A spy in the archives

I began working on this post in May, put it aside, and figured I would get back to it once life stopped getting in my way. And now it has: I'm en route to the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists and am three hours into a five hour flight delay. What follows is by no means earth-shattering, but at least my to-do list is one item shorter.

One of the things I love about being an archivist is talking with researchers about their interests and what they find in our records. My reference duties have brought me into contact with people who are incredibly gracious and enthusiastic, and I find their warmth and zeal contagious. At the same time, I'm always mindful that, as archival security experts frequently caution, researchers who seem eager to establish rapport and trust may have ulterior motives. Cases in point:

• Barry Landau, who stole presidential and other documents from historical societies, university libraries, and government archives on the East Coast, brought cookies to one state historical society he and his accomplice repeatedly visited and gave cupcakes to the staff of the Maryland Historical Society shortly before he and his accomplice were caught stealing documents from the facility.

• John Mark Tillman, who made a career of preying on antique dealers, museums, and archives throughout the Canadian Maritimes, was able to spirit documents out of the Dalhousie University Archives in part because he spent years winning the trust of the former chief archivist and becoming familiar with the repository's holdings and routines. Tillman was able to steal the keys to the facility's vault, duplicate them, and return them without being detected. He and his then-girlfriend entered the university library just before it closed, hid out in a women's restroom until the wee hours of the morning, and then entered the vault and stole letters written by George Washington, General James Wolfe, and other prominent people.

Landau and Tillman seem to have been driven by a mixture of greed, arrogance, and collecting impulses run amok. However, other thieves have been propelled by other drives.

In April of this year, the British Broadcasting Corporation announced that it had found in the archives of the Stasi, the intelligence and secret police agency of the former German Democratic Republic, a video recording of a speech that Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby gave to Stasi officials in 1981. In it, Philby, a British double agent whose spying for the Soviets resulted in the deaths of Western agents and Central and Eastern European anticommunists, discusses his life and his work. Despite his upper-class background, Philby became a communist while at Cambridge University and was recruited by Soviet intelligence shortly afterward. After covering the Spanish Civil War for a London paper, he was hired by the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, and was initially charged with monitoring German espionage in Spain and Portugal.

Philby very quickly began funneling information to his Soviet handlers, and much of the information he provided came right out of the MI6 archives. How was he able to gain access to vast quantities of intelligence records without arousing suspicion? He befriended the man who was in charge of the organization's documents room:

I came to the point where, every two or three times a week, I'd meet him after office hours for drinks. He became a close friend, had full confidence [?] in me, and so I could ask for papers which had nothing to do with German espionage in Spain or Portugal, but which he would nevertheless send me as a friend whom he trusted . . . . Every evening, I left the office with a big briefcase full of reports which I had written myself, full of files taken out of the actual archives. I was to hand them to my Soviet contact in the evening. The next morning, I would get the files back, the contents having been photographed, and take them back early in the morning, and put the files back in their place. That I did regularly, year in, year out.

 (The above transcription is mine, and Philby's discussion of his relationship with this MI6 employee begins at 11:40 in this BBC Radio 4 broadcast.)

In retrospect, it seems easy to regard this records officer -- a former police officer with a serious drinking problem -- as a fool. However, Philby fooled everyone. His superiors thought him impressive, and many of his colleagues thought that he might one day become the agency's head. Moreover, as Philby's biographer has argued, MI6 traditionally regarded its operatives -- almost all of whom were recruited from the upper echelons of British society -- as being inherently trustworthy because they and their families all moved within the same social and professional circles. It wasn't until 1951, when two other MI6 agents who had been recruited by Soviet intelligence while studying at Cambridge defected to the Soviet Union, that the agency began coming to grips with the fact that having "the right sort" of background was no guarantee of loyalty. Philby, who was a close friend of both of these double agents, was rather gently investigated and forced to resign in 1955, but he was allowed to rejoin MI6 several years later. British authorities began closing in on him in earnest late 1962, but MI6 put a longtime friend in charge of the internal investigation and kept him under cursory surveillance. Philby slipped away and defected to the Soviet Union, where he lived until his death in 1988.


I am no expert on MI6's internal security procedures -- and if I were, I almost certainly wouldn't be blogging about it -- but I think it's safe to say that access to MI6's documents rooms -- and servers -- is now sharply limited and carefully scrutinized. However, even those of us who don't work in national security settings should never forget that a few of the kindly, supportive researchers we encounter are in fact seeking to exploit us and the records in our care. Records that either have intrinsic value or contain information that could be used to facilitate identity theft or other crimes abound in archives, and those of us who care for records have to ensure that our desire to be friendly and helpful never compromises our efforts to protect our collections and the restricted information found within them.

“He’s one of those people that never seems to have enough money"

Last month, Samuel Loring Morison, a part-time researcher employed by the Naval Historical Foundation, was charged with stealing and attempting to sell papers created by his grandfather, Samuel Eliot Morison, who was a rear admiral in the United States Navy and a distinguished historian. I've held off on posting about this in part because my life has been a bit chaotic as of late and in part because I've been hoping that the federal criminal complaint against Morison would be unsealed. However, the complaint has remained sealed, and I don't want this story to get lost in the shuffle.

The following ought to be of interest to any security-minded archivist:

• This isn't Morison's first brush with the law: in the mid-1980s, he gave three classified spy satellite photographs to a British magazine and was subsequently convicted of violating the Espionage Act. He was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001, but by that time his career was in tatters.

• Relatives indicate that Samuel Loring Morison "revered his grandfather" but also has some longstanding shortcomings of character. One cousin told the Washington Post that "I just think he’s always had a slight bent toward doing things that are not quite on the level . . . . He’s one of those people that never seems to have enough money.”

• Morison offered some of the items he stole to a Maryland book dealer, but he also arranged with the bookseller to to sell the purloined materials on eBay.

In thinking about this sad episode, I can't help but reflect upon the importance of creating an appropriate operational environment. The Washington Post and other papers that covered Morison's arrest cited a 2011 Office of the Naval Inspector General audit of the Navy History and Heritage Command, which operates the archival facility that holds the papers of Samuel Eliot Morison. The audit report highlighted numerous deficiencies, among them insufficient environmental controls, woefully inadequate resources, and "the disenfranchisement of the professional historian, curator, archivist and librarian workforce due to their marginalization in decision processes and lack of advancement opportunity." The report also emphasized that the individual then serving as the command's security officer lacked the background and security clearances needed in order to perform the job properly, that the security officer had minimal interaction with archivists caring for classified records, and that additional security personnel were needed. The Navy History and Heritage Command says that it has recently upgraded its security protocols and hired additional staff, but Samuel Morison began doing research at the Navy Archives in January 2010 -- and apparently smuggled 34 boxes of material out of the facility.

