Proof that Long-Term Thinking on Open Government Policy Matters

In 1989, journalist Scott Armstrong sued to preserve the Reagan Administration's email as they left office. Several cases came from the original suit, litigated by Public Citizen. One of the main goals was to make sure that federal government emails were saved in electronic form and not paper.  It is not an exaggeration to say that, because of this case, we have electronic access to the email records of the last five Administrations. 

Fast forward 21 years… The Sunlight Foundation released a great tool to review Elana Kagan's White House email records with a great new tool called Elena's Inbox. 

As you use it, please thank Scott Armstrong and Public Citizen for their hard work two decades ago.  There couldn't be a better manifestation of why forward thinking on information policy matters.