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Yes, but regular emails for State Department employees don't fall under that. There are some 25000 State Department full time employees and about as many local

by GVIrish 10y ago

Yes, but regular emails for State Department employees don't fall under that. There are some 25000 State Department full time employees and about as many locally-employed staff around the world, then several thousand contractors. Every email sent by someone with a @state.gov email address is not an official government record. Even files create in the numerous IT applications are not part of the official record unless that applications was designated a system of record.

tanderson92 10y ago
This is an important caveat to my comment. We don't know how many of Clinton's top IT aide's e-mails were official government records. Speculation & Proposition: Since he worked to set up an extra-governmental private server which could potentially be used to hide governmental records, that number should be strictly greater than zero.
- GVIrish 10y ago
  > Speculation & Proposition: Since he worked to set up an extra-governmental private server which could potentially be used to hide governmental records, that number should be strictly greater than zero. If an email came from the Secretary, yes. But other than that, no.
- dmm 10y ago
  > We don't know how many of Clinton's top IT aide's e-mails were official government records. When I was a federal employee we took yearly training on this exact topic and the rules for what qualifies as a federal record are surprisingly inclusive. The few exclusions include emails that are purely personal and announcements sent to a wide audience.
linkregister 10y ago
Intuitively, it feels that those emails aren't official government records. But according to the law, they actually are official records. [1] All government employees and contractors undergo annual records retention training that requires them to be aware of the obligation to retain relevant communication for the required time period. It even breaks down what emails should be deleted and which ones should be retained. [2] [1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/mar/12/hillary-clintons-email-did-she-follow-all-rules/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/mar/12/... [2] http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-06.html http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-06....
- GVIrish 10y ago
  > Intuitively, it feels that those emails aren't official government records. But according to the law, they actually are official records. [1] Emails from top-level officials like heads of cabinet agencies are part of the official record. Emails from rank and file employees typically are not. There are well over 2.6 million people in government (over 4 mil counting the military) and hundreds of thousands of contractors. If even 10% of all those emails had to be archived and stored in the National Archives it would constitute an enormous amount of data, much of it of little use. > All government employees and contractors undergo annual records retention training that requires them to be aware of the obligation to retain relevant communication for the required time period. I can assure you that record retention training is not standard nor is it annual at State Department. Wasn't that way at DoD in the past either. Some jobs and offices would deal with it a lot more than others but regular joes and janes don't deal with that issue much.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    I can assure you that the training was required at both State and Defense [1] from 2010 to 2014. The requirement was for all users of the networks to archive their email and other documents. Failure to complete the training would result in revocation of computer network access. I never claimed that the National Archives performed the records retention. Each individual was required to perform their own retention up until each class of records' retention expiration. It feels unintuitive, but that was indeed the standard. It is probably still that way, but I no longer work in that sector so I can't authoritatively state that. Personally, I find it frustrating when commenters on HN make a statement with an authoritative tone without citation or definitive knowledge, just because they truly believe something must be so. It is in fact contributing to noise, not signal. [1] personal experience
    - GVIrish 10y ago
      I have worked at State since 2009, it's not a department wide requirement. Security training is yearly and mandatory but record retention and NARA compliance is a different matter.

by GVIrish 10y ago

tanderson92 10y ago

This is an important caveat to my comment. We don't know how many of Clinton's top IT aide's e-mails were official government records. Speculation & Proposition: Since he worked to set up an extra-governmental private server which could potentially be used to hide governmental records, that number should be strictly greater than zero.

GVIrish 10y ago
> Speculation & Proposition: Since he worked to set up an extra-governmental private server which could potentially be used to hide governmental records, that number should be strictly greater than zero. If an email came from the Secretary, yes. But other than that, no.
dmm 10y ago
> We don't know how many of Clinton's top IT aide's e-mails were official government records. When I was a federal employee we took yearly training on this exact topic and the rules for what qualifies as a federal record are surprisingly inclusive. The few exclusions include emails that are purely personal and announcements sent to a wide audience.

linkregister 10y ago

Intuitively, it feels that those emails aren't official government records. But according to the law, they actually are official records. [1] All government employees and contractors undergo annual records retention training that requires them to be aware of the obligation to retain relevant communication for the required time period. It even breaks down what emails should be deleted and which ones should be retained. [2] [1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/mar/12/hillary-clintons-email-did-she-follow-all-rules/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/mar/12/... [2] http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-06.html http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2014/2014-06....

GVIrish 10y ago
> Intuitively, it feels that those emails aren't official government records. But according to the law, they actually are official records. [1] Emails from top-level officials like heads of cabinet agencies are part of the official record. Emails from rank and file employees typically are not. There are well over 2.6 million people in government (over 4 mil counting the military) and hundreds of thousands of contractors. If even 10% of all those emails had to be archived and stored in the National Archives it would constitute an enormous amount of data, much of it of little use. > All government employees and contractors undergo annual records retention training that requires them to be aware of the obligation to retain relevant communication for the required time period. I can assure you that record retention training is not standard nor is it annual at State Department. Wasn't that way at DoD in the past either. Some jobs and offices would deal with it a lot more than others but regular joes and janes don't deal with that issue much.
- linkregister 10y ago
  I can assure you that the training was required at both State and Defense [1] from 2010 to 2014. The requirement was for all users of the networks to archive their email and other documents. Failure to complete the training would result in revocation of computer network access. I never claimed that the National Archives performed the records retention. Each individual was required to perform their own retention up until each class of records' retention expiration. It feels unintuitive, but that was indeed the standard. It is probably still that way, but I no longer work in that sector so I can't authoritatively state that. Personally, I find it frustrating when commenters on HN make a statement with an authoritative tone without citation or definitive knowledge, just because they truly believe something must be so. It is in fact contributing to noise, not signal. [1] personal experience
  - GVIrish 10y ago
    I have worked at State since 2009, it's not a department wide requirement. Security training is yearly and mandatory but record retention and NARA compliance is a different matter.