I am by no means blaming front-line staff -- one of whom noticed that some Samuel Eliot Morison materials were missing and set in motion the investigation that ultimately led to the arrest of Samuel Loring Morrison -- for what happened. Morison, who has evidently signed a statement admitting his misdeeds, is responsible for his own actions.  However, the command-level officials who allowed the Navy Archives to fall into such a state made it easy for Morison to succumb to temptation. If you fail to staff a facility adequately, go out of your way to discourage and demoralize the few people you do have on your payroll, and treat your security program as an afterthought, you might as well hang a big "TAKE OUR STUFF!" sign over the front door.

As noted above, the criminal complaint against Samuel Loring Morison remains sealed as of this date. However, the document outlining the conditions of his pretrial release is publicly accessible, and you'll find it below. You'll be pleased to note that two of the conditions are: "no access to any library or archives without prior approval of [the U.S. Office of Probation and Pretrial Services]" and "no offer for sale or sale of any personal property, including papers."

Samuel L. Morison - Conditions of Release

Perverting the historical record

Archives and museum security experts frequently emphasize that the motivations of thieves are varied. Some seek revenge against institutions that, in their view, have done them wrong. Some are convinced that they're rescuing records or artifacts from repositories that aren't providing proper care. Some have a covetous love of history. Some view theft as an easy way to make money. Some do it for the sheer thrill of it. And, of course, some are driven by multiple compulsions.

Case in point: John Mark Tillman, a Nova Scotian who devoted at least fifteen years of his life to stealing manuscripts, paintings, and objects from cultural heritage institutions and antique dealers in Atlantic Canada and, briefly, Russia. His criminal career came to a halt in July 2012, when a police officer who pulled over Tillman's car discovered that Tillman had a 1758 letter written by General James Wolfe and a check for $1500 in his possession. At roughly the same time the authorities determined that the letter had been stolen from Dalhousie University's Killam Library, Tillman's girlfriend accused him of assaulting her and holding her against her will and told the police that, by his own admission, his house was full of stolen materials. A search of Tillman's Halifax-area home yielded 7,000 items that had likely been purloined.

In September 2013, Tillman was sentenced to nine years in prison. He received leniency because he promised that he would help the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) return the items he stole to their rightful owners, and he has been talking. A lot. He's talked about his desire to be connected to historically significant people and events, about the thrill of thievery, about using his now-deceased mother and former girlfriends as knowing decoys, about his aversion to anything resembling a regular job, and about the luxurious lifestyle made possible by his thefts.

He's also told the RMCP officers assigned to his case about how he stole the Wolfe letter. Tillman befriended the former chief archivist of Dalhousie University (which tightened its security procedures in advance of Tillman's capture) and in 1998 surreptitiously obtained and then duplicated the key that secured the archives vault. Tillman and his then-girlfriend, a Russian woman known only as Katya, entered the library, hid out in a restroom until after the nighttime security guard left the building, and then accessed the vault. They found the Wolfe letter and a letter penned by George Washington, and, in Tillman's words, they "became so exuberant" that they, um, celebrated "right in the middle of all these papers and stuff strewn around."

Two thoughts:

• Dalhousie University colleagues, you have my deepest sympathies. Discovering that a thief has raided one's collections is always painful, and discovering that the thief has violated all kinds of other boundaries must be horrifying and infuriating.

• If you're ever tempted to make a special accommodation for a friendly and frequent researcher, leave your desk without taking your keys with you, or rush out without checking the restrooms and storage closets before locking up for the night, just remember that there are other John Mark Tillmans out there.

Daniel J. Witek charged with stealing documents from the Buffalo History Museum

A few days ago, federal authorities arrested Daniel Jude Witek, 50, and charged him with stealing approximately forty letters and postcards from the Buffalo History Museum's A. Conger Goodyear Papers collection and attempting to sell them to a New York City autograph dealer.  The theft came to light when the dealer contacted the Buffalo History Museum in an effort to verify that the sale was aboveboard.

Witek was a Buffalo History Museum volunteer, and the complaint against him filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York indicates that he also had ties to several Buffalo-area public libraries. He is known to have used two aliases:  Daniel Mountbatten-Witeck and Walter Payne.

Witek has been released on his own recognizance pending trial.  One of the conditions of his release is that he must not visit the Buffalo History Museum, several other Buffalo-area cultural heritage institutions, or "any public or private establishment where rare books are."

Private collectors and cultural heritage professionals who suspect that Witek may have stolen items from their collections should contact the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation at 716-856-7800.

For your convenience, here's the criminal complaint against Witek.  It's an interesting little document.

Criminal Complaint Against Daniel Jude Witek 2013-05-23 by blweddle

And here's the document outlining the conditions of Witek's pretrial release:

Daniel Jude Witek Conditions of Release 2013-05-24 by blweddle

NARA event: "A Conspiracy to Steal History"

Sorry for the late notice -- I found out about this event earlier today.

Tomorrow at noon EST, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will hold a public discussion outlining how NARA and the U.S. Department of Justice investigated and prosecuted Barry Landau and Jason Savedoff, who stole archival records from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, the Maryland Historical Society, the Connecticut Historical Society, and several other repositories.  The lead presenters are Mitchell Yockelson, Investigative Archivist with the NARA's Office of the Inspector General, which reviewed the masses of historical documents founded in Landau's New York City apartment, and Jim Warwick, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice, who was one of two U.S. attorneys who led the prosecution.

This event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC (aka "Archives I"). Attendees should use the Special Events entrance located on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street NW.

If you're not going to be in the Washington, DC area tomorrow afternoon, this event will also be streamed online.  If NARA's past practice is any indication, a recording will be made available online shortly after this event wraps up; if and when it does, I'll append it to this post.

Update 2013-03-15:  Here's the video, which is also available via NARA's Ustream page.

Video streaming by Ustream

Barry Landau sentenced

Yesterday, Barry Landau, the prominent collector of presidential memorabilia who was caught stealing documents from the Maryland Historical Society last July, was sentenced.  He'll spend the next seven years in a federal prison, pay approximately $46,000 in restitution to dealers who unwittingly purchased stolen documents from him, and forfeit all of the historical documents found in his Manhattan apartment after his arrest.  After his release, he'll be on probation for three years.  One of the conditions of his probation:  he has to stay away from libraries and archives.

Landau's sentencing memorandum has been entered into Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), but access to it is limited to the judge and the attorneys involved in the case.  However, today the Baltimore Sun published a lengthy article that features a brief video of the prosecution's sentencing presentation and photographs of some of the documents that Landau and his accomplice, Jason James Savedoff, stole from various repositories in the eastern United States.  The Associated Press's coverage of the sentencing notes that prosecutors also displayed Landau's blazer and trench coat, both of which had extra-large pockets added by Landau's tailor, and the Washington Post reports that prosecutors believe that Landau may have started stealing documents as early as 2003.

Prosecutors and Landau's attorneys differed as to whether Landau masterminded the thefts.  Shortly after the sentencing, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release asserting that Landau, a seasoned collector and researcher, was the driving force behind the thefts:

According to evidence presented at today’s sentencing hearing and court documents, Landau had been stealing presidential documents and ephemera to add to his collection for years before he met Savedoff and it was Landau who schooled Savedoff in the complex scheme of historical document theft. After researching collections on the internet, Landau used e-mail to identify for Savedoff the titles and locations of collections that contained documents that were ultimately stolen during the course of the conspiracy. Landau developed protocols to distract curators while items were pilfered, scheduled visits to repositories and requested access to collections containing marketable documents. It was Landau who dealt exclusively with purchasers of stolen items.

