Delete doesn't mean delete

Clancy Dubos flagged a lot of this yesterday, but I just wanted to point out that in light of yesterday's ruling it is now much more possible that the "lost" Nagin emails could be retrieved and made available.

In her ruling, Ledet put into writing several positions she touched on in court last month, ordering administration officials to preserve from this point forward all their calendar information and e-mail for at least three years, as required by law.

She also ordered the head of the city's technology unit to submit a written statement asserting that deleted portions of Nagin's calendar and e-mail cannot be retrieved and that all back-ups on the mayor's Blackberry as well as his laptop and desktop computers have been searched.

That could be interpreted in several ways, but at first glance, it looks like the City has to make a documented attempt at data retrieval under penalty of perjury. Most of the techy people I hear from tend to suspect that an honest attempt at this would prove successful but I don't know it they actually have to make an honest attempt.

Of course, it's entirely possible that the emails contained little more than office supply orders, recipe exchanges, and LOL cats... in which case I hope they hire Geraldo to televise the official reading.