Is SMU ready for the onslaught of Bush/Rove intellectual (sic) jokes that would follow? Rove’s qualifications only flow from having photos of Mr. Bush and a pet goat and his ability to trace a horsehead on the inside of a pack of matches.

Are we seeing anomalies or systemic actions? There could be any number of explanations for the off system messages we’ve seen revealed, some benign, some not so benign. (I’ve been following this issue for some time. As early as 2004, I raised my eyebrows when I read the “It’s Yahoo, Baby” article, which described “some” people as going off system but didn’t give an indication of how many.) I’m patient, I’d rather sit back and see what happens rather than speculate at this early stage.

Not all of this is cut and dried. I spent 14 years as a NARA employee, working with Nixon’s tapes and files doing just that, distinguishing between political and official communications. I know how complicated this is. I even fenced with Nixon’s lawyers over these issues in sworn testimony. And that was in the old days, when we merely were dealing with taped WH conversations and paper files typed by secretaries. Now there are personal computers, mobile devices and email with which to contend.

If you haven’t read it already, take a look at this recent article in Government Executive magazine.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0407/040907ol.htm
You’ll notice one WH aide refers in it to matters relating to travel, advance men, etc.

Looking at that assertion in GovExec as an historian would, we don’t know at this point what timesheets show for this employee and for others who were authorized to work both on political and on official matters. Do hours logged for payroll purposes match up with system and off system email use, as employees toggled between governmental and political work? I don’t know. Did some people just get used to using Blackberries? Forget nwhich system they were on? Or did some of them decide to deliberately bypass the official recordkeeping system? We just don’t know, yet.

If you think this is easy to sort out, consider these passages about the Clinton White House, extracted from an article published in the National Journal (“Clearing the President for Takeoff,” April 22, 1995):

“Until the President [Bill Clinton] activated his reelection campaign, the White House divided up travel expenses for each of his trips according to a formula that considered the time the President spent on official business and on political activities. For example, Clinton made some official appearances while in California, including giving a speech about education policy to the National Education Association in Los Angeles. Under the formula, costs associated with the official events–everything from advance work to the presidential motorcade –would be billed to the government.

The DNC, meanwhile, would pick up the tab for any expenses associated with political events such as the Spielberg soiree. The DNC would also pay a pro-rated share of the travel bill for ‘nonessential’ personnel who traveled with the President on Air Force One to California. (The government always picks up the travel tab for people who accompany the President for security purposes or who enable him to carry out his
24-hour-a-day responsibilities as commander in chief of the nation’s armed forces. Secret Service agents, National Security Council staff and military personnel generally fall into this category.)

But when the President officially becomes a candidate, the rules change. If the President makes any campaign appearances during a trip, 100 per cent of the travel costs for nonessential personnel must be paid by his campaign, even if only a small part of his time during the trip is spent on political activities.

. . . .These rules generally apply if the President attends an event where funds are raised for his candidacy or where speakers make advocacy statements for his reelection. . . . Monitoring compliance with these rules is White House associate counsel Cheryl D. Mills. She regularly discusses the President’s travel plans with colleagues in the scheduling and advance offices and with deputy chief of staff Harold M. Ickes, Clinton’s top political strategist, to make a preliminary determination of how the costs should be allocated among the government, the DNC and the campaign.

Sometimes she even reviews the President’s speech texts to help her decide whether an appearance is official or political. After each trip, Mills reviews transcripts of what the President said during his forays and checks in with staff members to find out if any events were added to his itinerary at the last minute.”

Of course, other issues emerged (remember the questions about telephone use for fundraising calls during the 1990s) that served as a reminder of the need to distinguish between official and political work, equipment use, etc.

Again, given the complexity and my background in working with WH records, I’m just going to wait and see what comes out of this. On the surface, it is alarming, but we don’t know the extent, scope, and motivation — not with the type of certainty that would lead me to state anything with certainty in any history narrative I would write today, that’s for sure.

“It seems to me that the easiest way to ensure preservation of policy messages sent through a private system — something which can happen through inadvertence when toggling between systems — would be to cc your government account . Or you could go back and later forward the item to your government account.”

I think the point is that they don’t want “to ensure preservation of policy messages.”
They are using separate accounts to hide their communication. They don’t want them to become part of the record.

On the face of it, I can understand why using two email systems and separate equipment might be burdensome and even confusing. Of course, I understand the intent of the Hatch Act. And as someone who spent over a decade as a federal archivist, deciding what among Richard Nixon’s records constitute offidcial information and what constituted private-political, for the purpose of returning the latter to him and later his estate, I certainly understand the concept of private political association.

It seems to me that the easiest way to ensure preservation of policy messages sent through a private system — something which can happen through inadvertence when toggling between systems — would be to cc your government account . Or you could go back and later forward the item to your government account. For example, if I used firstnamelastname@yahoo.com from home to take care of a work related matter after hours or while on vacation, if I wanted a copy of the message preserved on my work computer, all I would have to do is copy as a recipient from my Yahoo message the account firstnamelastname@onthejob.gov or dot edu. Or lster go into the Yahoo account outbox and forward a copy of the message to the dot gov or dot edu account to ensure its existence within the official system.

A U.S. News & World Report story in 2004 suggested some WH officials wanted to bypass the email system. See
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/articles/041018/18whisplead.htm
When I read that in 2004, I was stunned that anyone would tell a reporter they were doing that. It suggested that whoever was talking to the reporter didn’t have a high level of “records awareness.”

Submitted from home on personal time at 8:30 am Eastern time