The release also sheds new light on the scope of Landau's criminal activity.  It's been widely known for months that Landau and Savedoff stole documents from the Maryland Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Connecticut Historical Society, the University of Vermont, the New-York Historical Society, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, but the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's Archival Recovery Team, which has been leading the effort to trace the origins of the more than 10,000 historical documents found in Landau's Manhattan apartment, has uncovered evidence of additional thefts:

At the sentencing, prosecutors introduced new evidence that Landau stole at least one item from the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum in Ohio in 2005; from 17 to 100 items from the Culinary Arts Museum in Rhode Island in 2008; and more than 250 items from Betty Currie, former White House Secretary, in 2010. Agents seized more than 10,000 items from Barry Landau’s residence in New York in July and August 2011, and more than 6,000 of those items have been identified as stolen property.

At roughly the same time as the Department of Justice issued its release, Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, the firm representing Landau, issued its own press release arguing that Savedoff, who met Landau in 2010, had manipulated a reluctant but deeply lonely man into doing things that he otherwise would not have done:

"As the numerous emails and documents [entered into evidence] reflect, Savedoff constantly pushed Landau to help him in his quest to, in Savedoff's words, '(F) the World,'" said [Steven D.] Silverman, Managing Partner of Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White. "With laser-like precision Savedoff 'targeted' Landau for his connections and exploited his vulnerabilities to carry out his plan to steal and sell documents."

"As the evidence clearly shows in this case, Savedoff's and Landau's goals were completely different. Savedoff wanted money; Landau wanted menus," Silverman added. 

Given that the release implies that Landau and Savedoff stole only 300 documents and quotes Silverman as describing Landau as "one of the nation's foremost historians," I have to say that Landau and his attorneys make a perfect team:  all of them seem to have difficulty differentiating between the world as it actually is and the world as they wish it were.

Jason Savedoff's sentencing date has yet to be set and the Archival Recovery Team will no doubt continue to devote a lot of time and effort to identifying the rightful owners of the huge trove of documents found in Landau's apartment, so this sad, shocking tale is still unfolding.  For the staff at the repositories Landau and Savedoff preyed upon, it is a tale without an ending:  their professional lives won't ever be quite the same.

If you would like to know more about Landau's life and criminal career, be sure to read Eliza Gray's profile of Landau, which appeared in the New Republic in December 2011, and Justin Snow's lengthy May 2012 Baltimore article, which details how archivist David Angerhofer and other Maryland Historical Society staffers caught Landau and Savedoff stealing documents from their repository.

Barry Landau's guilty plea

Sorry about the radio silence around here. Owing to a family situation, I was away from home, work, and the Internet for a while . . . which means that I'm probably the last archivist in the country to find out that on 8 7 February, presidential documents collector Barry Landau pled guilty to federal charges of stealing and conspiring to steal cultural heritage materials from the Maryland Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Connecticut Historical Society, the New-York Historical Society, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.

Landau and his young associate, Jason Savedoff, who pled guilty to identical charges last year and whose sentencing has been deferred indefinitely, were apprehended last year after eagle-eyed staffers at the Maryland Historical Society realized that the two men were acting suspiciously and called the Baltimore police, who found numerous purloined documents in Savedoff's possession. A subsequent search of Landau's Manhattan apartment brought to light more than 10,000 documents, some of which were clearly stolen and most of which were likely obtained illicitly.

The terms of the plea deal were submitted to the U.S. District Court last month, and the public portion of the agreement is now accessible via Public Electronic Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER). I've uploaded a copy of the public section of the agreement (a supplemental document remains sealed) and have embedded it below. It sheds some additional light into the manner in which Landau and Savedoff identified materials they wished to steal, provides information about Landau's likely sentence, and discusses the fate of the materials found in Landau's apartment.

Barry H. Landau Plea Agreement 2012-01-12

A small part of me wishes that Landau had insisted on a jury trial. I was kind of looking forward to reading (and posting) trial transcripts; they promised to be a rich source of information for archivists seeking to foil future Landaus and Savedoffs. However, I realize that this wish is, in many respects, a selfish one. The broad outlines of Landau and Savedoff's methods and techniques have been known for some time, and the transcripts most likely would have been full of details that were interesting or even titillating but not particularly helpful to anyone seeking to avert future thefts. Moreover, a trial would place a real burden on people who are already shouldering heavy loads. I'm glad that my colleagues at the Maryland Historical Society won't have to go through the time-consuming and stressful experience of testifying in court and that my colleagues in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Inspector General will be able to focus on identifying the rightful owners of the materials found in Landau's apartment, not on preparing evidence for trial.

As far as Barry Landau himself is concerned, in an odd sort of way he's gotten the fame and public attention that he seems to have sought all throughout his adult life: his name and face have been seared into the memories of an entire cohort of archivists, manuscript librarians, history curators, honest researchers, and other defenders of cultural heritage. Once the prison doors clang shut behind him, he'll have a lot of time to contemplate the ironies of his situation and the results of his life's work.

Barry Landau: motion to suppress

Yesterday, attorneys representing Barry Landau, the collector accused of stealing and selling records held by the Maryland Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Connecticut Historical Society, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, filed a motion to suppress all evidence found during a search of Landau's Manhattan apartment. Judging from its content, it seems likely that Landau's attorneys plan to argue that Landau's companion, Jason James Savedoff, who pled guilty to the charges against him on 20 September 2011, committed all of the crimes of which Landau is accused.

Given that Saveoff physically possessed all the stolen materials recovered after he and Landau were arrested at the Maryland Historical Society in July 2011 and is cooperating with prosecutors, I'm not particularly surprised by this line of argument. Do I think it's a good one? Emphatically, no -- by all accounts, Landau is a seasoned researcher and Savedoff was new to the ways of archival research -- but I won't be sitting on the jury that determines Landau's guilt or innocence.

The copy of the motion that appears below was downloaded from Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER). I am posting it here so that interested archivists can read it. Downloaded PACER documents may be freely distributed, so please feel free to share it with others.

At present, Landau's trial is currently scheduled to begin on 13 February 2012 and is expected to last 5-6 days.
Barry H. Landau Motion to Suppress 2011-12-13

Thanks to "anonymous archivist" for drawing my attention to the filing of this motion.

Landau-Savedoff indictment and Savedoff plea

Sorry about the seemingly nonstop focus on the Landau-Savedoff case as of late -- this blog will return to its customary focus on electronic records very, very soon -- but I now have a Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) account, which, for a nominal fee, allows me to access federal court documents, and have pulled up some of the records relating to the case.

