[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: UPDATING THE PRESIDENTIAL
RECORDS ACT AND OTHER FEDERAL RECORDKEEPING STATUTES TO IMPROVE
ELECTRONIC RECORDS PRESERVATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 3, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 3, 2011...................................... 1
Statement of:
Ferriero, David S., Archivist of the United States, National
Archives and Records Administration, accompanied by Gary M.
Stern, General Counsel, National Archives and Records
Administration; and Brook Colangelo, chief information
officer, Office of Administration, Executive Office of the
President.................................................. 9
Colangelo, Brook......................................... 20
Ferriero, David S........................................ 9
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Colangelo, Brook, chief information officer, Office of
Administration, Executive Office of the President, prepared
statement of............................................... 22
Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Virginia, prepared statement of............... 55
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland:
Later dated May 2, 2011.................................. 38
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
Ferriero, David S., Archivist of the United States, National
Archives and Records Administration, prepared statement of. 12
Gosar, Hon. Paul A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona, prepared statement of.................... 64
Issa, Chairman Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, prepared statement of............. 3
PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: UPDATING THE PRESIDENTIAL
RECORDS ACT AND OTHER FEDERAL RECORDKEEPING STATUTES TO IMPROVE
ELECTRONIC RECORDS PRESERVATION
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2011
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Issa, McHenry, Jordan, Lankford,
Amash, Buerkle, Gosar, DesJarlais, Guinta, Farenthold,
Cummings, Maloney, Tierney, Clay, Connolly, and Murphy.
Staff present: Ali Ahmad, deputy press secretary; Robert
Borden, general counsel; Molly Boyl, parliamentarian; Steve
Castor, chief counsel, investigations; John Cuaderes, deputy
staff director; Gwen D'Luzansky, assistant clerk; Adam P.
Fromm, director of Member liaison and floor operations; Linda
Good, chief clerk; Frederick Hill, director of communications;
Ryan Little, manager of floor operations; Justin LoFranco,
press assistant; Mark D. Marin, senior professional staff
member; Ashok M. Pinto, deputy chief counsel, investigations;
Jonathan J. Skladany, senior investigative counsel; Becca
Watkins, deputy press secretary; John A. Zadrozny, counsel;
Krista Boyd, minority counsel; Ashley Etienne, minority
director of communications; Jennifer Hoffman, minority press
secretary; Carla Hultberg, minority chief clerk; Lucinda
Lessley, minority policy director; Amy Miller, minority
professional staff member; Brian Quinn, minority counsel; Dave
Rapallo, minority staff director; Suzanne Sachsman Grooms,
minority chief counsel; and Mark Stephenson, minority senior
policy advisor/legislative director.
Chairman Issa. The committee will come to order.
Today we will hear testimony on the Presidential Records in
the New Millennium: Updating the Presidential Records Act and
Other Federal Recordkeeping Statutes to Improve Electronic
Records Preservation.
We exist to secure two fundamental principles: first,
Americans have a right to know that the money Washington takes
from them is well spent and, second, Americans deserve an
efficient, effective government that works for them. Our duty
on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to protect
these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to hold government
accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to
know what they get from their government. We will work
tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the
facts to the American people and bring genuine reform to the
Federal bureaucracy. This is the mission of the Government
Oversight Committee.
Today's hearing concerns the status of executive branch
compliance with the letter and spirit of the Presidential
Records Act. The American people trust in the Presidential
Records Act; they trust in this over 30-year-old piece of
legislation to preserve for all time the records of each
administration. Crafted in the aftermath of Watergate scandal,
the act marked a major step forward in openness and
transparency for the White House. By mandating the careful
preservation of public accessibility of official records, the
American people would have an accurate historical record of
decisionmaking.
The purpose of this act is clear, but history moves on,
technology moves on, and today we deal, without a doubt, with
an administration who has to, by policy, attempt to implement
modernization of an act that never envisioned Facebook and
Twitter. This is not a new problem, but it is a growing
problem. The Clinton administration first had the digital age,
but ultimately seeing that email versus paper mail is
substantially the same and when printed is identical made it
relatively easy to comply with.
During the Bush administration, unfortunately, the move
from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange made us acutely aware
that the quantity of digital information, if not lost but
simply misstored, could end up costing us tens of millions of
dollars to recover. In fact, the digital age is more complex
and, if not handled correctly, is both more subject to loss of
critical records and cost to preserve and recover them.
We on the committee have broad oversight and we try to do
each part of government as best we can. But we do have limited
special responsibilities. The Presidential Records Act falls to
this committee. We take seriously that the decades that have
gone by have caused an act fully understood to be very
difficult to implement. We look forward to our witnesses
helping us as we begin to craft the types of legislative
reforms that will codify good policy that has been developed by
multiple administrations and go beyond that to make it clear to
the American people that all transactions appropriate and
equivalent to the original ones captured will be captured in
the digital age.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for his opening
statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Darrell E. Issa
follows:]
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, first of all, before I begin, I would like to
commend everyone who worked so hard for so long to bring Osama
bin Laden to justice. I thank our military service members, our
intelligence officials, our diplomatic corps, our law
enforcement officials, and our Nation's leaders from both
political parties. This was a sustained, unrelenting effort
over a decade, and it shows that when America confronts its
most daunting challenges, we can come together with a striking
and inspiring unity of purpose.
The Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act
are landmark open government laws that are based on a
fundamental principle that Federal agencies must retain records
of their official business. These include records that have
historical value, as well as records that are important for
administrative, informational, and evidentiary reasons.
The electronic age has brought new opportunities for making
government work more effectively and efficiently on behalf of
American taxpayers. It has also brought new challenges for
ensuring that the Federal records are maintained properly.
Previous administrations have experienced problems
preserving electronic records, particularly emails. During the
Clinton administration, the email system experienced technical
problems that resulted in lost emails. During the Bush
administration, the White House conceded that it lost hundreds
of days of official emails, and top officials routinely use
their Republican National Committee email accounts for official
business.
To address these problems, the current system now
automatically preserves all emails from White House email
accounts. In addition, White House computers block access to
private email accounts like Gmail and Hotmail. Finally, if
White House employees receive emails relating to official
business on their personal accounts, they are directed to
preserve those emails, either by forwarding them to their
official accounts or by printing them.
As cutting-edge technologies continue to develop, they will
create additional opportunities and challenges. Government
officials can now communicate with each other and with the
American public in new and creative ways through Facebook,
Twitter, and other social media outlets. We want to encourage
this kind of innovation. At the same time, we must ensure that
records of official communications are preserved.
The Obama administration has worked closely with the
National Archives to develop new policies relating to social
media. To begin with, it has limited access to these platforms
to a small fraction of White House employees. It has also
worked with the National Archives to develop protocols to save
official postings and samples of public comments in a manner
that is consistent with its protocols for written
correspondence.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, I always believe more can be
done, so the question for today's hearing is whether we can
improve the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records
Act. The clear answer from this side of the aisle is yes. On
March 17, 2011, I introduced H.R. 1144, the Transparency and
Openness in Government Act, a package of five bills that
overwhelmingly passed the House last Congress with broad
bipartisan support, including your own, Mr. Chairman, and every
Democratic member of this committee joined me, as an original
cosponsor of this legislation.
H.R. 1144 includes electronic message preservation act
which modernizes the Presidential Records Act and the Federal
Records Act to ensure that the White House and agency emails
are preserved electronically. Right now the law requires only
that these records be saved; there is no requirement that they
be saved electronically. This legislation had such bipartisan
support last Congress that it passed the House by voice vote on
March 17, 2010.
Since I introduced H.R. 1144 in March, a wide spectrum of
open government groups has endorsed it. On April 18, 2011, a
coalition of 17 organizations wrote to both of us seeking
bipartisan support and prompt action in the House. They also
said H.R. 1144, the Transparency and Openness in Government Act
will enhance the effectiveness of Federal advisory panels,
provide more access to Presidential records, secure electronic
messages generated by administration officials, ensure
donations to the Presidential libraries' open of the public
record, and give the Government Accountability Office more
teeth.
