Be immune to e-discovery requests and avoid having to archive emails

Want to avoid having to archive your emails? All you have to do is get elected President. Or, at least, be President Bush.

The overseer of unprecedented government snooping tactics on private citizens has taken umbrage at the suggestion that his email correspondence be similarly vulnerable to prying eyes, saying he’ll veto a bill passed by the House July 8  that would revise the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act to address Presidential email records–specifically, the archiving and preservation thereof.

This all started last year, when a watchdog group claimed that members of the Republican National Committee used their RNC email addresses, which are supposed to be for campaign matters only, to conduct other business with the White House. When asked to turn over those emails, the Bush administration said, ““Oops.” Oh, and coincidentally, emails relating to the infamous Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame affair are also among the missing, according to CNN.com.

Now, what do you think would happen if the CEO of even the most powerful corporation attempted to respond that way to an e-discovery request?

That said, I don’t expect this legislation to pass anyway, if the track record of data privacy legislation is any indication.