It costs $.08 per page to view and download PACER records, but the documents themselves can be freely distributed. I've uploaded a copy of the July 2011 indictment against Barry H. Landau and Jason James Savedoff and a copy of Savedoff's plea agreement to Scribd so that anyone else who is interested in reading them may do so at no cost.
Savedoff Landau Indictment

These documents don't contain much information that hasn't been reported in the media, but there are a few small details that may be of interest. Most notably, Landau's plea agreement, which was signed on 20 September 2011 but not introduced in court until 27 October, includes a (very) partial list of the documents found in the Manhattan apartment that Landau and Savedoff shared.

Savedoff Plea

Savedoff will be sentenced on 10 February 2012. He faces a maximum of five years imprisonment for conspiring to steal documents and a maximum of ten years imprisonment for actually stealing them.

The case against Landau is still ongoing. According to a 4 November 2011 memorandum to Landau's counsel that is available in PACER, his trial is currently scheduled to begin on 13 February 2012 and is expected to last 5-6 days.

Jason Savedoff pleads guilty

Last Thursday, Jason James Savedoff, one of the two men caught attempting to steal documents from the Maryland Historical Society on 9 July 2011, pled guilty to charges of conspiring to steal materials from the Maryland Historical Society, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library. He will be sentenced on 10 February 2012. He faces a maximum of sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum fine of $500,000.

Savedoff's plea agreement states that his criminal misdeeds were performed "solely at the direction of" Barry Landau, the prominent collector with whom he was apprehended. Landau has pled not guilty to all of the charges lodged against him, and his lawyer insists that Savedoff masterminded the theft of the mass of materials found in the Manhattan apartment the two men shared and pled guilty in an effort "to save his own hide." Landau's lawyer went on to assert that prosecutors had no evidence proving any "misappropriation of documents before Mr. Savedoff came into his life a year and a half ago."

Forgive my skepticism of this claim. First, investigators found approximately 10,000 documents in Landau's apartment. Busy as Landau and Savedoff seem to have been, it just doesn't seem likely that they amassed this volume of material in a mere eighteen months. Second, as evidenced by articles in the Washington Post and the Daily Beast, Landau has long had, to put it charitably, a most flexible relationship with the truth.

In the meantime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation press release summarizing Savedoff's plea agreement (the full text of which I'm having difficulty accessing via PACER) contains details about his and Landau's activities that should make archivists, manuscript curators, and other cultural heritage professionals sit up and pay attention:

• "Savedoff, under the direction of his co-conspirator, conducted research, including via the Internet, to identify collections containing valuable documents, which, when located, were targeted for theft." Making finding aids accessible via the Internet has many, many pluses, but those of us who hold materials that have market value should also be keenly aware that may also increase security risks.

• "Savedoff and his co-conspirator visited numerous museums posing as researchers; accessed collections of documents which they had determined to be of significant value; reviewed the documents from the collections; and used various techniques to steal them. These techniques included concealing documents inside sports coats and other outerwear which had been modified to contain hidden pockets, as well as distracting museum curators to disguise their actions." Some repositories simply bar researchers from wearing sport coats and like garments while in their research rooms, but many women's suit coats are designed to be worn without a blouse underneath. In other instances, research rooms are so cold that rules concerning sport or suit coats or even outerwear can't be reasonably enforced. The overwhelming majority of researchers who wear sport or suit coats or other garments with pockets are decent, honest people, but all of them should be monitored closely.

• "A checklist was prepared for each stolen document which identified the author and date of the document; the collection from which it was stolen; whether the museum card catalogue had been collected; whether there existed any microfilm or other 'finding aid' for the document at the museum; the nature of any markings on the document: and whether any museum markings had been removed from the document." Wow. I'm simultaneously impressed by the strength of the recordkeeping urge, praying that these checklists are now in the hands of prosecutors, and agog at the monumental hubris and stupidity that prompted the creation of these records.
  

• "In an effort to conceal the theft, Savedoff and his co-conspirator often took the card catalogue entries and other “finding aids,” making it difficult for the museum to discover that an item was missing." And here's the plus side of putting finding aids and other access tools online: it's a lot easier to swipe a paper finding aid or catalog card than to destroy every electronic copy of a descriptive resource. Those of us who still have lots of single-copy, paper-based finding aids need to think seriously about devoting some time to converting finding aids that make mention of valuable materials to electronic form -- even quick-and-dirty scans to PDF, TIFF, or JPEG format should be sufficient to document ownership of an item in the event that both the item and the finding aid disappear.
  

Finally, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Inspector General, which is leading the effort to identify the approximately 10,000 documents found in Landau's apartment and return them to the repositories from which they were stolen. Tricia Bishop of the Baltimore Sun recently wrote a great article highlighting the work being done by Office of the Inspector General staff and the scant attention and resources that American law enforcement agencies typically give to crimes involving cultural heritage materials. It's fascinating and, all too often, frustrating reading. Let's hope that the amount of media attention focusing on what is, in all likelihood, the largest archival theft in United States history changes this state of affairs.

Drew University employee sentenced

Last week, a federal judge sentenced 20 year-old William Scott, the former Drew University student employee who admitted to stealing 31 historical documents from the university's United Methodist Archives Center, to three years of probation and three hundred hours of community service.

When I first learned of Scott's sentence, I was a little steamed. In my opinion, just about anyone convicted of stealing cultural heritage materials deserve to spend at least a little time in a correctional facility; I might be willing to make exceptions for people who steal to feed their families or to pay for lifesaving medial treatment for a loved one, but that's about it.

I nonetheless recognize that imprisonment is expensive and that incarcerating a young, non-violent offender who does not have a prior criminal record might not be the best use of our limited resources. Moreover, the sentencing judge and prosecuting U.S. attorney clearly wanted to make sure that Mr. Scott's will have ample cause and opportunity to reflect upon his misdeeds. While on probation, Mr. Scott:

• Must adhere to a 9:00PM curfew. (Most people would find such a curfew restrictive, but such restrictions are particularly painful for younger adults such as Mr. Scott, who once described himself as a night person who enjoys partying.)
• Is barred from working any job that would give him access to cultural heritage materials.
• Must write a monthly letter to the court describing the progress of his life.
• Must write to each of the 72 people who submitted character letters to the court on his behalf and explain what his experience of theft, prosecution, and conviction has taught him.
• May list his 300 hours of community service on his resume only if he specifies that said community service was court-ordered.
  

If I were 20 years old and forced to adhere to these conditions for 3 years, I suspect that the thought of spending 6 or 12 months in a minimum-security facility might seem like a reasonable alternative . . . .

Of the 31 documents that Mr. Scott stole, 30 have been recovered. The missing item is the two-sided second page of a letter that Charles Wesley wrote in 1755. United Methodist Archives Center staff scanned the Wesley letters in its holdings some time before Scott arrived on campus. If you ever come across an incomplete, double-sided document bearing Charles Wesley's autograph (stranger things have happened), you can compare it to the digital images of Wesley family letters that the repository contributed to the American Theological Library Association's Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative.

