Records Management Policy for the White House

Records Management Policy Could Have Spared White House Embarrassing Probe According to Data Empowerment Group. That's the title of the article...glad to see I'm not the only one thinking that RIM is the issue in matters of accountability and transparency.

Have a read...thoughts? Tom Utiger neatly links the issue, sensibly, to a potential multi-million dollar USD risk to Fortune 500 companies. But to me, given the last eight years, the big question is, "how on earth does the USA manage NOT to have an RIM policy for the White House?" For that matter, how is it that my counterpart (on a much larger scale with a far more independent and legislatively supported mandate) Allen Weinstein seems to be silent on the matter?

IMnsHO, inability to grasp the import of a domain so often dismissed as warehousing is a key issue of our time.

After all, the foundation of knowing within organisations and societies is surely the record. And from what I have seen in 20+ years in public, non-profit and private sector roles, there is little appreciation of the value of accurate record keeping and virtually no understanding of the implications of the shift to electronic records in the general public.

Sadly, seen in some jurisdictions more than others, there is a sense of "so what", a culture that enables and hides falsifying the record. Corporate examples abound...I have run across a personal example in health care. The implications are significant. History is to be revealed...not crafted...if we are to know.