Mr. Chairman, although you declined to become an original
cosponsor of this legislation back in March, I hope that you
and I can work together on this issue in a productive way. With
that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
Chairman Issa. I thank the Ranking Member.
We now go to our witnesses.
The Honorable David S. Ferriero. I thank you for your
testimony today on behalf of the National Archives and Records
Administration. Your work there is critical to our
understanding of where reform is necessary.
Mr. Gary Stern, General Counsel to NARA, Office of
Archivist.
And Mr. Brook Colangelo is the chief information officer of
the Executive Office of the President. I appreciate your being
here today. As you know, we also wanted the policy team, but I
know that you come with probably the most critical information
for today, so I am pleased to have you here.
Pursuant to the rules of the committee, could you all rise
to take the oath and raise your right hands?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Issa. Let the record reflect that all witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Mr. Ferriero, as you know, you have been here before, we do
the green, the yellow, the red. The important thing is that all
of your statements are on the record, and although you may go
on script, to the extent that you can add to what is already
going in the record, not simply repeat it, we would appreciate
it. With that, you are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you.
STATEMENTS OF DAVID S. FERRIERO, ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED
STATES, NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION,
ACCOMPANIED BY GARY M. STERN, GENERAL COUNSEL, NATIONAL
ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; AND BROOK COLANGELO, CHIEF
INFORMATION OFFICER, OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATION, EXECUTIVE OFFICE
OF THE PRESIDENT
STATEMENT OF DAVID S. FERRIERO
Mr. Ferriero. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Issa and
Ranking Member Cummings. Thank you for calling the hearing and
for your continued attention to the management and preservation
of government records. As you mentioned, General Counsel Gary
Stern accompanies me this morning and will be available to
answer questions from the committee.
I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the work
that NARA does to implement the government recordkeeping laws,
the Presidential Records Act [PRA], and the Federal Records Act
[FRA]. The Archives have been responsible for setting
governmentwide policy on how all Federal agencies manage their
records since the enactment of the FRA in 1950.
The FRA, however, does not apply to the President, the Vice
President, and those members of their staffs that advise and
assist them. Nor does it govern recordkeeping by Congress and
the Supreme Court.
The Presidential Records Act of 1978 established public
ownership of all Presidential and vice Presidential records,
but it vested all records management and authority entirely and
exclusively with the incumbent president and vice president.
The legislative history of the PRA states that the president is
encouraged to implement sound records management practices.
Because the PRA presumes that all Presidential records must
be permanently preserved and transferred to the National
Archives at the end of the president's administration, the act
allows for comparatively straightforward records management
policy; that is, the White House saves all Presidential
records, with the exception of some publicly received bulk mail
correspondence, where a sampling is saved, and all Presidential
records are transferred to NARA when the president leaves
office.
In 1994, the Clinton administration established the policy
of preserving all White House email records with an electronic
recordkeeping system. The George W. Bush administration
continued this policy. While both administrations experienced
some problems, as you mentioned, preserving their emails, which
required restoration projects, the overall concept of capturing
and preserving electronic Presidential records in their
entirety became the accepted practice. NARA staff has
successfully transferred the electronic Presidential records of
these two administrations, along with all other records into
the National Archives.
Throughout the course of an administration, both I and my
staff provide guidance and advice on matters affecting White
House records management when invited to do so. In this
administration, NARA staff meet regularly with staff in the
White House Office of Administration and other Executive Office
of the President components on electronic records issues and
provide guidance as requested. For example, we have provided
advice on the preservation of Presidential record material
generated by the White House and posted on social media Web
sites and we have provided sampling methodology for archiving
those types of records.
NARA has testified several times before this committee on
the continuing challenges that Federal agencies across the
government have in managing and preserving electronic records
under FRA. The FRA requires each agency to follow NARA's
guidance and implement a records management program. We have
developed an extensive set of regulations and guidance on how
agencies need to manage their records.
At the beginning of this administration, President Obama
issued a Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open
Government. NARA has subsequently emphasized that the backbone
of a transparent and open 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. In February 2011, we issued our second annual Records
Management Self-Assessment Report with respect to how agencies
manage electronic records. The report noted that records
management programs at many agencies are at risk.
In September 2010, NARA also produced a report on Federal
Web 2.0 Use and Record Value that noted the Web landscape is
evolving so rapidly that if we neglect to address these issues,
we risk losing the truly valuable materials created by the
Federal Government. In that report we made several
recommendations, which are included in my written testimony.
One of the fundamental challenges that agencies have in
managing electronic records under the FRA, and what
distinguishes them from records governed by the PRA, is the
need to separate permanent records from temporary records.
Electronic records management systems generally require
significant user input to file individual records, resulting in
few agencies managing and preserving their email records
electronically.
Rather, most agencies simply rely on print-to-paper as
their official records management policy for email and many
other electronically created records. While the FRA still
provides a viable statutory framework for managing Federal
records, we believe that there could be ways to modernize the
FRA to improve the management of electronic records.
Before closing, I do want to raise one critical but often
overlooked point. Ultimately, responsibility for records
management will always rest, to some degree, with individual
Federal employees, no matter what systems are in place. That
was true in an era of exclusively paper records and it remains
true in an increasingly digital age.
As the Archivist of the United States, I have made the
management preservation and future access to electronic records
my highest priorities. Indeed, as part of the transformation
process that I have initiated within NARA, we have set up our
own records management laboratory to develop and test best
practices. I am committed to working with Congress, the White
House, and Federal agencies to do all that we can to improve
electronic records management and preservation.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. Thank you for
your attention and I am happy to answer any questions that you
have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ferriero follows:]
Chairman Issa. Thank you, Mr. Ferriero.
Mr. Stern, I understand you don't have an opening
statement. Do you have any comments at this time?
Mr. Stern. No. I will just defer until questions.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Colangelo, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF BROOK COLANGELO
Mr. Colangelo. Good morning, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member
Cummings, and distinguished members of this committee. Thank
you for inviting me to participate in today's hearing on
potential changes to the President Records Act and other
records laws.
I am pleased to appear before you to discuss information
technology systems in place for the Executive Office of the
President and their impact on electronic records management. I
have served as the chief information officer of the Office of
Administration since January 2009. OA provides common
administrative and support services to the components of the
Executive Office of the President, including the White House
Office, the National Security staff, and Office of Management
and Budget. As CIO, I oversee all unclassified enterprise
technology systems and services.
From the first days of the administration, it was clear
that the EOP's IT systems were struggling to maintain stable
and secure operations due to an aging IT infrastructure. Over
82 percent of our assets were end-of-life and no longer
supported by their manufacturer. Enterprise software was
severely out of date and had not been upgraded in years. The
EOP had a single data center and no viable plan for a secondary
disaster recovery. These flaws led to multiple email and
network outages in the first 40 days of the administration.
We have devoted significant time and resources to
modernizing the EOP IT systems in order to enhance stability,
ensure security, and provide robust electronic records
management. Among other initiatives, we have replaced network
switches, overhauled our Internet connection, patched network
gear, migrated to Exchange 2007, moved to BlackBerry Enterprise
Server 5.0, increased and upgraded our storage area network,
expanded our cybersecurity tools, and began to stand up a
disaster recovery data center.
Amid these efforts, we have worked proactively to improve
electronic records management while adapting to emerging
technologies. Although past White Houses have struggled with
email preservation, starting from the first day of this
administration, email has been preserved through an automated
archiving system that was procured by the Bush White House. We
are now taking steps to upgrade or replace this system before
it becomes outdated. We have also upgraded our email and
BlackBerry servers to improve the reliability, and we are the
first administration to begin archiving SMS text and pin-to-pin
messages on EOP BlackBerry devices.
