The Paper Shredder: Trails of Law (original) (raw)
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Remedies for document destruction: Tales from the tobacco wars
This Article examines the implications of improper document destruction (or, "spoliation") in the context of smoking and health litigation, as well as the adequacy of existing penalties for such behavior. It begins with a discussion of a recent case from Victoria, Australia, McCabe v. British American Tobacco Australia Services, Ltd. ("BATAS"), including the trial and appeals courts' decisions regarding the appropriate penalties for BATAS' document destruction, as well as post-appeal developments in the case. Next, the Article reviews internal tobacco industry documents, including those discussing document "retention" policies that actually encourage destruction of internal documents, and correspondence discussing the contents of destroyed documents. Finally, the Article examines remedies for document destruction in the United States. Because current procedural remedies may not serve as adequate deterrents, the authors propose that courts impose independent civil, and potentially criminal, liability on companies that destroy documents improperly. For lawyers, legal scholars and judges, the tales from the "tobacco wars" provide an opportunity to consider the potentially serious consequences of document destruction, and the appropriate penalty or penalties a court should impose.
This review surveys anthropological and other social research on bureaucratic documents. The fundamental insight of this literature is that documents are not simply instruments of bureaucratic organizations, but rather are constitutive of bureaucratic rules, ideologies, knowledge , practices, subjectivities, objects, outcomes, even the organizations themselves. It explores the reasons why documents have been late to come under ethnographic scrutiny and the implications for our theoretical understandings of organizations and methods for studying them. The review argues for the great value of the study of paper-mediated documentation to the study of electronic forms, but it also highlights the risk of an exclusive focus on paper, making anthropology marginal to the study of core bureaucratic practices in the manner of earlier anthropology.
Types of Documents: Representations of Who We Are and How the Government Works
Knowledge Organization at the Interface, 2020
This article aims to present two different approaches related to the study of types of documents. Our research problem is to understand to what extent the identification of the document type reveals the persistent representation of the archival document. We will present two different approaches related to the study of types of documents: one about the types of documents as a social product, which represents social practices and recognizes that social practices control not only the behavior of the individual, but also the structure and form of the document. From this perspective we will analyze documents from personal collections created in the 19th century. The other approach focuses on the organizational environment of a federal public agency and how document types can be used as an instrument of transparency in a records management system. The research will focus on digital documents created in an electronic system. The study shows that document types also provide the basis for classification systems that are the foundation for acquisition, organization, description and evaluation. Being the closest representation of the acts, the records are taken as evidence, that is, they reveal the persistent representation of the archival document, contributing to the organization of knowledge about the collections, their producers and about society in a given historical period.
Paper'work'and electronic files: defending professional practice
1998
Paper documents are often described as 'information rich', in contrast with electronic documents. This ethn ographic study examines Lotus NOTES in a sub-section of the Irish civil service, with particular reference to the concurrent use of electronic and paper documents. The sub-section examines disagreements with regard to claims by Irish citizens for particular government benefits. The study describes how meta-information contained in paper case files is perceived as necessary for the work of the organisation, thus restricting the use of electronic case files in NOTES as a shared information system. However, this reliance on paper files derives not only from the information rich properties of paper documents, but also from the desire of some workers to protect their occupational status by defining, as necessary for their job, information which is only available in paper documents and which only they can interpret. This dependence on paper documents also reduces the amount of information that can be shared within the organisation. This paper suggests that, only if the perceived threat posed by the inform ation system were reduced in some way would user innovations in work practices and greater sharing of information within the organisation become possible.
