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Robert Webb, Society of Professional Journalists
Letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty on E-mail policy
October 22, 2007

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Washington, D.C., Professional Chapter
Society of Professional Journalists
P.O. Box 19555
Washington, D.C. 20004

October 22, 2007

The Honorable Adrian M. Fenty
Mayor of Washington
1350 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Third Floor
Washington, D.C. 20004

Dear Mayor Fenty:

The Washington, D.C., chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists urges you to postpone implementation of your administration's proposed policy authorizing the Office of the Chief Technology Officer to eliminate most of the District of Columbia's electronic communications after six months.

As you know, the Federal government as well as Virginia, Maryland and other states exercise significantly longer preservation periods. We appreciate the District government's concern about overtaxed computer storage capacity and the cost of conserving unneeded communications. However, absent any clear standards about what is historically or legally significant, we believe that the startlingly short proposed retention time has a strong likelihood of resulting in the destruction of communications that, only later, prove critical.

City Council's Government Operations Committee has indicated its willingness to address legislation dealing with the archiving of electronic communications but has not yet done so. It seems to us that any policy action at this time would be premature.

The Society of Professional Journalists, www.spj.org, promotes the free flow of information vital to a well-informed citizenry, works to inspire and educate the next generation of journalists to protect Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and the press.

Sincerely,

Robert Webb
President

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