Although we have explored an enterprise solution for
archiving records created on social networks, due to a lack of
a suitable enterprise solution, EOP components currently use a
combination of automated and manual methods to archive these
records. Finally, we have installed a new content management
system on the White House Web site that archives every change
to the site.
These initiatives have improved electronic records
management on the EOP IT systems. Additionally, we have made it
easier for staff to work on those systems. We have deployed
secure mobile workstations, enabling staff to work on EOP
systems while traveling or at home. Staff also have secure Web-
based access to EOP desktop and applications, enabling them to
work in a records managed environment from any computer.
We also restrict EOP network access to Web sites that could
pose risks to records management or security. This includes
sites like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Twitter, along with
instant messaging sites like AOL Instant Messenger from the EOP
network. A limited number of staff have access to approved
social networking sites for official business, but cannot
access Web mail sites like Gmail or Instant Messaging. Staff
who receive access and are subject to the President Records Act
receive supplemental briefing on their records management
obligations. We also restrict the ability of EOP personnel to
connect personal devices to the EOP network.
These proactive IT measures are reinforced by EOP policies.
Employees are instructed to conduct all work on EOP systems,
including electronic communications, except in emergency
circumstances when they cannot access the EOP systems and must
accomplish time-sensitive work. Staff receive guidance that the
PRA applies to work-related electronic communications on
personal accounts and are instructed to take appropriate steps
to preserve any records on their personal accounts such as
forwarding those communications to their EOP account or copying
their EOP account on outgoing emails.
Through these proactive measures, we hope to improve the
EOP electronic records management and address the challenges
presented by emerging technologies. I hope this background
information and my written testimony aids the committee's
consideration of potential changes to the President Records Act
and other Federal recordkeeping law.
Mr. Chairman, I would be pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Colangelo follows:]
Chairman Issa. Thank you. I recognize myself for 5 minutes
at this time.
Mr. Colangelo, are any of these carried into the White
House?
Mr. Colangelo. IPads, sir?
Chairman Issa. Yes.
Mr. Colangelo. We have not deployed iPads for enterprise
use.
Chairman Issa. Are any of these carried into the White
House? Have you ever seen one of these into the White House?
Mr. Colangelo. Yes.
Chairman Issa. So people carry a product which circumvents
your entire system by going to the AT&T network on a daily
basis in the White House, isn't that true? Nothing stops
someone from using this or other wi-fi connected not to any wi-
fi in the White House, but to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint systems,
and they communicate freely from the White House to Gmail or
any other account, isn't that true?
Mr. Colangelo. Mr. Chairman, we have strong policy, along
with enterprise technology, that captures our records on the
EOP network.
Chairman Issa. I heard you. Answer my question, please. If
I take an app product into the White House, as I did last night
for dinner, I have full communication capability; you don't
block any Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, or T-Mobile. The fact is that
people every day bring their private property into the White
House and can Gmail, Hotmail and the like from within the White
House, correct?
Mr. Colangelo. Individuals are not restricted on what they
bring into the White House on personal devices on the person.
Chairman Issa. So someone, if they chose to, could be
emailing back and forth to the DNC from the White House, and
you would not have the ability to capture that, is that
correct?
Mr. Colangelo. We provide training and policy to staff.
Chairman Issa. Please. I am asking only the technical
questions because you don't make policy. I ask for the policy
person; I was denied that person. So let's stick to
straightforward. I am not after the President, I am not after
the administration; I am after the changes in technology and
whether or not we are equipped to deal with them.
Today there are hundreds of products in the old Executive
Office, in the Treasury Building, and in the White House proper
being used to communicate, whether you like it or not, to
private emails. They're simply connected, is that correct?
Mr. Colangelo. That is correct, sir.
Chairman Issa. OK. We are not making an issue out of it;
that is the reality of the last decade of changes. And
hopefully our work here is not about the current occupant of
the White House, but about an act that has survived multiple
presidents with ever-changing challenges.
Mr. Ferriero, if someone were to produce a book 5 years
from now and they had their Gmail records, their Microsoft Word
documents, all of which were produced on private computers
using the Cloud while they were sitting inside the White House
or working as covered persons for the Office of the President,
would you believe you're entitled to that source material under
the Presidential Records Act?
Mr. Ferriero. If that content was work for that
administration, then, yes, that's a Presidential record.
Chairman Issa. And don't most kiss-and-tell books that come
out after a president is gone usually, but not always after,
don't they basically talk about meetings, experiences and so
on, and ultimately aren't they most often from information that
is either written, typed, or in some other way captured during
the time they are either employees of the White House or
physically in the White House. That is just the reality of what
we see post-president.
Mr. Ferriero. Exactly. In fact, some of the heaviest users
of our Presidential libraries' collections are former members
of the administration.
Chairman Issa. They have to supplement what they took with
them. How do you propose, in a digital age, that we deal with
those correspondence that occur? Ultimately, the President is
both the head of the Armed Forces, the head of the
administration, and the head of his party. How do we
appropriately capture that which we should capture, not capture
that which we shouldn't, by statute rather than policy?
Mr. Ferriero. Well, as I said, the way the law is written,
the control, unlike the Federal Records Act, the control of
that content rests with the President and the Vice President.
So the position that we have is guidance, is to provide
guidance, and Mr. Stern meets with his colleagues from the
White House on a regular basis to provide that kind of guidance
and to understand how technology is being used in the White
House.
Chairman Issa. Are all of you comfortable that a ``I will
decide which one of my Gmails fits that based on my training''
is sufficient?
Mr. Stern. Well, it is our view that both statutes, even
though they are old and were written in a time of principally
paper records, are all-encompassing; they include language
about included, but not limited to, all formats and all. So any
official communications involving their work are presumptively
Presidential records regardless of what system they are used
on. It is also our clear understanding from this administration
and prior administrations that the policy is you must use the
government systems.
Chairman Issa. Policy but not the statute. And as we
already heard, they do use non-government systems; otherwise,
there wouldn't be a policy that when you send and receive on
your Gmail, you forward it into the official system. By
definition, you can't have it both ways; you can't say the
policy is that you only use official and then the policy is on
those many, many, many, many occasions in which you don't use
the official, please forward for the record. Clearly, the
policy is not getting the job done completely.
Mr. Stern. And I guess the question is does that occur
often, or our understanding is it can occur in emergency
situations and the like, and whether it occurs on a regular
basis, we are not aware of that.
Mr. Ferriero. But let me answer your question.
Chairman Issa. Please.
Mr. Ferriero. Your question was are you comfortable. No, I
am not. Any time there is human intervention, then I am not
comfortable.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
We can agree that Federal employees should not use personal
email to conduct official business, I think. Is that right,
gentlemen?
Mr. Ferriero. They can if they forward that communication
to their official email.
Mr. Cummings. OK. However, there are many times when using
personal email might be necessary. For example, in the event of
a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, communicating on
official email may be impossible, would you agree?
Mr. Ferriero. Agree.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Colangelo, in your testimony you describe
several instances where the White House system experienced
email outages, is that correct?
Mr. Colangelo. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. Certainly, it should be made clear to
employees that it is their responsibility to forward any
records created on their personal email to their official
email.
Mr. Colangelo and Mr. Ferriero, we don't want employees to
just stop performing their duties in the White House or agency
email system if it goes down, do we? We don't want that to
happen if the agency system goes down, in other words, for them
to stop doing business.
Mr. Ferriero. Exactly.
Mr. Cummings. So under that circumstance you want to make
sure that they preserve whatever records they had.
Currently, the White House blocks access to personal email
on White House computers. Employees are prohibited from even
connecting personal electronic devices to the EOP network, is
that correct?
Mr. Colangelo. That is correct.
Mr. Cummings. Yet, some still promote the false notion that
White House employees are sitting around all day on their
personal iPhones, accessing these personal email accounts to
evade the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act.
Mr. Colangelo, what more could be done? I suppose Federal
agencies could ban employees from carrying personal cell phones
at work. They could do that, couldn't they?
Mr. Colangelo. That is more of a policy question,
Congressman; I am a technologist.