Former NARA employee pleads guilty to theft

On Tuesday, Leslie Charles Waffen, a career U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) archivist who ultimately became head of its Motion Picture, Sounds and Video Recording Branch, pleaded guilty to stealing at least 955 NARA-held sound recordings worth approximately $30,000. Dozens of boxes of recordings were found were found when officials raided his home, but he sold others on eBay using the account name "hi-fi_gal."

The Baltimore Sun reports that the investigation into Waffen's criminal activities cost approximately $48,000. The sale that led investigators to swoop in -- a 1937 audio recording of baseball legend Babe Ruth -- netted him $34.74.

As an archivist who has lived through a major internal theft, I have immense sympathy for all of the NARA employees whose lives have been turned upside down as a result of Waffen's illicit activities, which came to light last October and will continue to affect NARA's operations for years to come. Internal theft leaves in its wake powerful feelings of outrage, betrayal, and humiliation, and it takes a long time for those emotions to become manageable. Some of my colleagues have said that it took about a year after my former co-worker's theft came to light for them to come to grips with our experience, and some of us (myself included) needed even more time. All of us will carry the experience with us throughout the remainder of our lives and our careers; if you look at the membership roster of the Society of American Archivists' Security Roundtable, you'll note the presence of a healthy contingent of New York State Archives employees.

Moreover, internal theft always prompts -- as it should -- changes in security procedures and protocols. It's not unusual to understand intellectually the need for these changes while at the same time resenting the ways in which they make it harder to do one's job. I'm a big proponent of improving security in archival repositories -- as evidenced by numerous past posts on this blog -- but every now and then I can't help but blame my thieving former co-worker for some minor security-related inconvenience.

I realize that the above statements may seem a bit gloomy, but I do want to say to any current or former NARA employee who reads this blog that things will get better. You and your employer will both come to terms with this experience, and you will eventually adjust to the "new normal," whatever it may be. It won't happen quickly or easily, but it will happen.

Leslie Charles Waffen will be sentenced on 5 March 2012. As noted in his plea agreement, he faces a maximum sentence of ten years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

SAA 2011: Theft Transparency in the Digital Age

At long last, here it is: the last post concerning the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists. I’m really glad I got the chance to attend Session 705, Theft Transparency in the Digital Age: Stakeholder Perspectives, and my only regret is that so few people were able to do so: Irene caused a lot of East Coasters to leave Chicago on Friday evening or Saturday morning so that they could get home in advance of the storm. (My friend Maggi and I opted to remain in Chicago until Sunday -- a decision that turned what should have been a one-day, fourteen-hour car trip into a two-day, twenty-two hour adventure, but not a decision that I particularly regret.)

This post is going to be long, but the topic of archival security is an important one -- and one that is all too often overlooked until one’s own repository is affected. I work at a repository that recently experienced major theft, and, I urge you not to wait until a theft comes to light and your working life is upended by the experience. Archival security is every archivist’s responsibility.

My former colleague Brittany Turner opened the session by highlighting recent changes in the ways archivists deal with theft: the older view that theft is a shameful thing that should not be discussed is being replaced by a new emphasis on openness and transparency, new technological tools can help archivists and rare book dealers recover stolen materials, and a new conception of stakeholder relations is leading to the creation of a united front against theft.

Travis McDade of the College of Law, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign noted that, thanks to the Internet, archival theft is a growth industry and that thefts of archival materials are now outstripping thefts of rare books. He also stressed that repositories, which often experience the process of criminal prosecution as long, tedious, and frustrating, are starting to explore other ways of taking action against thieves. For example, after federal prosecutors declined to take action against a nighttime library supervisor who was stealing and selling materials from the Kenyon Review archives, Kenyon College successfully filed a civil suit against him. This individual, who was ultimately prosecuted and spent a year in jail, will spend the remainder of his life paying several hundred thousand dollars in restitution. The Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia, also won a civil suit against its former director, who was later convicted of stealing materials from the museum.

Mimi Bowling, consulting archivist and co-instructor of SAA’s archival security workshop) focused on the importance of being open about theft. She began by highlighting the damaging effects of sweeping theft under the rug. Several decades ago, Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscripts Library discovered that one of its graduate student assistants stealing materials. A search of his home uncovered thousands of manuscript items and rare books, but the library’s director and staff kept quiet because they feared that an influential benefactor would find out and withdraw a large bequest. A grand jury investigation commenced and, as luck would have it, the benefactor was one of the jurors. He was outraged by the library’s failure to inform him of the theft and opted against leaving money to the institution. Moreover, staff learned that the young man had also been a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania and had been caught stealing from the university’s museum -- but no one at Penn ever disclosed this fact. Had his past been known, Columbia would never have hired him.

She then discussed some of the benefits of publicizing theft. When the Edison National Historical Site (now the Thomas Edison National Historical Park) discovered that a board member was stealing archival materials, it called in the FBI, which searched the individual’s house and discovered thirty-three cubic feet of stolen materials. The Edison National Historical Site staged a press event highlighting the recovery of these materials and as a result many collectors of Edisonia came forward and said that they had bought materials from this individual. As a result, many items that might have been permanently alienated from the Edison National Historical Site’s collections found their way back to the repository. (Bowling later noted that, several years after the first Edison theft came to light, a dealer contacted indicated that the culprit was again selling material. The Edison National Historical Site recovered an additional three cubic feet of material as a result.)

Sarah Baldwin, the current president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), discussed recent ABAA efforts to stop the trade in stolen materials. Members of the ABAA, which has long had a Security Committee, contend not only with theft but also with forgery, credit card fraud, and other scams. There is little or no formal security training for rare book dealers, but no reputable dealer wants to buy or sell materials of questionable status: dealers who trade in stolen materials are professionally and financially liable for doing so.

In order to combat the trade in stolen materials, ABAA now maintains a security blog. Since its creation last year, it has been used to disseminate forty-two security alerts. Repositories and dealers wishing to have information posted on the blog should e-mail or phone the ABAA’s executive director. After the information is vetted, it will be shared via the blog, and the ABAA's Twitter feed and listservs.

Baldwin also noted that in some instances, it’s not easy to determine whether an item has been stolen. This is particularly true of 19th-century and older government documents, many of which entered into private hands shortly after creation. This flow into private hands was seen as legitimate at the time, but these records are now often subject to replevin. Some dealers prefer to donate the materials back to government archives in an effort to avoid remaining at risk of replevin.

Scott Peterson, a collector of original letters of U.S. Supreme Court justices, manuscripts dealer, board member and past president of the Manuscript Society, and a partner in the Chicago office of the law firm of Holland and Knight, which has been involved in a number of cases involving manuscript materials, offered an interesting perspective on archival security.

As a collector and dealer, Peterson has returned materials that turned out to be stolen, and as a board member and president of the Manuscript Society, he has helped to develop policies relating to theft and stolen materials. As an attorney, he has represented several individuals who were accused of stealing or holding materials –in large part because state governments have started trying to get back records that were alienated centuries ago. Many manuscript collectors view replevin as theft, and they are suspicious of archivists as a result; some people would prefer to shred a record than be subject to replevin. (I don’t know how other attendees reacted to this statement, but my heart skipped a beat.)

