National Archives Loses Several Million Books

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has not fulfilled its job to secure government documents with the loss last week of a hard drive containing records of the Clinton administration, said members of the Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee this afternoon.

Subcommittee member U.S. Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC) was “troubled by the pattern of careless handling of sensitive material by the archives.” McHenry informed the committee that the hard drive lost last week contained “one terabyte of data derived from the records of the Clinton presidency… A terabyte of data is approximately equivalent to several million books.”

The lost data included, among other things, thousands of Social Security numbers and home addresses of various former Clinton administration officials as well as Secret Service and White House operating procedures. McHenry said that the full extent of the drive is still being investigated but, it represents, quoting the Inspector General, “the greatest loss ever and troubling and amazing.”

Subcommittee Char Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) pointed out that “all the steps will be taken to recover the loss of information.”

To prevent such things from happening, “we need an archivist who understands NARA is not just a museum of historical documents, but is a steward responsible for securing the integrity of government records,” said Ms. Patrice McDermott, Director of openthegovernment.org.