Mr. Cummings. And do we really want to create such an
extreme big brother mentality like this?
Mr. Ferriero, what else could we do?
Mr. Ferriero. The evolving guidance that we are working on
in this particular administration is a good indication of how
the system should work in a healthy environment. As I said, the
control is with the White House and the quality of the product
depends upon the relationship with the administration.
Mr. Cummings. But you are not stopping the use of personal
email. In other words, do you think it is a good idea to
require all Federal employees to stop using any personal email
as a condition of Federal employment?
Mr. Ferriero. There are instances as you describe when that
is the only solution, and, as far as I am concerned, that
should be the guidance; you use your personal connections when
you don't have access otherwise.
Mr. Cummings. OK.
Mr. Ferriero. And you ensure that record then gets
transferred to your official email.
Mr. Cummings. So obviouisly there are extreme and
ridiculous proposals designed to make a point. At its most
basic level, compliance with recordkeeping laws comes down to
employees making decisions, is that right?
Mr. Ferriero. That is the human element I was talking
about.
Mr. Cummings. Yes. And, Mr. Ferriero, isn't there
inherently some level of discretion that must be allowed to
ensure that employees can comply with the law while also doing
their jobs, is that right?
Mr. Ferriero. That is right.
Mr. Cummings. Now, last year you applauded our legislation,
the legislation that I spoke of about in my opening statement,
did you not?
Mr. Ferriero. I did.
Mr. Cummings. And you supported it with great enthusiasm,
did you not?
Mr. Ferriero. I did.
Mr. Cummings. And why is that?
Mr. Ferriero. Because it points us in the right direction
in terms of how we deal with our electronic records, and it
also raises the consciousness of Congress about the importance
of records, which is a real problem that I have inherited as
Archivist of the United States.
Mr. Cummings. So would you agree with me that would be a
giant step in the right direction?
Mr. Ferriero. It points us in the right direction, I agree.
Mr. Cummings. And is there anything that you would like to
see added to that legislation?
Mr. Ferriero. One of the things that worries me most is the
retention issue. The way the Federal Records Act is currently
written, we are still in a 1950's paper mode, where many
agencies have a 30-year retention policy for their records.
Thirty years in an electronic environment is incredibly
dangerous.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I failed in my opening
statement to ask that the letter that I mentioned with regard
to what I sent to you a while back, in March, with regard to
our legislation and the Transparency Act and then the letter I
sent to you yesterday just be a part of the record. I ask
unanimous consent.
Chairman Issa. The first one, without objection, so
ordered. The one yesterday was on this subject?
Mr. Cummings. Yes, yes. Just asking for a markup.
Chairman Issa. Oh, of course. Then without objection, so
ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
Chairman Issa. Mr. Ferriero, you said things are so
dangerous, and I don't think the Ranking Member got to hear
what was so dangerous about 30 years in an electronic age.
Mr. Ferriero. As you know, because of changes in
technology, 30 years to be retained in an agency is a very long
time. Different information technology systems being used,
different records management systems being used, great risk of
loss of records in 30 years.
Chairman Issa. In other words, we can't read DOS 3.3 so
well today. OK, thank you.
The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. DesJarlais.
Mr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We started in on this discussion just now on the 30-year
problem in document preservation, and I think maybe we should
explore that further. Mr. Stern, certainly feel free to jump
in.
Does the NARA favor elimination of the current 30-year
presumption?
Mr. Ferriero. Yes.
Mr. Stern. And I would just add the 30-year issue is about
when they transfer permanent records into the National
Archives. For agencies only a tiny fraction of all the records
they create are permanent for transfer into the Archives, and
our concern is, on permanent records, we want to ensure we get
them as early as possible so that we don't have a problem of
format obsolescence.
Mr. DesJarlais. Often on Presidential recordkeeping is it
common that on the second term they are more aggressive getting
these archived? Is it your presumption that we should start
earlier in a president's term?
Mr. Stern. The advantage of, in any Presidential term, even
two terms, that is only 8 years at the longest, so that is
relatively recent enough that we are able to get all the
records in a reasonable good format. But we work with the new
administration on day one and, from our perspective, we are
planning a transition the first day the President is in office
in terms of working and coordinating to ensure that all
records, particularly electronic records, would be in the right
shape and format so they can be transferred to us when the
President leaves office.
Mr. DesJarlais. OK.
Mr. Ferriero, which and how many Federal agencies currently
take advantage of pre-accessioning and turn over their
documents before they are required to do so?
Mr. Ferriero. Pre-accessioning?
Mr. DesJarlais. The early turnover of documents.
Mr. Ferriero. Only about half a dozen.
Mr. DesJarlais. Half a dozen? And you would like to see
that?
Mr. Ferriero. Actually, as the Archivist, I would be really
interested in getting in at the creation so that we have better
control.
Mr. DesJarlais. What part of the Federal Records Act would
have to be updated to eliminate the current 30-year
presumption?
Mr. Ferriero. I believe it is Section 2107, 2108 have
language with respect to the agency retention up to 30 years.
Mr. DesJarlais. OK. Would the NARA prefer a default
preservation rule that requires periodic turnover; quarterly,
semiannually, annually, of agency electronic documents?
Mr. Ferriero. We are exploring various models.
Mr. DesJarlais. Mr. Stern, would the NARA be able to handle
a shift to periodic submission of agency electronic documents
at current funding and personnel levels?
Mr. Stern. Yes, we think we will. In terms of the issues of
pre-accessioning, we would just get copies for storage in its
original format; the agencies would still have legal custody
and be responsible for access, use, all of those issues until
there is the formal legal transfer, which still could take
place many years down the line. We just want to ensure we get a
copy set that we can preserve in that original format.
Mr. DesJarlais. Mr. Ferriero, shifting gears a little bit,
the Federal Records Act appears to split the responsibility for
managing Federal records between the NARA and GSA. Is this by
design or a remnant of the old GSA authorizing statute?
Mr. Ferriero. This is a remnant.
Mr. DesJarlais. OK.
Mr. Ferriero. In 1985 the agency separated from GSA and
that still is in the law.
Mr. DesJarlais. Are there any practical functional problems
as a result of the fact that the Federal Records Act talks of
GSA as having a role in the Federal record management?
Mr. Ferriero. Not really.
Mr. DesJarlais. OK.
Mr. Ferriero. And they have never exercised any, at least
in my experience they have never exercised any authority over
records.
Mr. DesJarlais. And do you have any idea what GSA's
perspective is regarding possible clarification of duties?
Mr. Ferriero. I am sure they would be amenable.
Mr. DesJarlais. They would favor it?
Mr. Ferriero. I would guess.
Mr. DesJarlais. All right.
Mr. Stern, what parts of the Federal Records Act would have
to be updated to clarify NARA's exclusive custodial role?
Mr. Stern. I believe that is in Chapter 29 is where they
talk about the responsibilities of the Archivist and the
Administrator of GSA. So that would be a place to look to
clarify that issue.
Mr. DesJarlais. And Mr. Colangelo, I wasn't meaning to
ignore you; I was afraid I might mispronounce your name as
well. But I am out of time and I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. You gave me back 12 seconds.
Mr. DesJarlais. Well, I hate to do that.
Chairman Issa. That is all right. We will let it happen
this one time.
The gentlelady from New York, Mrs. Maloney.
I am sorry, I got my paper just as I announced the wrong
order. So now I have the right order starting with yourself.
Mrs. Maloney. I thank the chairman for calling this meeting
on this important topic.
A lot of what we are talking about today involves the
preserving of Federal records, but preserving Federal records
is really, in my opinion, not enough. I would say that it is
equally as important to make these records available to the
press and available to the general public.
Now, the American people have a right to know what their
government is doing, what meetings are taking place, what they
are working on, and one of the ways that they are able to
figure this out is by having the press really report on the
records on what the government is doing. I would like to point
out that the Obama administration has taken many very important
steps to open up government and to allow the public to see what
is taking place. It is probably the most transparent government
in the history of our country, and I would like to give one
specific example and ask for your comment on this.
