HS Treat state e-mail the same as other public documents
The notion that e-mails need to be deleted every two months to keep from clogging a computer's hard drive is absurd, even though State Archivist Susan Shaner claims there is simply too much e-mail to save it all. A North Carolina panel studying that state's e-mail policy has recommended that e-mail messages be stored for at least five years and has endorsed an archive system that would be capable of storing them even longer.

Corporations with archiving systems store hundreds of millions of e-mails for years, according to William Tolson, director of legal solutions for California-based Mimos Systems Inc. "If companies can do it, why can't the government?" he asked the AP.

State Sen. Les Ihara points out that modern technology allows inexpensive storage of e-mails and other computer files. Ihara should follow through with legislation requiring state e-mails to be stored for at least five years.

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