A failure in digital preservation have re-steamed a political controversy in USA during this week, after finding 22 million of White House e-mails, that were missing from the President George Bush administration. In USA two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

According to Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) liberal group these emails have been found due to their lawsuits and pressure generated from Capitol Hill.

As a consequence of this failure in the properly working electronic record keeping system, it is expected that it will be about 4 years at earliest before the public sees any of the recovered e-mails, as these emails will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Additionally, new recovery costs and lawsuits will probably come and increase this controversy.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/12/14/2009-12-14_found_22_...