In December 2009, the White House began making all visitor
access logs available on the White House Web site so the public
knows who is wooing whom, who is going to the meetings; what
are they working on; who has access. So I would like to ask Mr.
Ferriero or Mr. Stern to comment on how important a step was
this for the White House to make the visitor logs available to
the general public, to the press to write about it. This is the
first time in history this has been opened up to the American
people. How important a step is this?
Mr. Ferriero. I will start. I think it is incredibly
important, but it also needs to be coupled with other heads of
agencies releasing their calendars and their schedules also,
and we haven't made as much progress there.
Mrs. Maloney. Mr. Stern, do you have a comment?
Mr. Stern. Well, with respect to those records, those
records are preserved as Presidential records and they are all
transferred to the National Archives when the President leaves
office, so we have White House entry records going all the way
back, even before there was an electronic system, even before
to entry records in the Roosevelt White House. So it is
certainly our mission as the National Archives to open records
as quickly as we can when they come to us, and we always
encourage the rest of the government to be as open as they can
too.
Mrs. Maloney. But this is the first time it has been opened
to the general public before it went to Archives or put on a
Web site.
Mr. Stern. I believe on a systematic basis, that is my
understanding, yes.
Mrs. Maloney. I would also like to point out that this
administration has probably been more effective than any other
in the history of our country and has made use of the social
media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging, and these
applications bring great innovation and allow people to have
access to what our government is doing and what the activities
are, but they also bring very special challenges for the
archiving of this information because of the tremendous volume
that is generated every single day.
So I would like to ask you, Mr. Ferriero, the National
Archives has a blog, Facebook page, Twitter, and YouTube
accounts. How do you preserve the records generated on this
social media? How do you preserve it now?
Mr. Ferriero. It is an exciting time to be the Archivist
because of the rapid changes in technology and also because of,
as you mention, the volume of content that is now being
generated. We have developed guidelines for the agencies to
consider their use of social media; it is on our Web site and
we have raised a series of questions with them to analyze the
content of their postings on social media to make decisions
about whether they are records or not. If they are records,
then they need to be captured just as under the guidance of the
Federal Records Act, and we have provided guidance on the
capture of that content also.
Mrs. Maloney. Would you say the benefits of using social
media and these various tools to communicate with the general
public outweigh the challenges posed to archiving it?
Mr. Ferriero. Yes, definitely. This administration is
committed to involving the American public in the workings of
government in a way that it has never been involved before, and
this is the way it is happening.
Mrs. Maloney. I would like to close, since both of you have
mentioned the importance of having the agencies involved and
that the performance of the agencies in managing electronic
records are equally as important, and I would just like to
point out that we have a bill before Congress, the Message
Preservation Act, that calls upon the agencies to
electronically save this information and to save their emails
electronically, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle to join me and many others in pushing for the passage of
this bill.
Thank you very much. My time has expired.
Mr. DesJarlais [presiding]. The gentleman from North
Carolina is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. McHenry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Ferriero, thank you for being here. I certainly
appreciate your leadership and your time, and certainly I
appreciated it with Chairman Clay last Congress, having
oversight in our subcommittee of NARA, and appreciate the hard
work that you do. Also appreciate the fact that you have a
North Carolina connection.
I wanted to ask you about the print-to-paper policy. Could
you discuss the drawbacks to this idea that rather than keeping
a digital record, which seems more efficient, easier to search,
easier to maintain, I would guess it would be easier to
maintain, compared to this idea that you simply print something
off and put in a file?
Mr. Ferriero. I already have 10 billion pieces of paper; I
don't need any more paper. It is embarrassing that in the year
2011 our guidance is print and save. We should be capturing
this electronically. I have 44 facilities around the country.
The storage costs for paper are enormous.
Mr. McHenry. In what ways can we improve this?
Mr. Ferriero. The guidance in the EMPA is to acknowledge,
as we have in the Presidential Records Act, acknowledge
electronic communication as record. That will help.
Mr. McHenry. What part of the Federal Records Act would
have to be updated in order to insist that we have electronic
records?
Mr. Stern. You would have to look at the specific
provisions, but we are familiar with the legislation, the EMPA,
and that would amend I believe it is through Chapter 29, and
there may be other provisions that warrant looking at in terms
of mandating electronic preservation of at least electronic
messages, as that statute does, and our view is that we support
the goals of that effort.
Mr. McHenry. Now, Dr. Ferriero, we have discussed this
before in a larger, broader context. You inherited a lot of
difficulties come in as Archivist, and I have asked you this at
every hearing that you have been before the committee, so you
probably know where I am going with this, but in terms of how
employees rank their happiness with their job and fulfillment
with their job, NARA has had some challenges.
You discussed 44 facilities. It is a pretty large
institution you are running. But in comparison to other Federal
employees' work satisfaction hasn't been the highest at NARA
and that has led, in my opinion, to some data losses based off
of people not getting full fulfillment out of their job,
haven't taken the pride in preserving some of these documents.
Now, I know you have a very credible staff, you have great
folks that work at NARA, but what have you done to improve this
in the year and a half now, 18 months you have been on the job?
Mr. Ferriero. You are right, we are tied for last place in
the Employee Viewpoint Survey, tied with HUD, and it is not
where I want us to be. We have, in the past 8 months, gone
through a major reorganization, transformation of the agency,
created basically a new organization, driving out repetitive
kinds of operations and streamlining and making it more
efficient, but most importantly putting our user community in
the center of what we are doing and engaging the staff in this
process. And the engagement of the staff through social media
internally has really had an impact on how people feel about
being part of one large agency.
I visited now 32 of our 44 facilities, so I have had an
opportunity to meet firsthand with the staff to talk to them.
First question: What is it like to work here? Tell me the
stories. With and without supervisors. So I have gotten a
really good picture of what works and what doesn't work, and we
are serious about turning that around to make it the best
agency in the government.
Mr. McHenry. Very good. Very good. Thank you for your
testimony today and thank you all for your service to our
government.
Mr. DesJarlais. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Missouri, Mr. Clay, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Archivist Ferriero, it is very good to see you again. I
would like to take a moment to say that you are doing an
outstanding job leading the National Archives. Your
reorganization, your transformation of the agency will, I
believe, result in vastly improved services to all the
stakeholders and customers that you serve. This is especially
true regarding open government and electronic records
management.
I would like to ask you about regulations. As you know, the
House, last year, passed the Electronic Message Preservation
Act [EMPA]. Under this legislation, you would be required to
issue regulations to agencies and the White House on the
preservation of electronic messages. This Congress, Ranking
Member Cummings has introduced H.R. 1144, the Transparency and
Openness in Government Act, which includes the language of
EMPA. H.R. 1144 also includes the Presidential Records Act
amendments, which overwhelmingly passed the House the last
Congress.
Archivist Ferriero, would these improvements, along with
the existing statutes, provide you with the tools that you need
in order to help agencies comply with Federal recordkeeping
statutes and can you elaborate on how exactly these
improvements would be helpful.
Mr. Ferriero. We are very supportive of the direction of
H.R. 1144. As I said, and I don't want to keep repeating
myself, my biggest concern is about retention, how long
electronic records are retained in the agencies. If we can deal
with that, I will be happy.
Mr. Clay. Thank you. So you agree that we need to get rid
of the paper.
Mr. Ferriero. I agree. I love paper, but----
Mr. Clay. You have driven that point home this morning
about paper; it does become cumbersome and there are ways to
transfer that data over to electronic means in this day and
age.
Let me ask Mr. Colangelo what is the current state of the
White House email archiving system, is it up to task?
Mr. Colangelo. Congressman, yes, the email archiving is
fully operational and is ingesting all email, to the best of my
knowledge.
