Chairman Issa to grill White House on Twitter, Facebook messages

The Obama Administration is set to testify next week at a House Oversight Committee hearing about the Presidential Records Act — and whether the White House’s digital communications are being saved in accordance with the 1978 law.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) May 3 session is set to focus on whether the law accounts for new technologies, such as Facebook and Twitter. While current White House policy stipulates rules for how and when communications from official accounts should be saved, Issa is concerned that “policies regarding the use of ‘unofficial’ accounts for ‘official’ communication are far from clear.” White House policy instructs staffers who receive emails on unofficial or personal accounts which contain official business to voluntarily preserve those emails as Presidential Records. The policy does not address the preservation of records which may be generated from personal use of Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging, SMS or other forms of communication.