Peterson noted that the legal doctrine of laches, or “sleeping on one’s rights,” is in some instances a successful defense against replevin actions. If a defendant can prove that a government knew or should have known at some point in the past that a record had been offered for sale or was in the hands of a known individual but didn’t take action to recover it, it has essentially forfeited its right to recover the record.

The Manuscript Society been working with the Council of State Archivists to come up with some sort of replevin policy. It is also working with the ABAA; Mansucript Society and ABAA members are among the first people to be offered stolen materials, and it makes sense for us to work together.

Peterson also recommended reaching out to international archival organizations. The market in stolen materials is global, and anti-theft efforts should also be global.

Peterson then outlined a four-point plan for combating theft: proper security and monitoring, stiff warnings re: prosecution, inventory control, and a reporting protocol for theft (local law enforcement, groups and associations, press releases). Repositories should also be prepared conduct their own internal investigations, monitor the Internet and dealers’ catalogs, and to prosecute and to sue in civil court.

Building upon Peterson’s remarks, Bowling emphasized the need for archivists to get to know local dealers and establish broader contacts. Most dealers are honest, and establishing a relationship facilitates communication in the event a problem comes to light. She also urged reformatting of materials whenever possible. Doing so passively prevents theft by enabling researchers to use reformatted surrogates and provides clear proof of ownership.

During the question-and-answer part of the session, the panelists identified a number of other problems and needs:

• There is no central clearinghouse for reporting thefts at present, and the reporting mechanisms that exist are not always tailored to librarians’ or archivists’ needs. For example, missingmaterials.org, which is maintained by OCLC, makes it possible to annotate appropriate WorldCat records. It has fostered recovery of rare books, but archives aren’t using it: the types of materials that are typically described in WorldCat are not the materials that are most likely to be found in archival repositories.
• Libraries’ deaccession procedures vary widely, and as a result and the presence of an institutional stamp doesn’t necessarily mean anything; a book lacking a “withdrawn” stamp or other marker may well have been legitimately deaccessioned. This is frustrating, and dealers are less aggressive as a result.
• We are just starting to explore cross-organizational collaboration. The ABAA has worked with the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association and OCLC on missingmaterials.org and has explored possibility of having an RBMS security workshop every year, but everyone who has a stake in archival and library security must be able to exchange suggestions, protocols, etc., across professional and organizational boundaries.
• We have yet to figure out how to enlist researchers in archival security efforts. (None of the panelists was quite sure how to do this, and I’m not either, but it strikes me as an important and overlooked subject: in the wake of my own repository’s theft case, I was struck by the frequency with which researchers were deeply outraged the culprit’s actions. Honest researchers value archives, and they can’t abide people who steal, destroy, or corrupt our holdings. Surely they have a role to play in safeguarding our collections.)
• We need an online mechanism for disseminating photographs and information about people arrested for or convicted of theft and quieter means (e.g., phone trees) of sharing information about researchers who behave suspiciously but haven’t been apprehended.

Good suggestions all. I really hope that the communication capabilities of the Internet, which to date has proven to be a superb mechanism for facilitating the theft and sale of cultural heritage materials, will soon become an equally superb mechanism for deterring and detecting thievery.

Photo: the main branch of the Chicago River and the corncob towers of Marina City, as seen from the 29th floor of the Hotel 71, 22 August 2011, 9:14 PM.

Landau-Savedoff: it gets worse

I omitted a disturbing fact from yesterday's post concerning the release on bond of Barry Landau and Jason Savedoff, who have been indicted on charges of stealing records from the Maryland Historical Society, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, and the New-York Historical Society: Savedoff told prosecutors that he and Landau went to a Manhattan gym and stole the wallets of several patrons because they were looking for identification they could use when visiting repositories.

Some additional details, all of them unsettling, about Landau's bond hearing appeared in a recent Baltimore Sun article that I somehow missed last week.

First, the number of repositories that Landau preyed upon, possibly with Savedoff in tow, continues to grow: documents found in his Manhattan apartment have been traced to Swarthmore College, Columbia University, Yale University, the University of Vermont, the Smithsonian Institution, and the New York Public Library.

With the exception of Cambridge University, all of the institutions to which Landau and Savedoff have been linked are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. However, I don't think anyone should breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Landau has spoken at venues throughout the country -- I'm reproducing and annotating the list that appears on his Web site -- and he may have made "research visits" to nearby archives while plugging his book at:

• Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
• President Benjamin Harrison Home in Indianapolis, Indiana, 30 September 2010
• Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Birthplace in New York City (as noted above and in other posts, documents in Landau's Manhattan apartment have been traced to the New-York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, and Columbia University)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York (the federal indictment against Landau and Savedoff accuses them of stealing seven signed speeches from the library in December 2010 and selling four of them for $35,000)
  
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas, November 2007
  
• Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, December 2007. (Director Timothy Naftali has publicly stated that Landau did not visit the Nixon Library research room.)
• Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 14 November 2007
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas
  
• William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, 12 March 2008
  
• Cuyahoga County Public Library, Fairview Branch in Fairview, Ohio, 3 March 2008 (Landau's site lists this engagement as the "Cleveland Public Library," which serves the City of Cleveland. The Cuyahoga County Public Library system serves the surrounding suburbs.)
  
• Dallas Public Library in Dallas, Texas, 5 February 2008
  
• Des Moines Public Library in Des Moines, Iowa
• Denver Public Library in Denver, Colorado, 25 February 2008
  
• State Historical Society of Iowa in Des Moines, Iowa, 23-24 October 2008
• Iowa Historical Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa
  
• Googleplex in Mountain View, California, 25 February 2009
• Madison Historical Society in Madison, Connecticut, 17 July 2008
  
• New Canaan Public Library in New Canaan, Connecticut
• St. Louis Public Library in St. Louis, Missouri, 10 March 2008
  
• Westport Public Library in Westport, Connecticut, 15 October 2008
• Book Hampton in Southampton, New York
• Borders Books in New York City
• Borders Books in Washington, DC (documents in Landau's apartment have been traced to the Smithsonian Institution)
• Borders Books, Philadelphia (Landau and Savedoff visited the Historical Society of Pennsylvania -- and aroused staff suspicions -- seventeen times in recent months)
• R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut
• East Village Books in Des Moines, Iowa
  

Second, a fake ID in the name of "Christopher McGovern" was found in Landau's apartment. Jason Savedoff apparently used the aliases "Jason James" and "Justin Ward" on various occasions, and one has to be open to the possiblity that Landau used aliases that have yet to come to light. I have the ugly feeling that many, many repositories are going to have to check their registration logs every time a new alias or set of aliases comes to light.

And on a more surreal note: Landau was one of the witnesses whose testimony supported Studio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell's claims that Hamilton Jordan, White House Chief of Staff under Jimmy Carter, did cocaine at the club in 1978. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration holds the records of Special Prosecutor Arthur Christy, who investigated Rubell's claims, and it has made the finding aid, in which Landau's name appears several times, available online.