Mr. Clay. This is more of a comment than a question, but
during the previous administration this committee discovered
something very disturbing. This was after we learned that the
previous White House was unable to properly manage the emails
in their system and many were lost. On top of that, dozens of
senior White House officials conducted official business using
their Republican National Committee email accounts instead of
their official government accounts. Countless records, perhaps
millions, that should have been preserved under Federal statute
were lost.
Mr. Colangelo, do we have to worry about those same
problems in this White House?
Mr. Colangelo. Congressman, what we have done since 2009 is
worked with the technology that the Bush administration
procured, which is a commercial off-the-shelf product, a proven
technology to archive records. So the EOP email systems are
being archived. Additionally to that, we have also stabilized
our systems and enhanced mobility so that we offer users many
choices to access the EOP system when they need to do their EOP
work either from a laptop or a secure Web-based system, so that
they have the opportunity to do EOP work anytime.
Mr. Clay. Thank you for your response and all of the
witnesses' responses.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. DesJarlais. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The Chair will now recognize the gentlelady from New York,
Ms. Buerkle, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Buerkle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
panelists for being here this morning.
My question has to do with the split between the
responsibility for managing Federal records with regards to
NARA and GSA. If you could, what we are looking at right now
appears to split the responsibility. Is that by design or is
that something that was it just so happened that way?
Mr. Stern. Yes, the National Archives used to be part of
GSA, and in 1985 we were split and became an independent agency
from GSA, but when they revised the statute at that time, they
left some responsibilities for economy and efficiency and such
with GSA in coordination with the Archivist of the United
States. Our experience in the last 25-plus years is that GSA
has really lost interest and hasn't played any functional role
in dealing with management and preservation of records, so I
think it is not unreasonable to consider whether they need to
have a role in the statute. And as the Archivist testified
earlier this morning, we don't think GSA will likely have any
resistance either.
Ms. Buerkle. I apologize, I have been advised that this has
already been covered before I got here, so I apologize for
that.
Let's go to the whole email question and the preservation
of those. Do you have, Mr. Ferriero, any recommendations
regarding potential additional rules for ensuring that the
transfer of the Presidential administration electronic
documents will be finished within a 60-day timeframe? How can
we make sure that happens?
Mr. Ferriero. I am not sure the 60 days, where that comes
from. The transfer actually happens at the end of the
administration, so everything is retained in the White House
until the administration changes. In fact, during the
inauguration ceremony Archive staff is in the White House.
Chairman Issa [presiding]. Would the gentlelady yield?
Ms. Buerkle. Sure.
Chairman Issa. To the gentlelady's question, would you
prefer that there be transfers during the administration so
that, in fact, if there are any questions, you find out about
them while they are still using the same software and the same
personnel are still there?
Mr. Ferriero. That is a good question. As I said, we have
these regular meetings with our colleagues in the White House
about how they are managing their records. I hadn't really
thought about capturing them sooner. It is certainly an
attitude I have on the other side, on the Federal records
scenario.
Ms. Buerkle. I believe that this issue is raised because,
in the instance where, obviously with President Clinton and
President Bush, those were two terms, but in the event that
there was a single term president, the turnaround within the 60
days, I think that is where that question came from.
Mr. Ferriero. I see.
Ms. Buerkle. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Issa. Would the gentlelady further yield?
Ms. Buerkle. Sure.
Chairman Issa. Mr. Ferriero, you earlier talked in terms of
what could be captured, what couldn't be captured. Obviously,
the Ranking Member and I have an agreement that in times of an
emergency in which the system is down, you come as you are,
bring what you have, and do what you must.
But assuming that there are covered persons, and we would
have to define covered persons not to be just anybody, but
covered persons that have personal emails and personal
Facebooks, do you believe the statute should give an absolute
right for those covered persons' documents, if you will, to be
reviewed by a third party to ensure that there is compliance
with the law?
I am not talking about, you know, if you will, preempting
people's personal rights, but if you are a covered person and
you have access and you may or may not have used it, is that
discretion something you would like see reviewable at least by
the Office of the Presidency itself?
Mr. Ferriero. Certainly by the Office of the Presidency,
yes. And I could, after more thought, extend that. My concern,
as I have said, has to do with any time there is the human
element involved, when someone has to make a decision and
remember to transfer those to their official email system. The
beauty of the White House email system now is it automatically
captures it.
Chairman Issa. It is 100 percent even if it is just you
emailing your wife to say you will be late, like so many people
do at the White House everyday.
Mr. Colangelo. Correct. It preserves all inbound and
outbound communication.
Chairman Issa. So I guess my followup, Mr. Colangelo, is
since you capture 100 percent of all communication on the
Exchange system at the White House, and since that includes
private conversations that do occur, I mean, people do email
home ET, I am phoning home, I won't be home at any reasonable
time tonight, they just killed bin Laden, if that happens, you
capture it, it is there.
Thirty years from now people will be able to see what
somebody said that evening to their family on why they weren't
going to be home until after midnight. Shouldn't we, in
reverse, also have that ability to collect data from covered
persons the other direction in some organized way, in your
opinion?
Mr. Colangelo. From a technology standpoint, Mr. Chairman,
I am not necessarily sure how we would collect data from
personal accounts.
Chairman Issa. The time has expired. I yield back.
At this time we recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Connolly, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman, I
would ask, without objection, my opening statement be entered
into the record.
Chairman Issa. Without objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Gerald E. Connolly
follows:]
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair.
Mr. Ferriero, NARA's 2010 Records Management Self-
Assessment Report identifies several difficulties in managing
electronic records: technological complications and
preservation, proper disposition, the volume, propriety in
cutting-edge technologies to create records, and decentralized
environment in which they reside. What mechanisms are currently
in place to encourage collaboration between records management
and IT professionals as needed?
Mr. Ferriero. That is a terrific question. I have been the
Archivist for 18 months and----
Mr. Connolly. Did you hear that, Mr. Chairman? It was a
terrific question.
Mr. Ferriero [continuing]. And one of the first
partnerships I created was with the CIO. The CIO sits at the
head of the CIO council. We have a records management council
also, and I discovered that the records managers and the
information officers have never worked together, talked, met
together. So the situation is that we have the IT folks off
developing systems, all of which have records implications, not
talking to their records managers. So we convened the first-
ever joint meeting of the two to start this relationship of
records managers being at the table with their CIOs as new
systems are being developed.
The situation is even more complicated for me because, in
the wonderful world of the Federal job family, there is no such
thing as a records manager. So we are working now with OPM to
create a family of jobs around information management that will
address the problem. So the result is in many agencies and
subagencies the assignment for records management falls to the
most junior person in the agency; not a full-time job, high
turnover, not very well trained, and we get what we get from
that situation.
Mr. Connolly. A recent report by the American Council for
Technology Industry on government best practices for social
media recordkeeping identified the need to develop
communications between social media team and records management
as best practice No. 1. The report also said until best
practices and tools emerge to assist in the records management
of social media records, agencies were tending toward retaining
all social media content so that those portions of the records
are protected.
Given the overwhelming volume of data this could encompass,
I would be interested in your thoughts about what is the best
practice going forward? What are the challenges of the save
everything approach to management?
Mr. Ferriero. The issue that I described about the CIOs and
records managers is similar to records managers and Web
managers. So we have recently brought together the Federal Web
managers and the records managers to talk about this very issue
of what needs to be captured and how it needs to be captured. I
referred earlier to some guidance that NARA has provided for
helping those folks responsible for the social media to ask a
series of questions about the content to determine whether it
is record or not record.
Mr. Connolly. You make reference to NARA and I think there
was some indication that these best practices would be put on
the Web site. Any idea of time line for that?
Mr. Ferriero. The guidance is up, the report is up. In
terms of best practices, that is coming. When?
Mr. Connolly. What is that?
Mr. Ferriero. Within a year.
Mr. Connolly. Without a year. Hopefully sooner.
Mr. Ferriero. Yes, I agree.
Mr. Connolly. My time is almost running out but, Mr.
