National Archives and Records Administration

  • Agencies have until the end of 2016 to store all email records electronically — and until 2019 to store all electronic records in their original formats. Most agencies tell the National Archives and Records Administration they'll meet those deadlines. But the line between what's considered a federal record and what's not is getting blurry. Jason R. Baron is of counsel at Drinker Biddle and former director of litigation at NARA. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose about some best practices federal employees can use at a time when Tweets, texts and even Snapchats are often government records.

    August 31, 2015
  • Have you classified any documents lately? The Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives and Records Administration just released its annual classification report to the President. It examines government agencies\' security classification activities, shares cost estimates for these activities and provides an update on the Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) program. John Fitzpatrick is director of the Information Security Oversight Office at NARA. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with an update.

    June 09, 2015
  • By NANCY BENAC Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In the never-ending quest to preserve the government’s history, there have been plenty of weapons of mass destruction. Before delete keys on computers, there were paper shredders,…

    March 30, 2015
  • Swarnali Haldar, the chief information officer for NARA, said her goal is to simplify how and who makes the decisions around IT programs.

    March 05, 2015
  • Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her personal email account for almost all her correspondence. So far, there is no record that those emails ever made it to any kind of records management infrastructure at the State Department. Jason Baron a lawyer at Drinker Biddle and former director of litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration, tells In Depth with Francis Rose how federal employees should treat their email correspondence to stay out of any potential trouble.

    March 03, 2015
  • This year's attempt to overhaul the the Freedom of Information Act would give the Office of Government Information Services the independence to report directly to Congress on FOIA issues. Without that, OGIS is 'neither an independent watchdog or overseer,' according to its just-retired director.

    March 02, 2015
  • The last soldier has gone to his eternal reward yet, the nation still remembers World War I. Now that remembrance is official. The National Archives and Records Administration is in the midst of a centennial retrospective on what was called the Great War even before it was over. Rob Dalessandro is acting chairman of the U.S. WWI Centennial Commission. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to discuss the commission.

    July 18, 2014
  • NSA, State and nearly every other agency are developing "fixes" to protect unauthorized employees from taking data. Experts say employees need to understand why the rules are in place and how they benefit both the organization and worker. OMB says one way to improve the situation is by reducing the number of federal employees with security clearances-an initiative that already is underway.

    May 21, 2014
  • The Obama administration's second Open Government National Action Plan introduces 23 new or expanded commitments to open government, including measures to strengthen whistleblower protections and improve the declassification process.

    December 06, 2013
  • The Public Interest Declassification Board wants high-level attention to address ever-increasing shortcomings in the way agencies classify and declassify documents. The system is considered by many broken and now is being inundated by electronic records. The National Declassification Center has completed equity referral quality assurance on 278 million pages, and completed all processing of more than 118 million pages of this backlog.

    November 22, 2013
  • Current and former Obama administration officials' use of personal email addresses and secret, secondary email accounts to conduct official business came under scrutiny Tuesday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said her use of a secret account was to do her job more efficiently.

    September 10, 2013
  • Joseph Frankovic looked around his office at the Federal Register and saw that it was being overrun by binder clips. At a time when agencies are struggling to save budget dollars wherever they can, Frankovic saw an opportunity to make a difference - and he took it.

    August 29, 2013
  • GSA led a 12-member interagency working group to create a set of measures specifically aimed at defining the usefulness of social media for agencies. The agency also released an API that lets users create tools to bring together government social media feeds in one place. Both tools are called for in the Digital Government Strategy.

    February 20, 2013
  • While social media has permeated nearly all aspects of American life, in many corners of the government, employees and managers are still figuring out how Facebook, Twitter and a host of other digital technologies can help them do their jobs better. A new report from the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton presents case studies of effective uses of social media and provides tips for developing a coherent strategy.

    January 08, 2013