Several years ago, Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo wrote an excellent book, Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art, that details how a charming, socially prominent, and seemingly well-to-do Englishman named John Drewe passed off forged paintings to unsuspecting collectors. In order to obscure his tracks, Drewe visited several museum archives in Great Britain, stole records that would have exposed the ersatz provenance of the forgeries, and inserted bogus records that supported his claims. Salisbury and Sujo concluded that Drewe, who was ultimately brought down by a suspicious Tate Gallery archivist, was a fascinating but profoundly empty mix of narcissist and sociopath.

I have the feeling that Barry Landau's life and career are the foundation for one heck of a book. I'm not going to write it, but I'm sure looking forward to reading it.

Barry Landau and Jason Savedoff are free on bond

Presidential historian Barry Landau addresses the staff of Google -- and flubs some facts about the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and Presidential recordkeeping -- as part of the Authors@Google program, Mountain View, California, 25 February 2009. Does anything about this man -- his face, his voice, his mannerisms -- seem familiar to you? If so, start checking your registration logs and reviewing your security videos.

On 9 July, Barry Landau, a noted collector of Presidential ephemera and author of The President's Table: Two Hundred Years of Dining and Diplomacy, and his research associate, Jason Savedoff, were arrested after staff at the Maryland Historical Society observed Savedoff take an historical document, conceal it in a portfolio, and remove it from the research room. The Baltimore Police discovered approximately 60 documents in a locker assigned to Savedoff.

The arrest of Landau and Savedoff sparked an investigation into their activities and a sweeping search of Landau's apartment. A host of disturbing things came to light:

• Savedoff was apprehended in a Maryland Historical Society restroom and was flushing a document down a toilet as he was taken into police custody.
  
• Only some of the documents in Savedoff's locker were held by the Maryland Historical Society. Others are the property of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Connecticut Historical Society, and Vassar College.
• Investigators found a 1780 letter from Benjamin Franklin to John Paul Jones in Landau's apartment. The letter is owned by by the New-York Historical Society.
• Landau and Savedoff visited the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, which is part of the NARA system, in December 2010 and allegedly stole signed copies of seven speeches that Roosevelt delivered. Four of the speeches were later sold to a New York dealer for $35,000.
• While a guest at the home of Betty Currie, President Bill Clinton's former secretary, Landau may have taken a book of speeches bearing Clinton's signature.
• Landau's claims of working for various Presidents -- including claims made in the Authors@Google speech embedded above -- are, in all likelihood, exaggerations or outright falsehoods.
  

On 28 July, Landau and Savedoff, who also face state charges, were indicted on charges relating to the theft of materials from the Maryland Historical Society, Roosevelt Presidential Library, and the New-York Historical Society. Savedoff, a dual Canadian-U.S. national, was released on bond in late July, but Landau remained in federal custody while investigators combed through the masses of ephemera in his Manhattan apartment.

Last Friday, a Federal court judge allowed Landau to post bond and return to his home -- provided that he submits to electronic monitoring, does not use the Internet, does not sell any assets without first securing approval to do so, and cannot have any contact with cultural heritage institutions or his co-defendant.

At the hearing, prosecutors noted that they found a vast array of other questionable items in his apartment. They have traced over 200 of them to repositories in five states and Washington, D.C., and possibly, Cambridge University. Many others are, in the words of a prosecutor, "not the kind of things that are accessible — legally accessible — on the open market": letters written by Napoleon Bonaparte, Marie Antoinette, Sir Issac Newton, Ludwig von Beethoven, and a host of prominent scientists, artists, inventors, writers, and political leaders.

If Landau is indeed guilty -- the evidence is damning -- we may be looking at a criminal career that spans decades and continents. Dozens of repositories may ultimately find that they have been victimized. All of us should be mindful of the possibility that other smiling, cupcake-bearing career criminals may be out there . . . and that they may visit our own institutions sometime soon.

Given that providing access to our holdings is one of our core responsibilities, keeping our holdings 100 percent safe from theft is never possible. However, there are lots of things that we can do to discourage casual thievery and insure that the more determined criminals get caught, and you might want to check out the following resources:

• The Society of American Archivists (SAA) regularly offers a first-rate archival security workshop
• Library and Archival Security is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to security matters
• Some strategies and tips from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's new Holdings Protection Team are available here and here.
  
• If you're going to the SAA annual meeting in Chicago in a couple of weeks, Session 705, Theft Transparency in the Digital Age: Stakeholder Perspectives will highlight new Web-based tools that archives can use to deter thieves, share information, recover materials, and garner support from researchers.

Alleged thieves apprehended at Maryland Historical Society

Barry Landau: Presidential Historian and Collector (November 14, 2007) from Gerald R. Ford on Vimeo. Have you seen Mr. Landau in your research room?

Barry Landau is a former White House protocol officer and a prominent collector of ephemera and artifacts associated with U.S. presidents; he has a particular interest in materials relating to presidential inaugurations and the dogs of presidents. Laura Bush consulted him when planning George W. Bush's second inauguration, he's met most if not all of the recent presidents at least once, and, as you can see above, he has spoken at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library on at least one occasion.

He may also be a thief. On Saturday, Landau and his assistant, Jason Savedoff, were doing research at the Maryland Historical Society. A staffer observed Savedoff take a document, conceal it in a portfolio, and take it out of the research room. They kept an eye on the duo and called the police, who opened the locker assigned to Savedoff and discovered approximately 60 documents belonging to the Maryland Historical Society, including:

• Papers signed by Abraham Lincoln and worth approximately $300,000
• Inaugural ball invitations worth roughly $500,000
• A Washington Monument commemoration worth an estimated $100,000

The police called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has opened an investigation into the activities of Landau and Savedoff. They also took Landau and Savedoff, both of whom live in New York City, to jail, where they remain at the time of this writing.

It's important to remember that, in the eyes of the law, Landau and Savedoff are innocent until they have their day in court. However, the evidence against them seems quite damning -- and the judge who denied them bail apparently agrees.

Owing to the ongoing investigation, Maryland Historical Society staffers haven't said much about the arrest of Landau and Savedoff. However, it's pretty plain that they were on the ball: they were keeping an eye on their researchers, observed behavior that aroused their suspicions, and continued monitoring the research room while waiting for the police to arrive. Once they're at liberty to discuss the incident, we may learn that they were also providing "enhanced customer service," performing "quality control audits," and videotaping the duo.

It's also apparent that Maryland Historical Society staff weren't unduly swayed by Landau's prominence -- or by the fact that he and Savedoff brought them cupcakes. Archivists are, by and large, a helpful bunch, and most of us want to make the research process as user-friendly as possible. It's all too easy to conclude that the friendly researcher who frequently graces our research room is trustworthy and thus doesn't need to be monitored very closely. It's also easy to decide that a prominent researcher should be allowed to bend a few rules -- or that a powerful, well-known person shouldn't be challenged or provoked in any way.

