Emails in U.S. Vs. Kuwait
I came across this piece of news today about the White House being ordered by the Federal Judge to preserve all emails disallowing the deletion of any email “The Federal Records Act details strict standards prohibiting the destruction of government documents including electronic messages, unless first approved by the archivist of the United States.” . Hmm… interesting. Did you read that last underlined part? Even the White House is not allowed to destroy government documents, referring to all emails that are exchanged inside the White House.
Where are we from this? We want e-Government. We want everything online. Yet, for every single transaction you want to do, yo have to see at least 4 or 5 people who will blindly sign and stamp it, and then you have to find a 1 KD bill to buy a physical stamp from those ministry machines. Nothing can go or happen without piles and piles of signed-up papers which later get archived in a place where no human can find. I used to work in the banking sector, and we had to fax and print everything as a proof. If there is a technical problem with another company, we would have to fax a piece of paper officially informing them of the situation. Otherwise, we might get the fire back! This was banking sector and we still had to do those things, so I don’t wanna fill up paragraphs about government nightmares.
Only one law right now is in place regarding the electronic crime. A very vague law with no specific penalties assigned shall such crimes occur. Years and years of demand did not move the government a bit. Not until the recent incident that they immediately pushed for new law that treats internet content as publication, and a person is responsible even for other people’s contributions to his site.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Most Popular Posts:
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
maryam: Thanks for stopping there :). There are basically 2 problems:
1- As you said. People unaware of technology interfering with it. As happened when Dr. Masooma said we will eliminate all hackers. Next 48 hours site after the other went down. She doesn’t realize hackers are un-stoppable worldwide, and government sites are jokes.
2- Even when they have people who understand, Government project = BIG $$$. So politics get into picture and unworthy company gets hold of it. This happens even in big corporates by the way.
We once had a big project and several candidates. During the proposal review I quit and said “It’s not worth it. They’re gonna pick whichever they want!” And the #3 on the list ended up the chosen one. Till this very moment, the company is suffering. And they didn’t live happily ever after! :~)
Tragic isn’t it?
e-goverment, I’d rather be it a dream than a reality because they are bond to screw everything up. That’s what you get when put people who don’t understand anything in IT incharge of implementing technology.
Did you see the hospitals where they are supposed to use applications (assuming only intranet scope), they didn’t fully utilize it. I can go on and on about what i’ve seen and how much money they spend on applications and support and yet nobody uses them and they stick with this huge brown files and ridiculous hand writing.
I mean what kind of stupid law incriminates individuals for other people’s opinion ‘ana shakow fehom’ freedom of speech. I better stop here before i get me, i mean you, in trouble ;)