State Department officials avoid preserving their government emails whenever possible because “they do not want to make the email available in searches,” according to a new inspector general report made public Wednesday.
The report said investigators were told by State Department officials that “many emails that qualify as records are not being saved as record emails.” The same conclusion was reached by the inspector general in a 2012 report that said State Department officials “did not ensure properimplementation, monitor performance, or enforce compliance.”
Investigators “found instances where employees did not want to use record email because the messages would become accessible to persons conducting searches, not just the intended recipient. In some cases, it was because the email contained individual opinions that contributed to internal debate on a pending issue,” the report said.
The problem is so serious that, while employees in some State Department offices properly preserve their emails, most do not, including the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, where employees preserved only 22 emails in all of 2013.
The State Department’s legislative affairs office originated only five emails that were preserved in 2013, the department’s public affairs staff 29. The legislative and public affairs offices are particularly notable because they routinely exchange thousands of messages with congressional staff members and journalists.
Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office preserved only seven emails in 2013.
In 2011, State Department employees overall created 61,156 record emails out of more than 1 billion emails sent, or .006 percent. Employees created 41,749 record emails in 2013., the report said. The latter was .004 percent, assuming 1 billion emails total.
The report said officials began using a department-wide program, State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset in 2009, the year former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took office. The toolset was installed for the expressed purpose of “the preservation of emails as official records.”
Among the reasons why agency officials fail to preserve their email records was the fact that many feel “a reluctance to use record email because of possible consequences.”
Another major factor inhibiting proper email archiving was the lack of oversight from top officials in the department. The central State Department office in charge of enforcing the preservation rules doesn’t keep tabs on whether each embassy or bureau is following the rules, the inspector general found.
“The absence of centralized oversight allows for an inconsistent application of policy,” the report said.
Many employees expressed confusion over which emails needed to be saved and how they were supposed to go about preserving the messages. Investigators said “many officers and employees—not just those new to the department—had little idea about what makes an item of information a record. This general lack of understanding, which extends to records in all forms, is a major obstacle to the use ofrecord email.”
The inspector general said “the department’s deficiencies in preserving appropriate emails cannot be changed unless the actions of individual employees change. Education is the key.”
If a State Department official puts information that in any way pertains to the operations of the agency on paper or in an email, then that message is legally considered a record in need of preservation, “whether or not the author recognizes this fact,” the inspector general noted.
The report came one day after Clinton briefly addressed the growing controversy over her use of a private server and email address during her time in office that shielded her digital correspondence from Congress and the public.
She argued that thousands of her messages dealing with official business were sent from her private email account to employees who were using government email accounts, which meant they would be preserved. She also said she deleted thousands of personal emails and she rejected a proposal to allow an independent source access to her server.
“Email messages should be saved as records if they document the formulation and execution of basic policies and actions or important meetings; if they facilitate action by agency officials and their successors in office; if they help department officials answer congressional questions; or if they protect the financial, legal, and other rights of the government or persons the government’s actions directly affect,” the report said.
Go here to read the full State Department inspector general report.