Colangelo, is it really reasonable to expect employees in the
White House not to, from time to time, have to use Gmail or to
use their iPads to communicate with spouses, friends, family,
whatever? I mean, that is not something that is normally
enforced in the normal workplace.
Mr. Colangelo. That is correct. That communication also
takes the stress off of our system, so it reduces the work
system as only for work systems, and it keeps the clear
separation between personal and government issue equipment.
Mr. Connolly. So people are allowed to use their work
computers for Gmail?
Mr. Colangelo. No. I am sorry. On their government
equipment they are not allowed to access social media or Web-
based email sites, it is blocked from a technical standpoint on
our network.
Mr. Connolly. So it is a much stricter standard than exists
in most workplaces.
Mr. Colangelo. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you.
My time is up, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Issa. Thank you.
The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized, Mr. Lankford.
Mr. Lankford. I would like to yield back my time to the
chairman at this point.
Chairman Issa. Oh, OK. Well, I will take the time for a few
minutes. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Ferriero, you oversee, from a FOIA standpoint, a
tremendous amount of information, even though you work with the
libraries where many of the assets reside. Ultimately, a
Freedom of Information Act request on any president covered
under your records, your many archives, belongs to you, isn't
that correct?
Mr. Ferriero. That is right.
Chairman Issa. How many people do you have, roughly, doing
FOIA within your jurisdiction? Directly and indirectly, because
obviously librarians at the various libraries assist.
Mr. Stern. We do submit a report to the Department of
Justice that has that number. I am afraid I don't remember
specifically.
Chairman Issa. It is in the many hundreds, though.
Mr. Stern. Yes. At the Presidential libraries where FOIA
applies, which is Reagan forward, there is probably about
roughly 50 archivists doing FOIA review and processing, and
then there is at least that number dealing with Federal
archival records here in Washington and in our regional
archives.
Chairman Issa. But if I can followup, the desire to FOIA
30-year-old material generally from the government is pretty
minimal, right? In other words, agencies control for 30 years
their documents; you control them when they are too old for
anyone to ask.
Mr. Stern. Well, the original model of the archives was you
wanted the records to get to an age where they are no longer
needed by the agency and where the restrictions pretty much are
lifted. So in the old model, after 30 years, when they
transferred records to us, we could presume that the records
were virtually open in their entirety, unless there was
classified information or personal privacy information. So the
ideal is, when they come to us, we can just make them open; you
wouldn't need to make a FOIA request because you could just
come to the research room and we could provide them.
Chairman Issa. Following up on that, because this really is
a major reform committee on both pieces of legislation
question. Today, if President Obama were to decide not to run
for a second term, which I understand he has already made that
decision, you are only 2 years away from receiving 4 years of
information.
So you have this variable that goes from 4 years to 8
years; presumably it will be 8 years for this administration
like it was for the previous two. But when I look at the
Department of Homeland Security, you have decades before, under
completely different cabinet officers, those records are going
to be available.
In a sense, in your opinion, and, Mr. Ferriero, I think I
will bring this one to you, in a sense, doesn't an
administration's sunset and an even hand of a nonpartisan
entity become the more logical custodian at the end of an
administration of, for example, Department of Homeland Security
from the Bush administration? Right now Secretary Napolitano
hires 400 people to decide whether or not Bush era records are
publicly available or not.
Does that seem like an area of modernization that we should
hold hearings on and decide whether or not to take the entire
presidency as a period of time in order to refresh broadly? And
that is why I asked about your own history, because you are
making FOIA decisions on President W. Bush today, while in fact
you are not making decisions on any of his people and his
administration. Instead, the succeeding administration of the
opposite party is making those decisions. Complex question.
What would you say?
Mr. Ferriero. But it is an interesting thought.
Mr. Stern. Well, I would just add, under the Presidential
Records Act, when we receive the records from an
administration, there is a 5-year period where there is no
public access. So, in fact, right now there is still no access
under FOIA----
Chairman Issa. Without joint consent.
Mr. Stern. Well----
Chairman Issa. An administration can choose to release.
There have been releases after an administration has gone
sunset, but they have been in concert.
Mr. Stern. Before the 5-years, a very tiny amount. So
generally it is not until 5 years after the administration
leaves office that we start opening records to FOIA requests on
a systematic basis.
Chairman Issa. But that is still 15-plus years sooner than
you will the cabinet officers' records.
Mr. Stern. So the notion that if we were to get more
records earlier and have to process them, I think it would have
to be accompanied by rather massive addition of staff and
resources to deal with the processing element of it, and part
of the old model is they are the agencies' records, the
agencies can decide on the restrictions and on access, and they
have greater resources than we would have if we take in massive
amounts of agency records in addition to Presidential records.
Chairman Issa. Well, even my borrowed time is now expiring,
but I would let you know what I am thinking, and the Ranking
Member. It has become my at least straw person belief that in
fact FOIA should broadly not belong to the administration; that
it should be handed off in its greatest portion to individuals
who report to someone who wants public information public,
private information private, and who is apolitical.
That general belief doesn't change the fact that the
Department of Defense, what is going on today, must be
determined by the Department of Defense and its current cabinet
officer. But the sooner that transfer were to occur, the more
likely the public would have a fair right to know not in any
way determine either by the vindictiveness of the next
administration or the graciousness of covering up by the next
administration, both of which, quite frankly, the record shows
there has been a certain amount of that has gone on under both
parties.
I recognize the Ranking Member for his second round.
Mr. Cummings. I was just listening to the chairman's
proposal. One of you said that everything seems to boil down to
discretion, even a proposal like that, determining which
records are supposed to be released under FOIA.
But let me go back to you, Mr. Ferriero. You, in answering
one of the chairman's questions, he was talking about those
personal emails where somebody says I have to stay late because
something has gone on in the White House, just a little note to
their wife or husband, whatever. You are not trying to preserve
those kind of records, are you?
Mr. Ferriero. They are. They are captured.
Mr. Cummings. But that is not the kind of stuff that you
really are that interested in.
Mr. Ferriero. Well, it is interesting because I learned a
lot when we were working on the Elena Kagan confirmation
hearing and we had to deliver a lot of content from the Clinton
White House, 65,000 email messages that Elena Kagan had some
role in, and very often those messages were a combination of
personal and business, and it is hard to separate out, unless
you are going message by message and determining what is
personal and what is not personal. So the procedure, policy in
the White House now of capturing everything works for me.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Colangelo, in the beginning of your
testimony you talked about how you had to come in and equipment
apparently was outdated and there were some problems. We needed
to just bring, I guess, our software up so that it could do the
job we needed it to do. And I am wondering where are we now
with that and how do you make sure--I was just telling the
chairman a few minutes ago that he and I came along a while
back, and we can still remember when people were using carbon
paper and typewriters, and now all technology changes, seems
like, every 5 or 6 days, if not every day.
So how do you keep up with that? How do you make sure you
stay on the cutting edge and at the same time make sure that it
is a balanced approach so you are not just getting equipment
that is going to be outdated tomorrow? And I ask that so I am
just trying to figure out the efficiency and effectiveness of
maintaining these records. Do you follow me? Believe it or not,
I have some 8-tracks in my basement and nothing to play them
on. So I am just wondering.
Mr. Colangelo. Thank you, Mr. Cummings. Congressman, what
we did in the beginning of the administration was really invest
in stabilizing our core. We averaged somewhere in the 70
percent uptime in the first 40 days of the administration; now
we are over 99 percent operational uptime. We had to replace a
lot of key systems because they were in need of upgrade.
How we do this now, going forward, is we have a continual
investment in our infrastructure so that it is not an uphill
battle, it is a constant level flow, that we are constantly
upgrading new systems, as I mentioned in my testimony, where we
are looking at upgrading our archiving system before it becomes
out of date. So let's beat that before it gets to that end-of-
life state.
And now we constantly look at new technology before
integrating it into the EOP enterprise to ensure that it does
follow the compliance and records management and helps meet the
business need. So it is constantly meeting that business need
and also making sure that we are compliant with that.
