Here are just a few of my favorites moments in document management from the last year.
FAA Loses Track of 119,000 Aircraft
"The records are in such disarray that the FAA says it is worried that criminals could buy planes without the government's knowledge, or use the registration numbers of other aircraft to evade new computer systems designed to track suspicious flights. It has ordered all aircraft owners to re-register their planes in an effort to clean up its files.
About 119,000 of the aircraft on the U.S. registry have "questionable registration" because of missing forms, invalid addresses, unreported sales or other paperwork problems, according to the FAA. In many cases, the FAA cannot say who owns a plane or even whether it is still flying or has been junked."
Toyota Memo Brags of Saving $100M with "Limited" Recall
"As Toyota officials head to Washington for a series of Congressional hearings this week, a potentially damaging internal document is grabbing headlines. All three TV news networks and hundreds of newspapers nationwide led with the story this weekend, adding to a public relations nightmare for the Japanese automaker.
The Detroit Free Press explains, 'Toyota’s leading U.S. executive boasted to the automaker’s Washington staff last summer that they had saved the company more than $100 million by limited any regulatory action on sudden acceleration to a recall of equipment such as floor mats, according to documents turned over to a key U.S. House committee holding hearings on the issue Wednesday.' The News notes, 'Earlier this month before the hybrid recall, Toyota executives estimated that the unintended acceleration recalls would cost $2 billion in lost sales and cost of extra parts for repairs.'"
Source: U.S. News
Afghanistan WikiLeaks Made Possible by Lady Gaga
"It seems the private who allegedly downloaded the huge trove of secret data from military computers in Iraq exploited a loophole that permitted the use of compact disks on secure computers. External hard drive ports were disabled, but Pfc. Bradley E. Manning allegedly spent six months downloading documents onto a CD that he disguised in a Lady Gaga CD case. The Times reports, 'He was able to avoid detection not because he kept a poker face, they said, but apparently because he hummed and lip-synched to Lady Gaga songs to make it appear that he was using the classified computer’s CD player to listen to music.'"
Source: Gothamist
Arlington cemetery's 'disgraceful' records
"The Army says more than 200 graves at Arlington National Cemetery are marked with the wrong headstones, or not at all. What went wrong?
In a scandal that has outraged veterans and the families of fallen U.S. soldiers, a seven-month Army investigation has concluded that the remains of hundreds of soldiers may have been misplaced or misidentified at Arlington National Cemetery due to lax management."
Source: The Week
Pentagon can't account for how it spent $2.6 billion in Iraqi funds, audit finds
"Because of poor record-keeping and lax oversight, the Department of Defense cannot account for how it spent $2.6 billion that belonged to the Iraqi government, according to the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction."
Source: The Washington Post
‘Robo-signer’ controversy spreads
"J.P. Morgan’s Chase unit stops some foreclosures to review process
At the center of the controversy are employees of mortgage lenders or servicers who sign affidavits supporting foreclosures that have to be cleared by judges in many states.
With so many foreclosures to process, there’s a concern that such affidavits are signed without verifying whether loan documents and other records have the correct information. The integrity of the process is a key component in how judges decide that people’s houses can be taken and given back to the bank."
Source: MarketWatch
National Archives at Risk, According to Audit
"A Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit completed in October shows that nearly 80% of government agencies are at risk of illegally destroying public records and that there are hefty volumes of records needing preservation and care before they are permanently lost or damaged.
Prompted by the loss of the Wright brothers’ original patent, as well as maps for atomic bomb missions in Japan, the GAO report finds some of the nation's prized historical documents are in danger of being lost forever, including Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln, Eli Whitney's cotton gin patent, and some NASA photographs on the moon. The report was obtained this month by the Associated Press and found many U.S. agencies do not follow proper procedures for disposing and storing public records."
