There have been several benchmark moments in history with regard to records:
1) Cave man records history on wall of cave
2) Sumerian coherent texts in 3400 BCE and Egyptian hieroglyphs
3) Herodotus of Halicarnassus in 484 BCE Father of History
4) Thucydides in 400 BCE added cause and effect to history keeping and was the first to attach cause and effect and therefore guilt and soon thereafter “Blame” was invented. He was working on a rough draft of Sarbanes Oxley at his death.

Record keeping soon sped through clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, parchment and into paper. (It is thought that the ability of sheep to hide in forests led to the development of paper as a records keeping tool. ) Records managers reluctantly accepted paper as a form of record, much to the delight of the sheep.

Nixon popularized the audio recording as a record and soon to follow was the Clintonian “Blue Dress” and both Presidents mightily cursed Thucydides and his cause and effect; which led to blame. And their subsequent disgrace.

The use of odd items like audio recording, blue dresses and such; opened the door to all sorts of odd items becoming a records class. Connecticut is now opening the door to all sorts of electronic records though their updated Evidence Rules.  And this is indeed timely.

Currently the issue of electronic records is being discussed and a high level group is looking at the chicken and the egg and deciding at what moment an electronic record is born. Electronic Records, like Moses, is an orphan. IT staff through their electronic equipment create the 0’s and 1’s but refuse to recognize them as records. They create back-up tapes due to the overall importance of the collective 0’s and 1’s but again refuse parentage of any resultant record type. 

The records managers also refuse parentage of the electronic record unless it is kept in an Archive. Some records managers will take custody of back-up tapes in a type of Foster Parent relationship. But if every bit of information in the organization is stored in the Cloud and no paper exists, the records manager will deny any record content exists. Even as records managers summon and dispatch such 0’s and 1’s from the Cloud, the Server and their desktop and iPad in their information governance role, they will deny the existence of the electronic record.

Of course this makes Thanksgiving Dinner stressful as Moses sits on one side of the banquet and Electronic Records on the opposite side of the table, each grabbing a turkey leg, and all the while their existence is denied. (Hey, where did the legs go? Is this not proof they attended the dinner?)

So now Connecticut establishes digital data as Evidence and paper and parchment are distressed; as the Rule of Best Evidence is now a mockery.

At this opportune time, the scions of the electronic equipment empire and the similarly wise records management world will meet and the NFPA serving as a substitute Solomon will discover the heritage and paternity for electronic records. And similar to Moses, it may be determined that even if genetically you are not held as the parent, you now will raise this child as your own.

Thank you Connecticut for illuminating this issue at this moment. 

And this is a great analogy; as similar to a flash light that is not a light until the switch is flipped and then is light.  The mere capability of a device to render an electronic record, makes it an electronic record. Whether it be iPhone, iPad, Tablet, Laptop, Desktop, Server, Hard Drive, USB, Back-up Tape, Jukebox, Silo or any other future device, the ability to render a record upon the flip of a switch, makes it a record.

Which is very similar to a typewriter which is not a hardcopy record; but the minute the key strikes paper and a letter, and then a word and then a document is visible, it is a record. Therefore the moment the five senses can perceive it, a record exists. The eye to see, the ear to hear, and touch in the case of braille recorded information.

Thucydides as the inventor of cause and effect in the emerging record would be proud.

Or should the Patron of the Electronic Record be Rene´ Descartes of “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am").  And the motto over the Main Tower at UT in Austin.

I process the data, therefore I exist as an electronic record. And the Courts now acknowledge that.
Hugh Smith
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