The new Executive Order also changes how someone can gain access to information. Where, in the past, information would be disclosed for any reason, now the requestor has to prove a "demonstrated, specific need" for the materials.

Additionally, the law states that management of the records is governed by the Archivist of the United States. With the new Executive Order, it's up to the president to decide where and when information requests should be honored.

Further, the new Executive Order allows an incumbent president to block release of documents from a former president. So, for example, Bush II can (and has) blocked the release of documents from the administration of his father.

The new Executive Order also blocks any attempt by Congress at oversight. The Archivist is forbidden to make presidential records available unless both the incumbent and former president authorize access. In the case of former presidents who have died, their "designated representative" can act on behalf of the president for the purposes of the Act and the Executive Order.

Finally, while the Presidential Records Act also governs the record of Vice Presidents, the new Executive Order allows a former vice president to make a claim of executive privilege to bar access to materials, and, at that time, the Archivist is required to withhold access to materials until such time that the former vice president allows the materials to be made public or a court orders it.

I don't know about you, but I can't imagine that ever happening.

Bits of history, final thoughts
This article purposely takes us outside of our investigation into the current White House email practices and places email in the White House into a more historical perspective. What we've seen is that all administrations, Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal -- all of them -- have attempted to restrict access to email messages.

We've all sent thousands upon thousands of email messages. White House staffers send millions. Among all those messages are bound to be a few that are inappropriate, stupid, illegal, or otherwise embarrassing. It is a natural urge to restrict access to such communication just because none of us could stand up to the scrutiny.

But America runs on scrutiny. The whole thing relies on a system of checks and balances. The Founding Fathers knew that people, especially people in power, can be corrupt, dumb, silly, and, well, human. If any one branch of the government can run unchecked, very bad things can happen. Even with checks and balances, administrations have screwed up.

Whether it was Andrew Jackson's deluded decision to sign the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830, effectively deporting 45,000 American Indians to the West or Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment of 120,000 American citizens of Japanese descent or President Kennedy's poorly thought out invasion of Cuba, the Bay of Pigs Fiasco, or Richard Nixon's collected crimes of Watergate, Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra, Bill Clinton and the Blue Dress, or even WMDs in Iraq, presidents have made mistakes.

They've also inspired us, led us, fought for us, and changed our world -- often for the better.

It is essential that we be able to see into the past, to be able to see into the operations of former administrations, and have access, as a people, to the detailed minutiae of presidential operations. After all, the only way we'll learn not to do our own dumb things is to understand what's come before.

Sometimes, we might even learn how to do things better and smarter. After all, not everyone has a perfect memory. But if we have access to all the presidential records, future generations can learn from Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, the two Bushes, and the best and brightest of their staff -- and the presidents and staff of future administrations. Without those records, we might have to learn the tough lessons all over again.

I've done my best here to not be political. When I started writing about the history of White House email, I had no idea that a convicted felon would be put in charge of DARPA's Information Awareness Office or that a wildly unpopular (and slightly creepy) U.N. ambassador would be the guy fighting to destroy the Reagan-era email records.

But when you do research, weird stuff shows up. And I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you about it. So there's politics in this story. That's because there's politics in presidential history.

I couldn't make this stuff up.

Acknowledgement
Finally, I want to send a special shoutout to the National Security Archive of George Washington University. Without their comprehensive records and their book "White House e-mail", published in 1995, I wouldn't have found a fraction of the information in this article.

David Gewirtz is the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? For more than 20 years, he has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.