>I see incompetent IT processes and a lack of mandated data retention policies.
Having worked in government for well over a decade now, I can tell you that this is undoubtedly the case. That is not to say all departments have poor practices, but on the whole there is no standardization and each organization does things differently.
I have worked in offices that have NO server archive and everyone relies on PST's, and others where there are server archives but they are limited to 500MB or something small and they just start deleting items by date.
I really do think Hanlon's razor applies here. I don't disagree that the incentive is there, but I think the total failure of the USG to do technology correctly is the more likely culprit. I can tell you from first hand experience that I know of very senior people who have lost months of data from what would be a simple migration or corrupted virtual instance. Boggles the mind really.
Agreed. A lot of it has to do how government contracts for IT support. Contracts quickly get out of date. The contractors are also all trying to lock themselves in.
It's common for the contractor to own all the IT equipment and just lease it to the government. What happens when it's time to change contracts and every single computer, phone, printer has to be replaced. There is no possibility for competitive bidding in the wake of that.
Having worked in government for well over a decade now, I can tell you that this is undoubtedly the case. That is not to say all departments have poor practices, but on the whole there is no standardization and each organization does things differently.
I have worked in offices that have NO server archive and everyone relies on PST's, and others where there are server archives but they are limited to 500MB or something small and they just start deleting items by date.