Deleting E-mail Could Get You In Trouble

Sterling D. Allan writes "A story in the Deseret News cautions governments and corporations from deleting legitimate email. Expensive measures are being called into place to archive the mail for future subpoena purposes. Think Enron on one hand. Think Monicagate on the other. Next they'll ask us to keep recordings of all our phone conversations? Big brother gets bigger -- with good reasons, as always. What about all those business propositions I get from Nigeria. Do I have to keep those too? "Get rich from home" (to pay for the purchase of a new hard drive to contain all your spam). One man's junk is another man's treasure. You never know what an IRS agent might find lucky."

Comments

Re:I'm not that bothered

[Tim C]

If I send an e-mail to my friend using my Work's e-mail address the government should not be allowed to view that e-mail without a warrant.

But how do they know that what you sent was a personal email, without reading it? When you send an email from your work account, you are effectively speaking on behalf of your company. If you want to send a personal email, you should use a personal email account.

How many years worth of company paper memo's were stored? I suspect the ability was much reduced so in which case so why do they need so much more data?

I suspect that if paper records were as easy to store as electronic ones, they would have required just as much to be retained. A couple of SAN-type things the size of an office filing cabinet would no doubt be capable of storing all the records your company is likely to ever create; the actual filing cabinets may only be sufficient for a couple of years' worth of paper records.

Re:I'm not that bothered

[moonbender]

I suspect that if paper records were as easy to store as electronic ones, they would have required just as much to be retained.

Interestingly enough, although electronic records are easier to store than paper ones, they are also far more easily deleted. Deleting email is easier than throwing away a paper letter. And what's more important, deleting a thousand or ten thousand emails isn't a lot more difficult than deleting just one. It's psychologically easier, as well, since paper documents have a more significant, official feel to them.