Judge says CDC email policy likely violates federal law

A federal judge ruled Friday that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) likely violated federal law by deleting emails from former employees shortly after they left the agency.

The ruling was issued by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in a lawsuit filed by the Trump-aligned conservative group America First Legal Foundation in April.

Contreras found that the CDC was following a records retention policy that had not been approved by the National Archives and Records Administration and allowed emails from former low-level employees to be deleted about three months after they left the agency.

“The court concludes that CDC’s policy and practice of discarding former employees’ emails ninety days after termination of employment is likely unlawful,” the 36-page opinion reads.

Contreras determined that the CDC and the U.S. Department of Human Services agreed to comply with the NARA protocol called Capstone, which requires that high-level employees’ emails be retained permanently and low-level employees’ emails be retained for three to seven years.

The CDC argued in the lawsuit that it did not adopt the full protocol, but chose to “partially” adopt it.

But Contreras found that the CDC has in fact committed to adopting NARA’s policy in full, noting that “there is nothing in the record to suggest that NARA has ever approved an alternative records expungement schedule.”

“Available evidence suggests that CDC has indeed committed to managing and disposing of its employees’ emails in accordance with the schedule established by GRS 6.1,” the opinion says.

Under the ruling, the CDC was ordered to stop deleting or destroying lower-level employees’ emails for at least three years after they leave the agency for now.

Contreras also ordered NARA to work with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to recover and properly preserve prematurely deleted emails of former CDC employees.

A CDC spokesperson had no immediate comment on the decision, and HHS did not respond to a request for comment from The Hill.

The America First Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit in April after requesting records from the CDC last year regarding the agency’s publication of a document called “LGBTQ Inclusivity in Schools: A Self-Assessment Tool.”

A CDC Freedom of Information Act analyst ended up identifying three employees who worked on publishing the document, but only one of those employees still worked at the agency, according to the opinion.

The FOIA analyst emphasized that this was significant to the American First Legal Foundation’s request because of the CDC’s practice of deleting emails and email accounts of former lower-level employees within 30 days of their departure from the agency.

As a result, the analyst told the America First Legal Foundation that “potentially responsive emails belonging to the two former employees would have already been destroyed.”

The America First Legal Foundation sent a letter describing the situation to the HHS Office of Inspector General, concerned that the agency was “deliberately disregarding” its “duties and obligations” under the Federal Records Act, eventually challenging its recordkeeping practices. of records.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story