Outgoing NC Gov. decides e-mail should be saved.

• Position: E-MAIL

On his last day in office January 9, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley signed an executive order declaring that e-mail messages are public records and should be saved.

The move shocked news organizations that sued him over the issue last year. The Raleigh News & Observer, The Charlotte Observer, and eight other news organizations sued Easley in April after learning that some employees in his administration were deleting e-mail messages to keep them from becoming public.

Current North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue, who has said e-mail messages should not be deleted, said she is reviewing Easley's order. "We are reviewing that process and that executive order to see if changes,, are necessary," she said, "but I think that Governor Easley did a good thing for the people ... when he issued that executive order."

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Perdue, upon taking over as governor, became the defendant in the still-ongoing lawsuit.

The News & Observer said Easley modeled the order on the recommendations of an advisory panel he commissioned after it became clear some state employees had deleted e-mail messages in an attempt to prevent the state's backup system from creating a record of them.

Easley's order:

* Calls on state officials to buy a new archive system to preserve messages

* Declares that e-mail messages from state sages government accounts are public records that should be handled the same way paper documents are

* Requires employees to keep messages sent or received in the course of public business for 24 hours, which ensures they will be recorded by the state's backup system, where they will...