At 06:05 AM 10/3/00 -0700, Michael Motyka wrote:

I see no big deal here : you can only produce records that exist. Making the choice to delete e-mails simply means that you want them to be more like a conversation than a printed document. Destroying a document prior having received an order to produce it as far as I know is no crime. Almost like an ISP service having a stated policy of not keeping logs beyond some fixed time period. Next.

This is not so simple, when the person/entity destroying the records is a government agency - they have a statutory duty to maintain records according to sometimes complicated schedules. Government officials, when conducting government (er, the people's) business, can't just delete things they find inconvenient or embarrassing the same way that individuals can. Corporate or organizational actors may also be limited in their ability to destroy records by statute or by organizational rules designed to create and maintain accountability. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@netbox.com