PRESERVATION OF DIGITAL DOCUMENTS AS A NATIONAL STRATEGY TO ENSURE TRANSPARENCY AND MEMORY (Atena Editora), 2024
La cuarta revolución industrial nos ha alcanzado, trayendo consigo innovaciones, retos y hasta nuevos paradigmas; donde los avances tecnológicos desempeñan un papel preponderante, en cuanto al acceso a la información, acortar distancias y tiempos. Para ello, las organizaciones están apostando al uso de la tecnología y con ella, de los documentos electrónicos para maximizar su eficacia y al mismo tiempo ser más eficientes. En este panorama, lo inmaterial se está convirtiendo en la única evidencia de nuestro conocimiento y de nuestra huella como sociedad, lo que vuelve urgente la implementación de técnicas y métodos para asegurar la preservación de la memoria organizacional y colectiva, pero también para garantizar la evidencia de la legalidad y de la transparencia en la gestión de las organizaciones. La norma ISO 13008:2012 define preservación como: “Los procesos y operaciones realizados para garantizar la permanencia intelectual y técnica de los documentos auténticos a lo largo del tiempo” (pág. 8); por lo que, la preservación digital debe asegurar el acceso a la información digital a largo plazo, manteniendo el valor de sus propiedades significativas, en un ambiente en constante evolución; razón por la cual los desafíos deben considerar la obsolescencia tecnológica. Sumado a lo anterior, el conjunto de documentos en soporte digital crece en ausencia de regulaciones, dificultando la preservación de los documentos esenciales para la administración y la toma de decisiones, es impostergable contar con una estrategia nacional que permita garantizar la autenticidad, perdurabilidad y acceso a los documentos digitales; uno de los desafíos más apremiantes de la época. La preservación de la evidencia y la historia contenida en los documentos digitales fortalece la transparencia, la gestión administrativa en general, asegura a la ciudadanía gozar y mantener sus derechos. Desarrollar una política nacional y estrategias de preservación digital que aseguren el acceso a los documentos, garantizando a la vez su autenticidad e integridad a lo largo del tiempo, es un deber para con la patria, la ciudadanía y las nuevas generaciones.
Ethical destruction? Privacy concerns regarding official documents in Sweden, 1900–2015
The project studies legislation in Sweden concerning official documents, with focus on the conflict between keeping and destroying documents deemed to be menacing to privacy. Like few other issues concerning archives, this conflict evokes political disputes and is vivid all over the world. The overall aim is to analyse differing views of privacy concerns – an aspect of the relationship between individual and society as a whole – in a longer historical perspective, c. 1900–2015. With the focus on documents and archiving, the project connects the research field on the history of privacy concerns with that on contemporary heritage production. Against those that fear that mass accumulation of sensitive personal data cannot be safely controlled, many critical voices are concerned that people in the future will not be able to show evidences of misdeeds in the past, since the documents serving as proof would have been destroyed as being threats to privacy. The analysis will be made on two levels. The conflict between making documents secret (but keeping them) and destroying them seems to have sharpened since the 1960s, and the core part of the project will be an in-depth examination of tensions between secrecy and outright destruction in that period concerning three categories of documents – medical documents, social security documents and documents obtained in certain forms of academic research including personal data, e.g. in sociology and medical research. Here, various sources will be used. Besides the rich material created in the state legislation process, where the opinions of various consultation bodies are included, the project will also use sources from central government authority archives and the press. However, a more extensive survey will also be made on secrecy legislation during a longer time period, from c. 1900 onwards. Here, the project aims at catching the main overall tendencies concerning the handling of official documents deemed menacing of privacy reasons from c. 1900 until today. Largely, it will consist in an analysis of the development of the secrecy legislation. The main reason is to problematise the assumption that privacy concerns were almost “born” in the 1960s with the computerised society.,,With this project, changes and continuities over time in the views on privacy and ethical destruction will appear more clearly. Preliminary findings show that specific groups of agents such as archivists, researchers, journalists and pro-privacy politicians tend to hold differing opinions that can be categorised as certain ideal-typical “interests” for privacy, economics, transparency, heritage and academic research. The examination of concrete agents and discussions leading to various decisions and legislations can possibly demonstrate complexities and conflicts over time, as well as showing those things and ideas where there were a general agreement at a given time. The project is funded by The Swedish Research Council, and the research will be performed by Samuel Edquist. It starts in autumn 2016 and lasts for three years. One monograph and at least two peer-reviewed articles are planned.