Features of NetStream Email Archiving | Pricing

By: Roger Matus, Chief Executive, Sean True, Chief Technology Officer, and Chuck Ingold, Principal Research Engineer, InBoxer, Inc.

Public schools and local governments may have more stringent requirements than most businesses for email archiving and electronic discovery. Yet, with their limited budgets, schools and local governments are often the least equipped to respond.
The newly revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) define how email must be handled in federal court cases. Businesses tend to think that the FRCP focus is on interstate lawsuits. Schools and governments, however, also need to be concerned with emails relating to federally funded activities or any activity governed by federal legislation - such as "special education and many grants."

In addition, schools and local governments have the burden of responding to (1) requests under open meeting and Freedom of Information Act laws, (2) offensive emails or those with sexual content involving students, and (3) emailed threats.

During a 45 day period in 2007, schools and local governments had to deal with the following:

• Emails between Board members made news in Palo Alto, CA, Nashua, NH, Alamogordo, NM, and Pine Bush, NY. Because of various state open meeting laws, many attorneys believe that an email exchange involving a quorum of Board members is subject to public disclosure. For example, in Nashua, NH, the school district’s attorney released 198 pages of email in response to a newspaper request.

• Offensive emails or emails with sexual content were in the news in Fresno, CA, Cape Coral, FL, Bainbridge, IN, and Edmonds County, WA. In Fresno, a government employee was terminated after reportedly sending a racist email entitled “Proud to be White.”

• Threatening emails locked down schools or caused students to be removed in Batavia, IL, Canon City, CO, Douglas County, NV, Canton, OH, and Appleton, WI. In Canton, OH, roughly 1000 students were evacuated after a secretary received an email bomb threat.

Dealing With Limited Resources

Email is extremely valuable in litigation because it contains off-the-cuff, unguarded comments written at the time of the event. It is difficult to refute email in court, even when taken out of context.

Because it is so valuable, the volume of email discovery requests (search) is likely to increase substantially. These requests will be an added burden to schools and local governments, which often have limited resources with which to respond.

Unfortunately, the courts are taking a dim view of organizations that cite lack of resources as a reason for not meeting tight deadline requirements.

Institutions that Fall Under the FRCP

• K-12 Educational Institutions
• Colleges and Universities
• Government Organizations

See the features of NetStream's Email Archiving solution.

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