Tapes containing the e-mail correspondence of B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and members of his cabinet that lawyers in a government corruption trial have insisted are critical to the defence of their clients were ordered destroyed in early May, The Globe and Mail has learned.
According to several sources, the person responsible for managing the government e-mail delivery service has filed an affidavit in court that contains the potentially politically explosive information.
In her affidavit, Rosemarie Hayes, director of Messaging and Collaboration Services, Workplace Technology Services (WTS), states that at the beginning of May of this year, her department requested that backup tapes of government e-mails created prior to May of 2004 be expunged from the system. The e-mails are the subject of a legal proceeding and as such should not have been deleted, according to the government’s own guidelines.
The affidavit apparently does not say who gave the order to kill the electronic records or why.
Ms. Hayes did not return a call from The Globe and Mail requesting to speak about the contents of her affidavit.
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OK, I think I’ve figured it out.
There are two set of tapes.
(1) The normal 1-year full BACKUPS (13-months) – the tapes are re-used again and again. This set has nothing to do with anything is just the obsticating the issue.
(2) The ARCHIVAL set – this set is the archived emails.
The ARCHIVAL set is kept 7-years (Same as you’re supposed to keep your tax records) and then “destroyed“; AKA: returned from the safe-from-everything facility and re-used. This is a STANDARD automatic monthly request – the May 2002 set is “destroyed” in May 2010, etc., etc.
I guess no one told Rosemarie Hayes NOT to automatically issue the letter. Yes, “some” of the tapes will still exist – they were still in the re-use pool and hadn’t been overwritten yet.
So, the conclusion is … drag out a court case and everything-goes-away. Personally, I blame the judge.