practice.
In short, there is a huge vulnerability here. Unless iron-clad regulations are set in place to protect digital records, there is a good chance they’ll go the way of Clinton’s emails.
So does the government of B.C. have such iron-clad regulations? Well, here’s a clue. For the past 10 years, not a single record, print or electronic, has been archived. Why? Because there’s a cost attached.
Seriously. There are 33,000 boxes of records languishing in warehouses because the government wouldn’t pay for properly collating and digesting them.
This only became known after the B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner lit her hair on fire — legitimately so — and published a scathing critique last year. The government then promised to fix the problem.
A memorandum of agreement was drawn up, and new legislation has been drafted, supposedly to create a proper system for preserving government records. I say “supposedly,” however, since the statute is less than convincing.
First off, emails for the large part are exempted, because they can usually be considered transitory. That means they are deemed to be “drafts and convenience copies.” You betcha they’re convenient. Convenient for keeping government business out of the public eye.
Now, there is room for legitimate disagreement here. The definition of transitory records is so vague, it’s genuinely unclear what is meant. But exempting swaths of emails is an invitation to foul play.
Then, while the statute lays out policies for preserving electronic records, much of the responsibility for meeting them is placed on individual employees. But most staff haven’t a clue how to proceed.
There was a provincial archive that did this work, once upon a time. On taking office, the current government transferred it to the Royal B.C. Museum, in which improbable resting place it slumbered like Rip Van Winkle for a decade.
Let’s be clear. A comprehensive historical record is by far the most informative lens through which governments can be scrutinized, held accountable and evaluated after they leave office. That, to date, is why we don’t have one.
What we need is a central repository, with the legislative power to impose a bulletproof record-keeping system, the resources to police it and the expertise to create a genuinely comprehensive archive. Nothing less will do.