Mr. Cummings. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would just again ask
that we schedule a date as soon as possible for the marking up
of 1144. Mr. Ferriero, I think, has agreed that this is a giant
step in the right direction. It is really noncontroversial and
I think it is something that we all could be proud of and could
in a bipartisan way. Again I ask that and, with that, I yield
back.
Chairman Issa. I thank the gentleman.
I will just do a very short second round myself.
Mr. Ferriero, the challenge you face would appear to be
that each administration delivers you records in a certain way.
The Clinton administration, as I understand it, delivered you
Lotus Notes as a system.
Famously, from this committee's standpoint, the next
president tried to take Lotus Notes and transfer it to
Microsoft Office Suite, including Exchange, and then
discovered, among other things, that they are image backups and
were not capturing. So we have seen these transitions.
What is it we can do for you broadly, as the Archivist,
either through mandating that the systems that are delivered to
you be in an open format or an interoperable format or in some
format that at least allows you to port them in the future that
would help you? As we look at updating these things, there is
sort of the question of paper was understood. You could specify
8\1/2\ by 14 bond paper with 10 courier. But those days are
gone. And if I had DOS 3.3 WordPerfect followed by we won't
even go through SuperCalc and all the other programs that are
long forgotten, they would deliver me an amazing nightmare. You
have that, don't you?
Mr. Ferriero. I do have that nightmare, and it makes paper
look very good today. The electronic records archive that we
are creating, in fact, is designed to accommodate those changes
in technology as well as changes in attachment. It has
neutralized formats basically to make it possible for us to
migrate the digits through time so that they are available in
perpetuity.
On the other hand, being much more involved at the creation
point, as I talked about earlier, is important to us so that we
can establish standards around email creation and electronic
record creation and capture.
Chairman Issa. So, in closing, if, in our modernization
legislation, we mandated that all agencies give you sufficient
comfort with their preservation on an annual basis so that
either the material could be transferred or changes could be
made so that the next year you are not getting 2 years of
information that is going to be very expensive to change, that
would be helpful. Second, if in fact we design for transfer at
the front-end, then you could save and the American people
could save a huge amount of money, isn't that correct?
Mr. Ferriero. I agree.
Chairman Issa. Well, that will be among other things in our
legislation.
I will close. Mr. Colangelo, you talked about the good and
the bad of the Bush administration. Is there a way that we
could ensure that the funding and the capability of each
administration were more best practices as a matter of course,
or is it simply that President Bush did a great job of
capturing email archives and creating the Naz and the Volt and
so on, while toward the end refreshing servers was not a
priority and you inherited them over 3 years old? Those kinds
of good and bad, should we have a role or are you satisfied
that each administration does the best they can and hands off?
Mr. Colangelo. From a technology standpoint, I think it is
important to invest in infrastructure so that there is a
continual flat line there versus the up and down.
Chairman Issa. OK.
I might note, by the way, that the White House has almost
always been at least one generation of the Exchange system
ahead of the House.
With that, I thank all of you.
Oh, I apologize. Now I would recognize Mr. Lankford for a
second round.
Mr. Lankford. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Colangelo, I just had a couple questions for you.
Reading through your notes, and I apologize for slipping in a
little bit late here. Tell me a little bit about the Facebook
tracking and Twitter. I know certain sites or certain locations
have that, have access; others are blocked from that. How is
that being tracked? I see some conflict in how we are able to
handle that with the technology.
Mr. Colangelo. Thank you, Congressman. So, from a
technology standpoint, we have an enterprise-wide gateway that
blocks all staff from accessing these, and then when a
component staff member makes a request for this, it is reviewed
by their counsel and then if it is appropriate for the business
use, they are allowed access through a certain policy and they
have access to an approved number of sites.
We have looked for an enterprise-wide preservation system.
Technology hasn't matured enough currently, but we are
continuing to look and hoping that it will come around. What
happens now is records are preserved by a component-by-
component basis. And I know today actually the White House
released a blog post on WhiteHouse.gov describing their process
for capturing records on some of these sites.
So, for example, on Twitter they use an RSS, Real Simple
Syndication, that emails back into the email archive system,
and Facebook uses screen captures. And then for different sites
there are APIs that capture this and then sometimes it is just
electronic capturing of a screen.
Mr. Lankford. But the email system that you use
specifically with Facebook or the message-to-message with
Twitter, how are those captured?
Mr. Colangelo. For every individual that is provided access
into the social networking sites, they are provided additional
guidance and training from legal counsel on their Presidential
Record Act obligations.
Mr. Lankford. Right. But you are saying currently they are
not capturing, so the other Gmail and those things are blocked
for that, but the actual email out of Facebook, they are just
given guidance saying don't do it on that one, but they are not
actually tracked, they are not recorded, they are not anything.
So a personal message, for instance, on another email, don't
forget to grab milk on the way home, would be captured through
the traditional email system, but a message that is going
through Facebook, through the email system on that, for those
computers, would not be captured in any way.
Mr. Colangelo. Personal email is blocked, again, from all--
--
Mr. Lankford. Right. I mean, if they did it through the
traditional system.
Mr. Colangelo. On the individual users, it is managed on a
component-by-component basis for those who have access to those
suites. As I mentioned, we don't have an enterprise
preservation system currently available.
Mr. Lankford. OK. Is that an issue for us, that there is
basically email that is going through our system that basically
they are just told not to do anything on that should be related
to official business, that would just be personal on that, or
what are the parameters that are given to them to say you have
access to Facebook, but please don't in these areas?
Mr. Colangelo. I know that the guidance is pretty detailed.
I don't have that access, so I haven't gone through the
training, so I can't actually speak to that.
Mr. Lankford. OK. Do you consider that to be an issue for
us at this point, that we do have a series of email
communications that are hanging out there that we are not
archiving, or do you think that--how can we know on that one
way or the other?
Mr. Colangelo. From a numbers perspective, it is roughly 2
percent, as I noted in my written testimony, so 2 percent of
the EOP population that have this access on the government
systems. And these users are special users in and of
themselves.
Mr. Lankford. That is part of the issue. It is not just
that there is 2 percent, it is who are the 2 percent I guess
would make a significant difference.
Mr. Colangelo. Sure. And the users are largely the White
House new media team, the folks that manage the President
Obama's Facebook and the other Facebook accounts out there. And
then I know it is also for some lawyers for assessing of
candidates, as it is a common corporate practice as well to
look at social networking.
Mr. Lankford. Is that something that we would consider
valuable in a preservation status?
Mr. Ferriero, is that something that you would think,
somewhere down the road, people would want to be able to look
at?
Mr. Colangelo. It is the business of the White House. Those
are Presidential records.
Mr. Lankford. I think we need to find a solution to that.
That is one of those things that is hanging out. I understand
the technology change and how things are shifting. There is
nothing off-the-shelf on that, but it may be something that we
need to address in the coming days.
Obviously, this President, as is par for our culture as a
whole, is very interested in being able to use social media
sites, and I think it is very appropriate. The inappropriate
side is we have a large volume of a lot of interaction with
constituents and with people and with the White House that is
not being tracked and is not being monitored.
Mr. Colangelo. We continue to look into this technology. We
are hoping that the industry evolves.
Mr. Lankford. I would just suggest that is something we
need to address in the coming days, to be able to establish
whether it is a relationship with the social sites or some way
to be able to establish that technology-wise.
And with that I yield back.
Chairman Issa. Thank you. And I thank the gentleman for his
interest, and with your history of tracking, what, 21,000 young
people every year going through your camps, I suspect that you
know more about how to keep track of the hardest things to keep
track of in the world.
With that, I want to thank all of our witnesses. You have
been very generous with your time. I appreciate your input; it
will help us as we go forward. Clearly, some of you will be
back again as we try to implement good policy after so many
years of a law sustaining that.
With that, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:02 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Paul A. Gosar and
additional information submitted for the hearing record
follow:]