Court Orders White House to Preserve Emails

A federal magistrate has ordered former President George Bush’s employees to search and preserve email messages in their computer units and other storage devices.

According to the order, federal agencies should search the email messages under the Bush’s administration from 2003 March through October 2005 and preserve these in their records. This rule will be applicable for all the federal agencies under Federal Records Act or Presidential Records Act.

After the acknowledgment of White House on 5 million missing emails in the above period, which included major situations like invasion of Iraq, and the advent of Hurricane Katrina, there were lawsuits filed by two private groups. These lawsuits filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive, asked court to order the White House to preserve emails of that period.

In response to this lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the officials of the White House, to search for the email messages, no matter in what intent they were created, and preserve them.