Slashdot Mirror
U.S. K-12 Schools Must Comply With e-Discovery Rule
Lucas123 writes "K-12 school districts throughout the US have a daunting
IT homework assignment over the summer: Develop systems that ensure their electronic documents, email and instant messages are in compliance with new federal e-discovery regulations, much in the same way corporations have been preparing over the past year. The new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) are expected to be widely enforced by the end of 2007, according to a Computerworld story. '"A lack of preparation could prove dire for K-12 school districts, which oftentimes lack technical proficiency, funding and legal expertise," said Robert Ayers, technology coordinator for the Kingston, Pa.-based Luzerne Intermediate Unit 18 school district.'"
I am assigned to a committee to see how to implement these 'new' laws into our infrastructure. It's really amazing how incompetent these laws are. They require documents to be stored forever or to expire at a certain date, and as soon as it expires, nothing about the document is allowed to be found. So as soon as the document expires, somebody has to go through all backups, tapes, computers, usb sticks etc. and delete all traces of the document.
Not only is it near-impossible to implement, the only possible implementation would be a solution similar to DRM on media, which as we all know doesn't work, since you already have the content at that moment. Of course vendors like IBM and Microsoft would love to sell you their solution (that requires call-back to the central server which has to be accessible from both inside and outside the network (if you would like to use your documents elsewhere than within the office)) which not only costs a horrible amount of money, the implementation itself is flawed (as is any DRM-solution) and has so many requirements that managing and securing the solutions is going to be a major issue.
I think it's disgusting how companies and their lobby push for these impossible laws so they can sell their software.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
The only rational response to this 300 page regulation - not imposed, note, by any act of Congress - will be to delete immediately all emails upon reading (unless you are in an industry that already has requirements to store them). Good look for the historians of the future trying to decipher the history of the early 21st Century USA - the Courts required us to delete it.
I was wondering if someone could explain why this is in the jurisdiction of the federal government as opposed to the states. The schools are mostly state institutions. Is it the fact that the email 'crossed' state lines that makes all the difference? What if it is within one state? Does it matter where the severs are located?
It is becoming increasingly hard for small businesses to do any business these days. Not because they are being crowded out by the larger ones, but because one must higher several employees just to do all the paperwork required to run a business.
Now they have to log all electronic communication. Why? How is an email or test message any different than calling someone on the phone or meeting face to face? Will we have to bring a tape recorder to every meeting from now on? When will it end?
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
Rather than trying to archive everything, there is an important alternative, a data destruction policy. You can't discover what doesn't exist.
You just need to have the policy long in place before someone even thinks of suing you.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Thank you. I would request that /. editors explain these sorts of things in the body of the news stub. It has always been a problem, but lately it feels like it is getting worse.
Mod parent up!
The PRESIDENT? What's the PRESIDENT go to do with it?
Quoting Wikipedia:
Internal rulemaking by the JUDICIAL branch - the supreme court and their hirelings - with concurrence from the LEGISLATIVE branch. The EXECUTIVE branch isn't even in this loop.
Are you faulting Bush for failing to stage an unconstitutional armed intervention into the inner workings of the Supreme Court?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Your estimates for the costs of private education are just as far off as your estimates of the money involved in public schooling. I suspect you have been misled by figures bandied about in the school voucher debate - these tend to lump secondary schools with elementary schools and even free schools to bring the apparent price down to less than the cost of a public school. For example, an often quoted figure for private school cost is $3600 per child - this is arrived at by taking the average for secondary school, elementary schools, free independent schools and church schools - all designed to make the secondary school cost look low. In truth, the average fee level of a private secondary school is rather higher at about $5,500. The gap between the private and public sector can be explained by a few things, such as reduction in bureaucratic red tape and potential increase in efficiency, but also by their frequent status as charitable organizations soliciting donations that can increase this to meet the public level, and their selectiveness; if you don't have to deal with unruly or disadvantaged children you can cut costs heavily.
My final point is that you seem to underestimate the costs in the day to day running of a school rather heavily! Just taking into account the staffing takes your available funds down to around $4k per pupil (and remember the schools that only make $3k per pupil originally?). Then you have to buy computers, books, stationary and furniture, run activities, organize school board elections, pay for heating, lighting and water and provide a bus for disabled students who can't get in otherwise. Depending on your location security might be an issue. And your building and equipment don't last forever with thousands of children inside - you need to make it to the end of the year with some surplus in case someone's broken a telescope or put a broom through the ceiling. (Or get insurance - but that will of course cost more than the average year's renovation costs; that's how insurance works).
My point with all this is that schools don't have millions of dollars sitting around in a cupboard somewhere. They aren't choosing not to employ a team of network technicians, it's just that even a small technical staff - say 2 people - eats into your budget by around $80k year if they're good at what they do. That money doesn't appear overnight.
They ought to be able to say, "Beats me; we're in the education business, not the surveillance business. But good luck with your investigation."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And you might want to get your information from (for instancE) a lawyer familiar with the rules, rather taking on faith the description of the problem from the PR department of vendors trying to sell "solutions".
And soon private individuals. Just in case you might be a terrorist, or a IP pirate, or just an undesirable that needs to be tracked.
---- Booth was a patriot ----