CLINTON WANTS DATA DESTROYED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993                   TAG: 9304170297
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
CLINTON WANTS DATA DESTROYED
The Clinton administration argued Friday that the law does not require "every scrap of information be saved" as it appealed a judge's ruling that White House computer files must be preserved.
U.S. District Judge Charles Richey, acting on a 1989 lawsuit brought by a private research group, blocked the Bush administration in January from erasing White House and National Security Council electronic messages and other records.
Appealing the ruling, the Clinton administration on Friday maintained that Richey's decision "gives no weight at all" to parts of the Federal Records Act that seek "to encourage economical and efficient record-keeping practices."
"To require preservation of information for potential criminal investigations or historical research places undue emphasis on what this court identified as only one purpose of the act," it said.
The case, brought in 1989 by the National Security Archive, a private research organization that collects declassified government documents, is the first to apply the 50-year-old Federal Records Act to computer records. The case was joined by Public Citizen, a group founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader.
The groups contend that such files must be preserved.
Many electronic mail messages included in the computers may be of little interest, but it was this kind of information, not found on paper anywhere, that helped uncover some of the events in the Iran-Contra scandal, they have argued.
Two weeks ago, the National Securities Archive and Public Citizen asked Richey to require that 5,795 computer reel tapes and 150 mainframe or personal computer hard drives be returned to three White House agencies to be maintained or copied. The groups said those materials are in danger of rotting at the archives.
The tapes and hard drives contain virtually every item of electronic mail generated by the White House and National Security Council staffs during all of the Bush administration and the last three years of the Reagan administration.
Oral arguments on the lawsuit are scheduled for June 15.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB