Tag: record destruction

Archivists on the Issues: Mass document shredding in “Kiff” and the reality of record destruction

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. Today’s post comes from Burkely Hermann, Metadata Librarian for the National Security Archive and current I&A Blog Coordinator. There will be spoilers for Kiff and other animated series he will be discussing in this post.

Kiff and Barry are shown the so-called “archive” by Mr. Glarbin in episode 3b of Kiff. which is stereotypically portrayed here as disorganized stack of boxes with no order or organization, which does not reflect reality of archives.

In a recently-aired episode of Kiff, an animated musical comedy series, entitled “Career Fair”, the two protagonists, Barry Buns and Kiff Chatterley (voiced by H. Michael Croner and Kimiko Glenn respectfully), are given a summer job at Table Town’s city hall. They find it boring, believing they are just “pencil-pushers”. In order to achieve quicker results, they cut corners and shred the necessary forms in order to cut through the red tape, completing tasks to help those in the Table Town, such as installing a traffic light and marrying a couple. At the end of their first day, their boss, Glarbin Gloobin (voiced by Steve Little), city manager of Table Town, tells them they are “so good” at filing paperwork that all the forms they “completed” will be filed the next day in the “archive”. The latter is stereotypically portrayed as a somewhat disorganized stack of boxes in another room, which Gloobin describes as “beautiful”. After he leaves for the day, Kiff and Barry try and cover their tracks, deciding, without much thought, to shred every box and piece of paper in the archive with the shredder, resulting in massive record destruction, including vital records, like the town constitution. Eventually, Kiff comes to her senses, realizes they did a bad thing, but instead of confessing, she, and Barry, lie, statig they were robbed. Predictably, this does not work as the shredder explodes, and Gloobin realizes they shredded all the documents. As the episode comes to close, the townspeople thank Kiff and Barry, while Kiff says that city hall is about helping people, instead of “mindless” paperwork, the former employees (who had quit their jobs) come back to work, and the shredded paper continues to rein down like confetti.

Unfortunately, the episode has a bad lesson: repercussions for Kiff and Barry are slim, apart from Gloobin firing them, as there is no accountability for their mass destruction of the city’s paper records. Furthermore, those at city hall clean-up their mess, having the time-consuming job of piecing together the shredded papers, which has become confetti. As a result, the episode’s plot necessitates a focus on the value of preservation, record management, current practices, history of record destruction, and other pop culture depictions which are diametrically opposed to what is shown in Kiff.

Records management in archives, and other institutions, often involves identification, storage, retrieval, and circulation of records. This also necessitates record disposal, defined as records transfer, primarily of noncurrent records, to their final location at an archives or resulting in destruction. It is usually determined on a records retention schedule. Disposal contrasts with record destruction, which the Society of American Archivists (SAA)’ Dictionary of Archives Terminology defines as a disposal process which “results in the obliteration of records.” Kiff and Barry did not follow any process, meaning there was no maceration, but shredding, pain and simple, a form of destruction without abandon. Furthermore, shredding, apart from limits to what can be destroyed and maintenance of secure records storage, has the additional issue of creating paper which cannot be “easily recycled”. Preserving records is important, especially in legal cases. Some even discourage do-it-yourself document shredding. [1]

Historically, shredding of documents has been criticized, especially during ongoing litigation, including accusations of shredding by organizations which push for stronger records retention, like the ACLU, or by elections officials, accused of destroying ballots. Some politicians have even used shredders in order to illustrate their desire to “destroy” a policy of their political opponents. [2] One historical example that sticks out is explained within A People’s History of American Empire: Iranian women piecing together documents shredded by U.S. Embassy employees, prior to Iranian take-over of the embassy in Tehran in November 1979. The takeover began the Iran hostage crisis. The documents found in the embassy revealed information about U.S. foreign policy of supporting the repressive Shah, and published by the Iranian government in 77 volumes entitled Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den. [3]

There have also been some recent examples. For instance, in October 2022, the U.S. Army noted, in a now-deleted post, the destruction of over 19,000 boxes of “expired records…at relatively no cost” in Kasierslautern, Germany, with the records changed into toilet paper. In addition, in April 2022, the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) admitted to shredding documents in a coal ash legal case. Advocates, like Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive, have argued that the administration of the former president, who has been called a “paper-shredding present”, had a major problem with record preservation. In Blanton’s view, it went beyond improper shredding, with a “deliberate failure” to create necessary records.

Previously, in 2008, Treasury Department officials shredded FOIA requests improperly (while delaying those same requests), the Bush Administration shredded hard drives in the early 2000s, and thousands of United Nations documents, including those about the Oil-for-Food programme in Iraq, were shredded. Other notable examples include destruction of evidence by the Union Bank of Switzerland showing the company owned stolen property once owned by Jews during the Holocaust, and reported “shredding parties” during the Iran-Contra scandal. [4] The latter included “stacks of memoranda and messages” destroyed by Oliver North as part of the cover-up during the scandal. At present, many municipalities host and/or support paper shredding events for their residents.

 

Kiff is not alone in having characters engage in record destruction. Hermes Conrad, the resident bureaucrat in Futurama for the Planet Express crew, did so in the Season Six episode “Lethal Inspection”, burning his own former employee file. Hera programmed data destruction in an episode of Star Wars Rebels, “Double Agent Droid,” to prevent the “wrong” people from getting the data (the Empire). In the comics, Jocasta Nu, the stereotypical archivist in Attack of the Clones, purged the files of the Jedi temple archives/library, to prevent the Empire from getting their hands on the records. At the same time,  destruction was only implied infamously in Attack of the Clones, requested by Marceline the Vampire Queen in an episode of Adventure Time (it never transpired), and in an episode of The Crown, it is noted that the German Nazis destroyed many of their records so people wouldn’t be unaware of their misdeeds.

This differs from R2-D2 in the Star Wars franchise who is an unintentional archivist of sorts, as he is never memory wiped. As a result, he remembers all the events through the entire series, which he  witnessed, despite the fact he was destroyed at least once. Kiff is diametrically opposed to the emphasis on records preservation in Hilda. Alfur repeatedly explains the value of rules, regulations, and proper filing. Perhaps he would sing the bureaucrat song along with Hermes, who mainly follows the book, apart from record destruction in “Lethal Inspection”. Coming back to Kiff, neither Kiff nor Barry are following the SAA’s core values which encourage expansion of access and usage opportunities for records, promotion of transparency, mitigation of harm, implementing environmentally sustainable techniques for preserving records, and other suggestions. These values further state that archival materials should provide “digital and physical surrogates for human memory”, something which Kiff and Barry  blatantly ignored and stamped upon.

Kiff glosses over one of the worst results of document shredding: it is said to be one of the “most effective ways” to protect businesses, individuals, or other organizations by extension, from “its extremely negative effects”. Even so, the episode may have roots in historical reality. The series was created by Lucy Heavens and Nic Smal, who grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. The episode could be referencing burning of tens of thousands of books by the apartheid government in South Africa from 1955 to 1971 in Iscor furnaces, and further shredding, and burning, of “hundreds of archival documents and public records” in the same furnaces in the early 1990s. [5] As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission put it in Volume 1 of their report, the story of apartheid is, “amongst other things, the story of the systematic elimination of thousands of voices that should have been part of the nation’s memory”, which included censorship, banning, confiscation, and other actions.

Even if the episode is based on the the above-mentioned historical reality, the fact that Kiff and Barry are barely punished, with few consequences for their actions, does not send a positive message about the value of record preservation. Furthermore, the stereotype of a dusty, dirty, and unorganized archive is perpetrated, something which harms the profession, its institutions, and archivists themselves. Neither is the value of retention, i.e. the specific amount of time a record is kept, emphasized, since Kiff nor Barry follow any guidance on how to properly shred documents. Hopefully, future series, animated or not, emphasize the vitality of preserving and retaining records instead of what is depicted in Kiff.

Notes

[1] “Why shredding is not a good idea?,” Super What, Jan. 17, 2023; “A Document Retention Guide from Shred-it,” Shred-it, Dec. 27, 2017; Kennedy, Charles H. “Secure Records Disposal: Is Not Shredding Ever A Good Idea?,” Iron Mountain, accessed Mar. 14, 2023; Zuckerman Law Whistleblower Practice Group, “Shredding The Documents? Evidence Preservation Issues Highlighted in employment discrimination case,” National Law Review, Nov. 8, 2017; “Delete At Your Peril: Preserving Electronic Evidence During The Litigation Process,” FindLaw, Sept. 25, 2018; “Document Destruction Should Not Be Left to Chance,” Shred-it, Apr. 12, 2021; “Part 1. Organization, Finance, and Management, Chapter 15. Records and Information Management, Section 3. Disposing of Records,” Internal Revenue Manuals, Internal Revenue Service, accessed Mar. 14, 2023, see 1.15.3.1.1 (08-04-2017) (1), for mention of shredding. Also, the book Records Management for Dummies states that some companies have a “shred-all policy” for their records.

[2] Strom, Stephanie. “Concerns at A.C.L.U. Over Document Shredding,” New York Times, Jun. 5, 2005; Jay, David. “Carbon County resident says video shows ballot shredding; state investigating,” Q2, Feb. 20, 2023; Todd L. Nunn, Michael Goodfried, and Ted Webber, “Chapter 2: Preservation of Electronically Stored Information“, accessed Mar. 14, 2023, p. 20-21, 31, 40; Garrity, Kelly. “GOP senator: Only way to improve Biden’s budget ‘is with a shredder’,” Politico, Mar. 12, 2023. Also of note is part of Texas Local Government Code Title 6 which states that any records with restricted public access can only be destroyed by “burning, pulping, or shredding” them.

[3] Konopacki, Mike and Paul Buhle. A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2008), 232-233.

[4] Blanton, Tom and Nate Jones. “Spy Chief James Clapper Wins Rosemary Award,” National Security Archive, Mar. 24, 2014; Blanton, Tom and Lauren Harper. “White House Failure to Document Heads of State Meetings Violates Records Law,” National Security Archive, May 7, 2019; Blanton, Tom and Nate Jones. “Justice Department Wins Rosemary Award for Worst Open Government Performance in 2011,” National Security Archive, Feb. 14, 2012; Blanton, Tom and Lauren Harper. “Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council Wins Rosemary Award,” National Security Archive, Mar. 18, 2015; Blanton, Tom. “2010 Rosemary Award for Worst Open Government Performance Goes to Federal Chief Information Officers’ Council,” National Security Archive, Mar. 12, 2010; Blanton, Tom, Meredith Fuchs, Kristin Adair, Catherine Nielsen. “Treasury Wins 2008 “Rosemary Award” as Worst FOIA Agency,” National Security Archive, Mar. 14, 2008; “Iran-Contra Revisited,” National Security Archive, Sept. 5, 2014; Fuchs, Meredith. “Ruling on Preservation of White House E-Mails Awaited; New Law Proposed to Address Destruction of Electronic Records,” National Security Archive, Apr. 17, 2008; Blanton, Tom and Lauren Harper. “Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council Wins Rosemary Award,” National Security Archive, Mar. 18, 2015; Sanger, David E. “Swiss Bank ‘Regrets’ Shredding Wartime Documents.” New York Times, Jan. 15, 1997.

[5] Dick, Archie. “How the apartheid regime burnt books in their tens of thousands,” Quartz, Oct. 25, 2018; Bell, Terry. “Apartheid-era secrets now in ashes,” IOL, Jul. 30, 2007; “Op-Ed: How (and why) the apartheid regime destroyed tens of thousands of books,” University of Pretoria, Oct. 31, 2008; “Apartheid’s history in shreds,” Mail & Guardian, Oct. 23, 1998.

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Steering Shares: A Piece of Professional Literature that Impacted Me

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post comes courtesy of committee member Genna Duplisea, archivist and special collections librarian at Salve Regina University.

On a class message board during library school, I once remarked that Howard Zinn’s “Secrecy, Archives, and the Public Interest” (https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/44118) was a “mic drop.” I felt his call to action across the decades. Working full-time while taking two summer classes had accelerated the pace of my life and my studies past thoughtfulness, but reading Zinn’s concise connection between archives, power, and justice reminded me why I had chosen to train as an archivist. This piece made clear the importance of “the relation between professing one’s craft and professing one’s humanity” (14). Returning to this speech almost eight years after I first read it, in one of the greatest times of societal, political, and public health upheaval I have experienced, I was stunned by how apropos his words continue to be.

Zinn’s essay, published in The Midwestern Archivist in 1977, draws on an address he gave at the 1970 SAA Annual Meeting called “The Activist Archivist” (https://americanarchivist.org/doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.34.1.23527290p7mx1w33) He argues that insistence of neutrality as a value of professionalism causes a separation between work and belief and an assumption that the work of archivists is not inherently political (17). Archivists have made progress in embracing the understanding that archives are not neutral, though it is not a universally-held tenet. The maintenance of neutrality “leaves very little time or energy to worry about whether the [information] machine is designed for war or peace, for social need or individual profits, to help us or to poison us” (16).

In recent years, we have seen attempts to erase archival information in support of crimes against humanity and environmental degradation. The routine destruction of ICE records or the removal of Web information on climate change left over from a previous administration could be standard archival practices. However, if we keep our values separate from our assessment of these practices, our will will tend “to maintain the existing social order by perpetuating its values, by legitimizing its priorities, by justifying its wars, perpetuating its prejudices, contributing to its xenophobia, and apologizing for its class order” (18). Such controversies are not quibbles about efficient procedures; they are moves of powerful apparatuses with bearing on people’s lives.

During this pandemic, we all must pause; as Arundhati Roy writes in her recent essay, “The pandemic is a portal,” (https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca)  this rupture forces “humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.”  We have an opportunity to ask whether the work of archivists resists or endorses harmful narratives, such as American exceptionalism, disease as a third-world problem, immigrants as dangerous, poverty as a just product of meritocracy, or science as suspect. We do not have to look for egregious prejudice to see the impact of archival information and practices on people’s lives.

Zinn remarks that problems in the United States are not problems of excess, but of normalcy; how prescient was his observation that “our economic problem is not a depression but the normal functioning of the economy, dominated by corporate power and profit” (19). We see the coronavirus rip apart people’s lives and livelihoods, and lay bare societal problems and structural inequalities. How do we make sure that we document these phenomena equitably, inclusively, and with careful attention to our own influence?

I take Zinn’s words as an argument not to return to “normal” after the pandemic, and Roy argues that nothing would be worse. The disruption of operations is an opportunity to decide how we want to remake our work. Zinn notes several biases in archives — the wealthy and powerful over the marginalized, the domination of the written word, past over present, preservation over documentation, among others — that are still challenges today. How do we want to contend with these biases in the future? To what, and to whom, do we want to give our attention? Archivists have roles to play in guiding for more equitable and activist documentation and access to information. Each of us will have to decide what that means, and I encourage everyone to take this strange time to meditate on how we can further humanize our work.

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Archivists on the News: “Hidden in Plain Sight”: Institutional Amnesia and the Archives

Archivists on the News is a series where archivists share their perspectives on current news topics. This post comes courtesy of Alex Bisio, Lead Processing Archivist and Assistant Librarian at the University of Oregon.

Late February’s news cycle was dominated by yet another political scandal. Rather than the now familiar chorus of collusion, corruption, and congressional gridlock, this state-level scandal turned the national conversation toward personal accountability and the pervasiveness of racism in American culture, particularly in the recent past. The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, was discovered having allegedly appeared in blackface with a classmate dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan at a medical school party, which was documented in a photograph that was later published in the school’s 1984 yearbook.  Northam first confirmed and then denied that he was the individual in the yearbook picture. It was later discovered that two other individuals in the Virginia government had their racist actions preserved in their own college yearbooks.

White America took yet another moment to be aghast at the “revelation” that even as recently as the 1980s blatant celebrations of racism have been, and still are, incredibly common on college campuses all over the country. In this case, it could be cynically said, white America may have been more aghast at the revelation that evidence of these celebrations can easily be found by anyone at any college library or archive.

Indeed, this event in Virginia politics sent scores of student journalists to their own libraries and institutional archives, where many learned not only about past campus culture’s ties to racism, but about where that information could be located. “These documents are easily available,” wrote the editorial board of the Minnesota Daily, the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, “All yearbooks are available publically, free of charge, in the basement of the Anderson Library. Examples of racial bigotry are hidden in plain sight and no one really talks about them.” 1

Students weren’t the only ones who were prompted to start looking at how evidence of racism has been preserved in the historical record on college campuses. Administrators at several universities, possibly eager to “get out in front” of a potential scandal of their own, were quick to make statements condemning their institution’s racist past. A few universities have set up taskforces of administrators, faculty, and librarians to specifically examine yearbooks, both digitized and print, for what one university euphemistically termed “images of concern.” 2 It is unclear, however, what will be done with the images when the reviews are completed. Other institutions preemptively published statements regarding the potential for offensive content in their holdings while defending the practices of preserving their history. 3

Perhaps surprisingly, none of the institutions that reviewed yearbook content suggested removing historical student publications from the web or the stacks. On the contrary, many were vehemently opposed to doing so. “The offensive and racist images in our yearbooks cannot be erased any more than they can be forgotten. They are a permanent part of our record,” wrote Emory University President Claire E. Sterk in an email to her campus community, “Much as I despise what those images represent, I think it is important that Emory’s yearbooks continue to be accessible online.” 4

Certainly, it is encouraging to see college students and administrators working with librarians, archivists, and historians to confront the sins of the past rather than bury or deny them. However, the documents that reveal evidence of the often racist, sexist, and classist culture that has flourished in some of the most hallowed halls of higher education in America, were never hidden. College and university archives have been actively maintaining these kinds of documents and making them available to the concerned, or simply curious, for decades. Archivists are, furthermore, becoming more visible participants in these important conversations about the preservation and presentation of American history and culture. Is the specter of scandal, and the desire to control the media narrative surrounding that scandal, really the only time stakeholders will highlight the value of archival resources and demonstrate how institutional archives inform, and sometimes complicate, the place of campus culture in broader conversations about race, sex, and class in American history?

While it seems as if little has truly resulted from February’s media frenzy, (Ralph Northam, for example, has refused to resign from office) we can hope that white Americans will not settle back into a kind of collective amnesia about racism’s fervent hold on American institutions, even the progressive intuitions that claim to know better. We must also hope that if and when this kind of scandal floods media outlets again, that people in higher education, particularly administrators, will not suffer from the same amnesia. If we are genuine about our commitment to confronting the history of prejudice and inequality on American college campuses and dealing with the legacy in a tangible way, we cannot act surprised that these problematic documents exist and attempt to deal with the fallout as a public relations crisis. We cannot distance ourselves from the past and forget about the pain we have inflicted, only to remember when it is politically convenient to do so.

Footnotes:

1 “Editorial: Acknowledging Racial, Discriminatory Historical Practices on UMN Campus.” The Minnesota Daily. February 17, 2019. https://www.mndaily.com/article/2019/02/o-editorial-acknowledging-racial-discriminatory-historical-practices-on-umn-campus.

2 Samsel, Haley. “In Review of Yearbooks, American University Officials Uncover Fifteen Photos ‘of Concern.’” The Eagle. February 12, 2019. https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2019/02/in-review-of-yearbooks-american-university-officials-uncover-fifteen-photos-of-concern.

3 “Offensive Content in Our Collections.” UMD Special Collections & University Archives (blog), February 26, 2019.   https://hornbakelibrary.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/offensive-content-in-our-collections/.

4 Stirgus, Eric. “Emory University to Create Commission to Review Racist Yearbook Photos.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 20, 2019. https://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/emory-university-creates-commission-review-racist-yearbook-photos/fmIbZdVCMdt2jAhhpUsKtK/.

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News Highlights, 2018 January

The I&A News Monitoring Research Team has compiled this list of recent news stories regarding topics of relevance to archives and archivists. View the full list of news stories online.

Acquisition, Preservation, & Access

  1. “Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Thought War on Terror Would Be Easily Won” (FOIA and the National Security Archive)
    https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/581930133/former-defense-secretary-rumsfeld-thought-war-on-terror-would-be-easily-won
  2. “Inside the Battle for Arthur Miller’s Archive”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/arts/arthur-miller-archive-ransom-center.html
  3. “White House intends to destroy data from voter fraud commission”
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/politics/voter-fraud-commission-data/index.html
  4. “How a Library Handles a Rare and Deadly Book of Wallpaper Samples”
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/shadows-from-the-walls-of-death-book

Archival Finds & Stories

  1. “They spoke out against immigrants. So she unearthed their own immigrant ancestors”
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/immigration-resistance-genealogy-jennifer-mendelsohn-trnd/index.html
  2. “The Forgotten History of Black Women Protesting Sexual Assault”
    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-forgotten-history-of-black-women-protesting-sexual_us_5a4e29dee4b0d86c803c7c42

Digital Archives, Technology, & the Web

  1. “Saving Gawker and Alt-Weeklies from Deletion.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/business/media/gawker-archives-press-freedom.html
  2. “Google App Goes Viral Making an Art Out of Matching Faces to Paintings”
    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/15/578151195/google-app-goes-viral-making-an-art-out-of-matching-faces-to-paintings

Exhibits & Museums

  1. “A Diary from a Gulag Meets Evil with Lightness”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/arts/design/gulag-museum-moscow-diary.html
  2. “Haslla Art World: Part museum, part hotel”
    https://www.cnn.com/videos/travel/2018/01/31/haslla-art-world-gangwon-south-korea.cnn
  3. “Super Bowl tourists will see Holocaust photo exhibit at Minneapolis airport”
    https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/392996/super-bowl-tourists-will-see-holocaust-photo-exhibit-at-minneapolis-airport/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Main

Human & Civil Rights, Equality, & Health

  1. “How to Save the Memories of the Egyptian Revolution”
    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/an-internet-archive-rekindles-the-egyptian-revolutions-spirit/551489/
  2. “‘There Are Higher Laws’: Inside the Archives of an Illegal Abortion Network”
    https://splinternews.com/there-are-higher-laws-inside-the-archives-of-an-illega-1822280179
  3. “Archives chronicle decades of Baha’i persecution in Iran”
    http://www.newscenter1.tv/story/37305919/archives-chronicle-decades-of-bahai-persecution-in-iran
  4. “‘They’ve been invisible’: Seattle professor studies role of black grandmothers in society”
    https://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/theyve-been-invisible-seattle-professor-studies-role-of-black-grandmothers-in-society/
  5. Trump Administration Skews Terror Data to Justify Anti-Muslim Travel Ban
    https://theintercept.com/2018/01/16/trump-administration-skews-terror-data-to-justify-anti-muslim-travel-ban/
  6. “The Troubling Origins of the Skeletons in a New York Museum” (Thousands of Herero people died in a genocide. Why are Herero skulls in the American Museum of Natural History?)
    https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-troubling-origins-of-the-skeletons-in-a-new-york-museum
  7. “‘Solicitor-client privilege’ keeping 98-year-old document on sick First Nations children under wraps”
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/archives-secret-document-indigenous-children-removal-hospital-1.4513267

Security & Privacy

  1. “The Art of Crime”
    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-art-of-crime_us_5a5e7a28e4b0c40b3e59752e
  2. “Historian Pleads Guilty to Theft of Government Records from the National Archives”
    http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/167977

The Profession

  1. “Curating Band-Aids, Both Modern and Vintage”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/jobs/curating-band-aids-modern-vintage.html
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News Highlights, 2017 November-December

The I&A News Monitoring Research Team has compiled this list of recent news stories regarding topics of relevance to archives and archivists. View the full list of news stories online as well. 

Acquisition, Preservation, & Access

  1. “Gabriel García Márquez’s Archive Freely Available Online”
  2. “‘Father of The Internet’ Skewers FCC: ‘You Don’t Understand How the Internet Works’”
  3. “Saving history from ISIS destruction: Benedictine monk preserves historic sacred and secular texts from the destruction of ISIS and the war against it in Iraq”

Archival Finds & Stories

  1. “A Glimpse of American History Through the Process of Becoming a Citizen”
  2. “Controversial sugar industry study on cancer uncovered”
  3. “I read decades of Woody Allen’s private notes. He’s obsessed with teenage girls.”
  4. Thousands of papers lost or missing from British National Archives, including records on Falklands, Northern Ireland’s Troubles, and the infamous Zinoviev letter

Climate & Emergency Preparedness

  1. “Oral history project to chronicle human impact of Harvey” The University of Houston’s Center for Public History plans to interview over 300 participants to discover the human impact of Hurricane Harvey.

Digital Archives, Technology, & the Web

  1. “Data Mining Reveals Historical Events in Government Archive Records”
  2. “Future Historians Probably Won’t Understand Our Internet, and That’s Okay” Archivists are working to document our chaotic, opaque, algorithmically complex world—and in many cases, they simply can’t.
  3. “Saving Japan’s Games”
  4. “The Librarians Saving the Internet”

Exhibits & Museums

  1. “Illinois Holocaust Museum Preserves Survivors’ Stories — As Holograms”
  2. “Little-known face of famed Nazi hunters shown in Paris”

Human & Civil Rights, Equality, & Health

  1. “200,000 Died in Guatemala’s Civil War — This Digital Archive is Finally Bringing Families Closure”
  2. Mississippi Civil Rights Museum

Security & Privacy

  1. “Libraries and the Fight for Privacy”
  2. “Pentagon exposed some of its data on Amazon server”

The Profession

  1. “A Woman Now Leads the Vatican Museums. And She’s Shaking Things Up.”
  2. “The Extinction of Libraries: Why the Predictions Aren’t Coming True”
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Research Post: Archiving Accounts of War Crimes–Preserving History, Protecting Victims

I&A Research Teams are groups of dedicated volunteers who monitor breaking news and delve into ongoing topics affecting archives and the archival profession. Under the leadership of the I&A Steering Committee, the Research Teams compile their findings into Research Posts. Each post offers a summary and coverage of an issue. This comes from the General News Media Research Team, which monitors the news for issues affecting archivists and archives.

 Please be aware that the sources cited have not been vetted and do not indicate an official stance of SAA or the Issues and Advocacy Section.

 

The Syrian and Iraqi civil wars spotlight two archival problems faced by countries experiencing or recovering from war. The first problem centers on the protection of a country’s archives and cultural landmarks. The Islamic State has looted, smuggled, and destroyed ancient monuments, artifacts, and manuscripts in Syria, most infamously in Palmyra.[1] The Islamic State has also destroyed pre-Islamic and Islamic manuscripts in Mosul, Iraq, which Mosul citizens, not surprisingly, view as an attack on their heritage.[2] The second problem centers on capturing and preserving materials that document war crimes, such as videos, photographs, court transcripts, surveillance files, and a variety of other materials that prove torture, extrajudicial punishments, and repression have occurred. Individuals often face serious risks acquiring and preserving such materials due to the destruction caused by war, along with the aggressors’ desire to escape justice. Sound and Image, a group operating in Syria and Turkey, maintains records of the Islamic State’s crimes (the Islamic State has targeted and killed some of its members).[3] Hadi al Khatib and Jeff Deutch, who live in Berlin, created the Syrian Archive, which focuses on video footage of war crimes in Syria, regardless of the perpetrators’ affiliation. Syrian Archive members catalog the videos and assign metadata.[4]

Countries recovering from war benefit from archivists’ preserving both historical materials and contemporary documentary evidence. Historical manuscripts, photographs, and other records express the cultural heritage of ethnic groups and nation states, which can serve as a source of unity. Evidence of war crimes aids the pursuit of justice, restitution, and healing. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner succinctly stated the latter point in the recent Rule-of-Law Tools for Post-Conflict States: Archives:

When a period characterized by widespread or systematic human rights violations comes to an end, those who suffered under the previous regime or during a conflict will particularly seek to fulfil their rights to the truth, justice and reparation, as well as demand institutional reforms to prevent the recurrence of violations. To meet these demands States use a variety of approaches: investigations and prosecutions, truth-seeking activities, reparation initiatives, and institutional reforms to reduce the possibility that repression or conflict will recur. Every one of these processes relies on archives.[5]

Archivists operate under enormous strain, however, when attempting to preserve materials in countries with ruined infrastructure, political instability, and few financial resources. An archives’ existence is often at stake under these circumstances. Still, the United Nations argues that sensitive records ought to stay in the countries of origin and that only copies should be deposited in archives located in other secure countries.[6] The National Archives of Finland, for example, recently accepted “digital copies of documents that have become endangered due to the Syrian Civil War.” The archives had previously accepted documents concerning the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon.[7] The Nile River Museum in Egypt also houses artifacts collected for a future museum of South Sudan, which declared its independence in 2011. The country is attempting to build a national archive, museum, and theater to preserve the cultural heritage of the new country’s 10.5 million citizens. While artifacts are in Egypt for safekeeping, archival documents still remain in Juba, the capital city, amidst a new civil war. Many of the archivists there fled to refugee camps when the conflict began, but staff member Becu Thomas stayed in the capital. Thomas thought that his country never learned from its past. He now works diligently to arrange and digitize South Sudan’s historical documents.[8]

France provides another example of the relationship between archives and countries recovering from war. The French government declassified over 200,000 records in December 2015 that document the Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazis. The records may shed light on arrests and executions previously shrouded in secrecy, allowing researchers, family members, and others to come to terms with a difficult past. The French government, however, decided not to declassify documents relating to the country’s occupation of Algeria.[9] Algerians fought a bloody war for independence from France between 1954 and 1962. Materials relating both to war crimes and torture that occurred during the war, as well as cultural materials from pre-colonial Algeria, remain in French archives. Abdelmadjid Chicki, who serves as the director of Algeria’s national archive center, argues that records produced on Algerian soil belong to Algeria. Members of the French national archives argue that France owns materials that French citizens collected. France has offered to share copies of the Algerian materials with Algeria[10], a reversal of the previously mentioned position that the United Nations holds. Algerians have resorted to buying Ottoman-era documents at French auctions in order to develop an extensive collection of historical materials from their country.[11]

While France refuses to return records to Algeria, French archivists are attempting to develop a complete archival record that incorporates materials from former colonies. The French National Archives started Le Grande Collecte, a project to acquire and preserve materials from West Africans who lived under French rule or who migrated to France.[12] The French government also strongly supports a UNESCO fund to restore ancient sites and archives in places like Syria and also to find “safe havens” for endangered items. Some nations are worried about losing control of their cultural heritage.[13]

Archivists must balance the sometimes competing goals of protecting records and respecting the rights of record creators, owners, and subjects. Moving and storing records around the globe may aid preservation but not access for those who need them most. When these records are associated with crimes and torture, there may be other motives besides preservation behind the relocation of materials. A repository outside London, for instance, houses records that document the torture of people in 37 former British colonies, including Kenya, who fought for independence. The records’ existence remained a guarded secret from the rest of the world until recently, even as victims of violence sought justice for years.[14] Such records must be preserved and made accessible so that restitution and accountability can occur, and so that countries recovering from war can move forward.

 

 List of Further Readings

The I&A Steering Committee would like to thank the General News Media Research Team, and in particular Audrey Lengel and Sean McConnell, for writing this post. The General News Media Team is: Courtney Dean; Lori Dedeyan; Audrey Lengel; Sean McConnell; and Daria Labinsky, team leader. If you are aware of an issue that might benefit from a Research Post, please get in touch with us: archivesissues@gmail.com.

Sources Cited

[1] “Alarmed at destruction in Palmyra, Security Council reiterates need to stamp out hatred espoused by ISIL,” UN News Centre, January 20, 2017.  http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56013. Accessed April 17, 2017.

[2] “Rubble, Ash Left in Mosul Museum Retaken from IS,” Voice of America, March 8, 2017. http://www.voanews.com/a/rubble-left-mosul-museum-retaken-islamic-state/3756042.html. Accessed April 18, 2017.

[3] “Syria: Witnesses for the Prosecution,” Al Jazeera, November 19, 2016. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2016/11/syria-witnesses-prosecution-161115091502071.html. Accessed April 18, 2017.

[4] “Syrian Archive catalogues war atrocities online,” Deutsche Welle, December 29, 2016. http://www.dw.com/en/syrian-archive-catalogues-war-atrocities-online/a-36945803. Accessed April 18, 2017.

[5] United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Rule-of-Law for Post-Conflict States: Archives (New York and Geneva, United Nations, 2015), 1.

[6] Ibid., 10, 40.

[7] “Endangered Syrian documents taken into safekeeping at the National Archives of Finland,” Ministry of Education and Culture, February 12, 2016. http://minedu.fi/en/article/-/asset_publisher/endangered-syrian-documents-taken-into-safekeeping-at-the-national-archives-of-finland. Accessed April 18, 2017.

[8]Strochlic, Nina. “Can Archivists Save the World’s Newest Nation?” National Geographic. November 3, 2016. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/south-sudan-archives/. Accessed April 22, 2017.

[9] Danny Lewis, “France is Making Thousands of Vichy-Era Documents Public,” Smithsonian.com, December 29, 2015. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/france-making-thousands-vichy-era-documents-public-180957661/. Accessed April 19, 2017.

[10] Christian Lowe, “Algeria, France tussle over archives 50 years after split,” Reuters, July 4, 2012. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-algeria-archives-idUSBRE86307L20120704. Accessed April 19, 2017.

[11] Abdul Razak bin Abdullah, “Algeria obtains Ottoman-era documents at French auction,” Anadolu Agency, March 4, 2017. http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/algeria-obtains-ottoman-era-documents-at-french-auction/787097. Accessed April 19, 2017.

[12] Alison Hurd, “France adds African perspective to colonial period archives,” Radio France Internationale, November 21, 2016. http://en.rfi.fr/france/20161121-france-adds-african-perspective-colonial-period-archives. Accessed April 21, 2017.

[13] Erin Blakemore, “New Fund Pledges to Protect Cultural Heritage from War and Terror,” Smithsonian.com, March 21, 2017. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-fund-pledges-protect-cultural-heritage-war-and-terror-180962616/. Accessed April 21, 2017.

[14] Marc Perry, “Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire,” The Guardian, August 18, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau. Accessed April 21, 2017.

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Steering Share: Alison Stankrauff

Steering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post is from I&A Steering Committee Member Alison Stankrauff. She is an Archivist and Associate Librarian at Indiana University South Bend. 

Alison Stankrauff 2016
Photo by IUSB Michael McCombs

What was your first job in a library, archive, or museum?

My first job in an archive was as a student worker at the Walter P. Reuther Library Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. I was working through the Archives Administration and MLIS program at Wayne State. I worked with the amazing Detroit News and Free Press Collection – scanning its glass and acetate negatives for preservation, putting them into acid-free enclosures, entering metadata into the system. I loved that job and working with the amazing archivists and staff at the Reuther. I kept the negatives’ original paper enclosures (instead of recycling them) and then did detective work on bicycle rides around the city – I learned SO much about my beloved Detroit’s history!

What made you want to join the I&A Steering Committee?

I feel very connected to making sure that the wider world know about archives – and primary sources, and the institutions that house them – are so important. They’re far from a luxury or a secondary concern for our society. Archives and professionals to properly care for and make these collections accessible are essential to a democratic society. I feel that archives and trained professionals are ever more important as we move forward to a presidency that questions verifiable data and information.

What is one major issue you see archives tackling in the next five to ten years?

I’d love to see the archival programs throughout North America really tackle and incorporate more classwork for students about teaching with primary sources. Another SAA group I’m active with, the Reference, Access, and Outreach Section (RAO), is taking this on. I’m a member of RAO’s Teaching with Primary Sources Working Group (TPS) and we are surveying archives masters programs throughout America and Canada to see how they’re teaching and what they’re teaching – or not. We hope to publish our survey, so stay tuned!

What archive issue means a lot to you?

I think, per my answer about joining I&A, our cultural institutions are increasingly under attack in ways that we’ve not experienced previously or anticipated. So I think that working with other archivists and information professionals to advocate for archives is key going forward. As a lone arranger in a woefully under-funded institution, I need all the help and extra voice that I can get to lend support to my message!

Describe and share an interesting archive you have come across over the years.

This past summer, I visited Bulgaria on one of my fantastic cycling vacations. I went there directly following the LGBTQ+ Archives, Libraries, Museums, and Special Collections conference in London, where I was presenting our LGBTQ+ Collection with other small archives from the U.S. I was able to visit an amazing archive of the Shumen Mosque in northeastern Bulgaria. This was an honor and the experience impressed itself upon me in so many ways.

 

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Steering Share: Daria Labinsky

darialabinsky_smallSteering Shares are an opportunity to find out more about the I&A Steering Committee. This post is from I&A Steering Committee Member Daria Labinsky. She is an archivist at the National Archives in St. Louis, who works primarily with 20th century military personal data records.

What was your first job in a library, archive, or museum?

As an undergrad at Northwestern, my first work-study job was to shelve books at the Evanston Public Library. The next year I was promoted to QC’ing data entry into the brand-new electronic catalog! I checked the entered data and metadata against what was on the cards and made edits when needed. I remember falling asleep sitting in front of an open card catalog drawer, and my supervisor waking me up. She was amused.

What made you want to join the I&A Steering Committee?

I attended the Archives Leadership Institute in June, and Barbara Teague taught the classes on advocacy. She mentioned that getting involved in some kind of advocacy committee, or joining a group that champions a specific issue, is a way to share your opinions through a collective voice. As a federal employee I sometimes feel constrained when it comes to being able to speak out about issues that affect our profession, and I think I&A can aid others who may feel the same way. I was a member of the General News Research Team last year and have been monitoring issues that impact archives and libraries for years.

What is one major issue you see archives tackling in the next five to ten years?

Efforts to make archives and the profession more diverse and inclusive will grow stronger. It’s exciting to see how the archiving of social media continues to enable the voices of historically marginalized people to be saved and shared. More needs to be done; we need to raise awareness by educating current archivists and those who control archival purse strings. And we also need to work harder to retain people once they’re hired. Quite a few people are writing eloquently about these kind of topics, but Jarrett M. Drake’s and Bergis Jules’ blogs are two of my must-reads.

What archive issue means a lot to you?

The destruction of records that should be permanent is a significant problem. In “Institutional Silences and the Digital Dark Age” Eira Tansey writes, “ … because those with the most power within organizations are rarely the same individuals tasked with carrying out records mandates, there will always be archival silences despite archivists’ and records managers’ best efforts.” The problems she sees in public universities are probably more prevalent in government agencies. Sometimes creators deliberately destroy records; sometimes it’s inadvertent—out of ignorance, accidentally during a move, or because they assume incorrectly that someone or some system is archiving their emails for them. In a perfect world laws requiring public employees to save the records they are legally mandated to save would be strictly enforced. We need to step up and make sure our elected officials know why enforceable records management policies are important, and we need to continue to educate records creators on how to integrate archival best practices into records management.

Describe and share an interesting archive you have come across over the years.

The holdings of the National Archives at St. Louis contain many, many interesting items. One of our most recent acquisitions are the Research and Experimental Case Files, records compiled during Army tests of potential chemical agents and/or antidotes on volunteers conducted during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. These records provide fascinating written documentation by test subjects who were under the influence of a variety of drugs. Although the reports are sometimes humorous—patients’ acid trip drawings are not uncommon—there’s an undercurrent of tragedy within them. Just how “voluntary” were the tests for those subjects who were inmates in Holmesburg Prison? What kind of physical and mental health problems did the participants later experience? The files shed light on another troubling chapter in our history.

Note: The contents of this message are mine personally and do not necessarily reflect any position of the federal government or the National Archives and Records Administration.

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Police-Worn Body Camera Footage: A Public Record? Part 2

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. If you have an issue you would like to write about for this blog series or a previous post that you would like to respond to, please email archivesissues@gmail.com. Please note that opinions expressed in Archivists on the Issues posts do not indicate an official stance of SAA or the Issues and Advocacy Roundtable.

This post, written by Rachel Mattson, is part two in a two-part series regarding the debate regarding police body-camera footage’s classification as a public record. Part 1 is available here.

BWCs: The Wild West of Records Requests
Requestors seeking access to police-worn body camera footage nationwide have encountered a diversity of other obstacles. Indeed, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) recently called police body cam footage “the Wild West of open records requests,” noting that obtaining access to these records “is proving to be an uncertain and challenging endeavor.”[1] One justification that agencies often use for the withholding of footage is its sensitive nature. BWC footage raises serious concerns about privacy, security, and confidentiality. But as RCFP’s Adam Marshall notes—and as video archivists who work with human rights documentation have long known—there exists a wide range of tech and policy strategies that can make video available to the public while protecting individual privacy and security.[2]

Possibly the greatest threat to the public’s ability to access BWC going forward may be the efforts currently underway in many states to pass legislation that would exempt BWC footage from public records laws. In July 2016, North Carolina made national news when governor Pat McCrory signed a bill declaring that “body camera and dash camera footage are not public record[s].” Similar bills are currently being considered in Michigan, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana, and California, among other states. In Utah, one lawmaker has even proposed a bill that would officially classify all footage as “a private government record” if it depicts any “images of nudity, death, or gruesome events.” Who determines if an image is gruesome? “Something’s gruesome if police say it is.”[3]

In the view of many observers, access to police BWC footage, especially of fatal police shootings, is “crucial” to both “the public’s ability to hold police responsible for their conduct” and officers’ ability to exonerate themselves when wrongly accused of misconduct.[4] And the potential privacy and security concerns that these records raise remain separate from the question of whether these videos should be officially classified as public records. Indeed, many confidential and sensitive records, including federal intelligence records, are classified as public records under law. Body camera footage is not more sensitive than these kinds of records, and should not treated as such.[5]

It may be the case, as several activist groups have claimed, that equipping the police with cameras is the wrong strategy for addressing the larger problems of police accountability and racial justice. A broad base of community and activist groups have critiqued the practice of equipping police with BWCs. For instance, We Charge Genocide, a Chicago-based group working toward restorative justice solutions for police misconduct, suggests that “when police control the cameras, those cameras are at the service of police violence.” In fact, they observe that one body camera manufacturer “actually uses the slogan ‘Made by Cops for Cops. Prove Your Truth.’” The recent “Vision for Black Lives” Statement put forth by the Movement for Black Lives likewise includes a demand to “End the Use of Technologies that Criminalize and Target Our Communities (Including IMSI Catchers, Drones, Body Cameras, and Predictive Policing Software).”[6]

Nonetheless, the calls for and deployment of police-worn body cameras increase every day. As more local policing agencies equip officers with BWCs, we have a responsibility to engage with challenges that these government-generated records present. Indeed, as professional archivists and records managers, some of us may soon manage BWC footage as part of our official responsibilities. As we have learned recently, making this video a public record will not in-and-of-itself put an end to police murder of black and brown people. In order for that to occur, access to documentation will have to be coupled with mechanisms that make it possible to hold public servants accountable for their actions. But for BWC footage to be used in the pursuit of accountability and justice, it has to be a public record first. [7]

SAA and BWCs
This fall, I will work to start a conversation about BWCs among SAA members and hope to put forth proposal to the Society of American Archivists’ Committee on Public Policy (COPP) that SAA take a public stand supporting policies that, at a minimum, ensure that police BWC footage be officially classified as a public record.[8] I hope you’ll support—or join!—this conversation and effort. On its main webpage, COPP heralds the power of archival records to “ensure the protection of citizens’ rights, the accountability of organizations and governments, and the accessibility of historical information,” noting that the SAA “believes that archivists must take an active role in advocating for the public policies and resources necessary to ensure that these records are preserved and made accessible.” As BWCs gain widespread usage by U.S. police departments, the footage they generate will become an ever-more pervasive part of the criminal justice system. Ensuring that videos remain public records is something that, as an archival organization committed to “the public’s right to equal and equitable access to government information found in archives,” we should support wholeheartedly.[9]

Rachel Mattson is a Brooklyn-based historian and archivist. She currently works as the Manager of Special Projects in the Archives of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and is a core member of the XFR Collective. She previously volunteered for I-Witness Video, a group that used citizen video and archival strategies to oppose police misconduct. Mattson holds a PhD in U.S. History from NYU and an MLIS from UIUC. Her writing has appeared in publications including Radical History Review, the Scholar and the Feminist, Movement Research Performance Journal, and in books published by Routledge, Washington Square, and Thread Makes Blanket Press.

Citations
[1] Adam Marshall, “Police Bodycam Videos: The Wild West of Open Records Requests,” rcfp.org/bodycam-video-access.
[2] Marshall, “Police Bodycam Videos: The Wild West of Open Records Requests.”
[3] “North Carolina Keeps Public From Seeing Police Camera Video,” Winston Salem Journal, July 11, 2016; Sophia Murguia, “More States Set Privacy Restrictions on Bodycam Video,” rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/more-states-set-privacy-restrictions-bodycam-video; “Police Bodycam Footage is a Vital Public Record; Don’t Restrict It,” the Utah Standard-Examiner, February 12, 2016.
[4]“Police Bodycam Footage is a Vital Public Record; Don’t Restrict It,” Standard-Examiner.
[5] I thank Eileen Clancy for reminding me of this fact. For more on the parameters of the federal records laws, see e.g. Douglas Cox, “Burn After Viewing: The CIA’s Destruction of the Abu Zubaydah Tapes and the Law of Federal Records,” Journal of National Security Law and Policy, Vol. 5, 2011, pp. 131-177.
[6] We Charge Genocide, “Statement on Cops and Cameras,” http://wechargegenocide.org/statement-on-cops-and-cameras; The Movement for Black Lives, “A Vision for Black Lives, Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom and Justice,” policy.m4bl.org/end-war-on-black-people/. See also Caruso, Burns, and Converse, “Slow Motion Increases Perceived Intent,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 (33) May 2016, pnas.org/content/113/33/9250.full; and Williams et al., “Police Body Cameras: What Do You See?” New York Times, April 1, 2016.
[7] For a critical analysis of the complexity of the issues at hand and the kind of work that needs to be done to address them, see Kimberle Crenshaw and Andrea Ritchie’s indispensible report, “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,” African American Policy Forum, 2015.
[8] The proposal is currently in development. If you wish to contribute or add your name to the list of supporters, please email keepbwcfpublic [at] gmail [dot] com.
[9] SAA Public Policy Agenda, archivists.org/advocacy/publicpolicy/saapublicpolicyagenda#.V6UTso7OlqA; Committee on Public Policy webpage, archivists.org/groups/committee-on-public-policy#.V6Y3N47OlqB

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Police-Worn Body Camera Footage: A Public Record? Part 1

Archivists on the Issues is a forum for archivists to discuss the issues we are facing today. If you have an issue you would like to write about for this blog series or a previous post that you would like to respond to, please email archivesissues@gmail.com. Please note that opinions expressed in Archivists on the Issues posts do not indicate an official stance of SAA or the Issues and Advocacy Roundtable.

This post, written by Rachel Mattson, is part one in a two-part series regarding the debate regarding police body-camera footage’s classification as a public record. Part 2 is now available here.

Introduction
The murder of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 was, we now know, a turning point in the struggle for racial justice and police accountability in the U.S. Protests in the shooting’s aftermath garnered international news attention and extended the work of racial justice activists under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement. The horror of Brown’s death and the power of the highly visible oppositional efforts in its aftermath put conversations about police procedure and accountability front and center nationally.

One of the chief reforms proposed in the wake of these events was implementation of police-worn body cameras. After Brown’s murder, officers in Ferguson began routinely using these devices, and in December 2014, President Obama officially requested $75 million in federal funds to support the distribution of 50,000 body cameras to police departments nationwide. Shortly thereafter, The Atlantic called the adoption of body-worn cameras by municipal police departments “may[be] the most significant reform to follow the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown.” The trend has continued: in March 2016, New York-based legal researcher Ian Head noted that “cameras are the biggest trend in police departments across the country.”[1]

But even as calls for use of police-worn body cameras grew, critics began to sound notes of caution. Privacy experts voiced concerns that “equipping police with such devices” might simply extend the government’s surveillance capacity: the Los Angeles Times reported that someday “such cameras…may be used with facial-recognition technology the way many departments already use license-plate scanners.” Others noted that ample evidence suggested that video documentation was not enough to ensure accountability or justice. New York Times Magazine contributor Jenna Wortham tweeted, “Eric Garner’s death WAS captured on video. We all saw it. Body cameras for cops won’t solve this problem. It’s bigger than technology.”[2] She refers to the Staten Island man who was choked to death by an NYPD officer in July 2014. A grand jury failed to indict the officer responsible.

Body-worn cameras (BWCs for short) began raising a range of legal and archival questions that municipalities and police departments were woefully underprepared to address. Should footage generated by police-worn body cameras be classified as a public record? When and how should access be granted to family members, journalists, lawyers, activists, researchers, and other interested parties? How can officials protect the privacy of individuals whose lives, and homes, are caught on video? What strategies should be used to ensure the integrity of the digital files generated by BWCs? What kinds of retention policies should determine the disposition of the deluge of new, ever-increasing video records? In the rush to put cameras on bodies, these questions had been largely overlooked: a federal survey of 63 law enforcement agencies using body cameras found that as of mid-2014, nearly a third had no written policy to govern their use.[3] This has improved some in the intervening years: according to a study by The Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, as of August 2016, 42 of major city police departments 68 (roughly 62%) have BWC policies in place.[4]

But a raft of issues remain, even when agencies have established policies. For instance, studies have found that most of the existing BWC policies are vague or arbitrary on questions related to the preservation of and public access to video captured by police BWCs.[5] Many cities permit or mandate the destruction of footage between 30 days and six months after filming, unless the video depicts “excessive use of force, detention, or civilian complaints” or has “evidentiary, exculpatory, or training value.” Just who makes this determination—and on what basis—remains unclear. Moreover, the majority of BWC policies make it, in researcher Ian Head’s words, “extremely difficult for anyone but the local prosecutor’s office to access the recordings, even though the cameras are being touted by the Department of Justice as a way for police to ‘demonstrate transparency to their communities.’”[6]

Journalists, government sunshine advocates, and racial justice activists have all sounded the alarm about the inadequacy, arbitrariness, and lack of standards governing BWC policies nationwide.[7] But the voice of one important group has largely been missing from these debates: archivists. And the truth is that a great many of the central challenges of BWC policies and practices are core archival topics. At issue here are questions about digital preservation workflows, access policies, privacy concerns, and records retention schedules—questions that professional archivists and records managers address on a daily basis. Our experience with these questions and our longstanding efforts to resolve them in ethical, effective ways, makes our perspectives essential to ongoing conversations about the development of policies and practices related to BWCs.

Archivists and BWCs
Some efforts are now being made to involve archivists, and archival perspectives, in these conversations. For instance, in August 2016, the UCLA Department of Information Studies hosted a three-day forum called “On the Record, All the Time: Setting an Agenda for Audiovisual Evidence Management.” Funded by an IMLS grant and spearheaded by moving image archives scholar and educator Snowden Becker, the convening was designed to create an “action plan for curricula and educational programs that will better prepare information professionals to manage” materials “generated by the widespread use of surveillance cameras, smartphones, and bodycam.”[8]

But in consideration of how widespread the use of BWCs has become—and the enormous records management questions they pose—one archival initiative is hardly enough. As trained professionals, we have a responsibility to add our multiple voices to the conversation.

One node of this conversation that stands to benefit from the thoughtful archivist’s perspective is the access node. Journalists, lawyers, and watchdog groups have argued that BWC footage falls squarely into the category of public records.[9] Although public records laws vary from locality to locality, nearly every state’s definition of a public record includes “information stored in a variety of media” including video produced by government agencies. For instance, the Florida state law defines as public records any material (“regardless of the physical form, characteristics, or means of transmission”) that is “made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency.” As material created in connection with the transaction of official business of police, BWC footage is clearly a public record in Florida. As such, the law mandates that the agency responsible for that record must make it available “for personal inspection and copying by any person.” And yet, many requestors have had trouble gaining access to police BWC footage in Florida. In early 2015, for instance, officials in Sarasota charged one records requestor $18,000 for fees associated with processing 84 hours of video—an action that had the effect of forcing the requestor to retract his application to view the materials.[10]

Rachel Mattson is a Brooklyn-based historian and archivist. She currently works as the Manager of Special Projects in the Archives of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and is a core member of the XFR Collective. She previously volunteered for I-Witness Video, a group that used citizen video and archival strategies to oppose police misconduct. Mattson holds a PhD in U.S. History from NYU and an MLIS from UIUC. Her writing has appeared in publications including Radical History Review, the Scholar and the Feminist, Movement Research Performance Journal, and in books published by Routledge, Washington Square, and Thread Makes Blanket Press.

Citations
[1] “Ferguson Cops Get Body Cameras After Michael Brown’s Shooting,” NBC News Online, September 1, 2014; Uri Friedman, “Do Police Body Cameras Actually Work?” The Atlantic, December 3, 2014; Ian Head, “Rush to Body Cameras Does Little to Create Police Accountability,” The Daily Outrage: The CCR Blog, March 9, 2016.
[2] Matt Pearce, “Growing Use of Police Body Cameras Raises Privacy Concerns,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 27, 2014. Wortham, who tweets at @jennydeluxe, is quoted in the LA Times article. See also, e.g., Janaé Bonsu, “The Movement for Black Lives Will not be Criminalized,” Institute for Policy Studies, July 18, 2016, ips-dc.org/movement-black-lives-will-not-criminalized/
[3] Cited in Pearce, “Growing Use of Police Body Cameras Raises Privacy Concerns.” The full report can be downloaded from justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/472014912134715246869.pdf
[4] The Leadership Council on Human Rights and Upturn, Police Body Worn Cameras: A Policy Scorecard (2016), bwcscorecard.org.
[5] Campaign Zero, “Police Use of Force Review,”joincampaignzero.org/reports/.
[6] Police Body Worn Cameras: A Policy Scorecard (2016); Campaign Zero, “Police Use of Force Review”; Head, “Rush to Body Cameras Does Little to Create Police Accountability.”
[7]See, for instance, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Civil Rights’ May 2015 press release, “Privacy, and Media Rights Groups Release Principles for Law Enforcement Body Worn Cameras.” http://www.civilrights.org/press/2015/body-camera-principles.html
[8] “On the Record, All the Time,” is.gseis.ucla.edu/bodycams; Project Proposal: “On the Record, All the Time,” imls.gov/sites/default/files/re-43-16-0053-16_proposal_documents.pdf. Attendees live-tweeted some parts of this convening using the hashtag #OTRATT.
[9] For instance, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) recently submitted an amicus brief in an Ohio case related to the shooting of Samuel DuBose by a police officer, in which it “argues that bodycam videos are not confidential law enforcement records under Ohio Public Records Act and accordingly must be released upon request.” To read the brief, visit rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/briefs-comments/cincinnati-enquirer-v-deters.
[10] The 2016 Florida Statutes: leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0100-0199/0119/0119.html; James L. Rosica, “Police Body Cameras Could Conflict with Florida Public Records Law,” Tampa Bay Times, March 15, 2015. Although charging fees do not technically violate the public records laws, they do make it virtually impossible for most journalists or watchdog organizations to access these records. The practice of charging excessive fees for processing public records requests is an alarmingly common one. It gained new visibility when, in the aftermath of Mike Brown’s murder, several newspapers were charged “exorbitant fees” by officials in Ferguson to news organizations requesting documents. At one point, local agencies in Ferguson billed the Associated Press for 8 hours of work at $135 per hour—“merely to retrieve a handful of email accounts since the shooting.” Andy Cush, “Ferguson is Gouging Journalists in Freedom of Information Requests,” Gawker, September 29, 2014. In an attempt to mitigate this challenge, the Obama administration recently included, in an updated FOIA law, a provision that would prohibit agencies from charging processing fees if they fail to respond in 30 days, Jason Leopold, “Obama Just Made it Much Easier for the Public to Access Public Records,” Vice News June 30, 2016.

 

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