The arrest of Landau and Savedoff is an excellent reminder that neither friendliness nor prominence should induce us to disregard our security protocols or relax our research room rules. The Maryland Historical Society could have suffered grievous harm not only to its holdings but also to its public image and staff morale. Thanks to the actions of its staff, its collections have not been compromised, its reputation remains intact, and staff can hold their heads high.

Before you heave a sigh of relief that Landau and Savedoff are off the streets and out of the archives, please keep in mind that they have visited other repositories -- and that they might not have used their real names when doing so. The Baltimore Sun is reporting that:

. . . . Lee Arnold, senior director of the library and collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, said Landau and Savedoff -- using the name "Jason James" -- had visited more than a dozen times since December, identifying themselves as uncle and nephew . . . .

Landau introduced himself as a scholar and donated a copy of his first book to the society, and each time he came bearing cookies. But when officials tried to write him a thank-you note, it was sent back as undeliverable. An email address Savedoff gave also appeared to be invalid. Staff became suspicious and called a meeting, and planned to check their driver's licenses upon the next visit.

Moreover, Savedoff doesn't seem like the sort of person a legitimate researcher would hire as an assistant:

Of Landau, Arnold said: "He certainly was very personable. He had class. He knew how to conduct himself in a research library." But Savedoff, of whom little is known, was "rough around the edges" and "repeatedly asked naive questions," he said.

"He never understood what we were saying," Arnold said.

In the coming weeks, many of us will have to spend a little time reviewing our researcher registrations. For at least a few of us, this review will be the first step in a long, intensive effort involving the FBI and exhaustive inventorying of collections accessed by Landau and Savedoff.

Want to avoid being victimized by the likes of Landau and Savedoff? The Society of American Archivists has published an archival security guide and regularly offers a first-rate archival security workshop, there's a peer-reviewed journal devoted to security matters, and I've posted some strategies and tips from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's new Holdings Protection Team here and here. Other resources are out there if you look for them.

Where have all the (old) hard drives gone?

If you can't come up with an answer other than "long time passing," you may have a problem.

The State Comptroller of New Jersey recently recently released an audit report detailing problems in the state's disposal of surplus computer equipment. The state requires that its agencies degauss (i.e., use a powerful magnet to obliterate data) the hard drives of all surplus computers prior to disposal, but the auditors found that many state agencies were not complying with this policy. They examined a lot of 58 desktop computers and hard drives, some of which were to be auctioned off to the general public within a short time, and discovered that 46 of the drives still housed readable data. Some of the data was legally restricted and could have damaged citizens' lives or the state's information technology infrastructure if disclosed [p. 10-11]:

• More than 230 files related to State investigative case screenings and reports of child abuse, endangerment and neglect. Many of the reports contained the names and addresses of the children. The files also included a child fatality report, child immunization records and a child health evaluation.
• Information identifying the user of the hard drive as a high-level State agency official, internal agency memoranda, internal written briefings for an agency Commissioner, draft documents, personal contact information for multiple members of the then-Governor’s cabinet, and work plans for individual staff members.
• A list of vendor payments referencing names of children and names, addresses and phone numbers of children placed outside of the parental home, along with case information.
• A Microsoft Outlook e-mail archive containing 46 e-mails, including one listing multiple users’ computer sign-on passwords, as well as 11 personnel reviews for State employees that included their Social Security numbers.

A laptop computer that had been used by a judge who worked both at home and in an office also contained an array of legally restricted or otherwise sensitive information [p.7]:

• The judge’s life insurance trust agreement, his tax returns for three years and a final mortgage payment letter that included the address of the property and the account number.
• Two documents with the judge’s Social Security number.
• A “confidential fax” to the New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program concerning an attorney’s “personal emotional problems."
• Non-public memoranda by the judge concerning potential impropriety by two attorneys.

The results of this audit propelled the Office of the State Comptroller, which oversees the auction of surplus state computers, cellular phones, and other equipment, has suspended the auctioning of hard drives and computers, but it's quite likely that hard drives containing readable data have been auctioned off in the past.

What an ugly state of affairs. However, those of us who work in large organizations are all too accustomed to having our old computers "taken away" by "the IT people" who configure our replacement machines and assuming that "the IT people" will dispose of them properly. Those of us who work in smaller organizations may not think about what happens to computers that are offered up for recycling or reassigned to interns or volunteers.

This state of affairs must change. Those of us who work with legally restricted or "sensitive" materials have to raise questions about what happens to our old desktops, make our managers aware of the potential consequences of not disposing of such equipment properly, ensure that existing disposal policies are actually observed, and, in the absence of existing policies, push for creation and enforcement of appropriate policies. Those of us who are archivists or records managers have a particular obligation to raise these issues and educate our customers, and those of us who do hands-on work with archival electronic records must ensure that old hardware and portable media is purged of any legally restricted or "sensitive" records prior to disposal. And, of course, we are all responsible for purging the hard drives of the computers that we purchase for our personal use prior to disposing of them.

How do you ensure that your hard drives (or other digital storage media) don't contain any recoverable data?

• Remove them and destroy them. If I had a hammer, I'd hammer hard drives in the morning, I'd hammer hard drives in the evening, all over this land. Seriously, a 40-oz. hammer will do the job quite nicely. One county in New York State slices through its surplus drives with a plasma cutter. Some large organizations and computer recycling facilities have special shredders that can handle hard drives, data tapes, optical discs, and floppies, and many home and office shredders can destroy small quantities of floppy disks or optical discs (watch out for the resulting shards of plastic!) The options are endless. Of course, if you want to re-use the hard drive or give it to someone else, destruction is not a good option.
• Degauss them. As noted above, degaussing involves exposing magnetic storage media to a strong magnetic current and thus obliterating the data they contain. Degaussing almost always renders hard drives completely unusable, so it's not a good option for people who want to re-use them or give them away. Degaussing equipment also requires an upfront investment ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars, so it may not be a practical approach for individuals or organizations that do not regularly dispose of storage media; however, some firms rent degaussing equipment, and others may degauss small quantities of media for a fee.
• Overwrite them. There are a number of software applications, including some open source options, that will repeatedly overwrite all of the data on your hard drive(s) with zeroes or, better yet, a numeric pattern and verification mechanism, thus rendering the data unrecoverable. This process may be time-consuming, but overwritten hard drives can be reused. If you're interested in overwriting the data on your personal computer's hard drive, check out the nice overview that Gizmodo posted about a year ago; it explains the readily available options for sanitizing hard drives, flash memory cards, and USB keychain drives. If you're responsible for disposing of hard drives that contain legally restricted or national security information, make sure that you comply with any applicable standards and policies governing the use of overwriting software.

Preventing insider theft: lessons from NARA's Holdings Protection Team

On Thursday, I had the good fortune to attend a training session offered by representatives from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)'s newly established Holdings Protection Team. I've already posted about the team's tips for preventing thefts committed by researchers, and today I'm going to post about -- and reflect upon -- the team's recommendations regarding prevention of thefts committed by staff.

Approximately 75 percent of archival thefts are committed by staff, and Holdings Protection Team member Michael Knight suggested that this figure is probably low.

This is a sad truth, but there's a definite logic to it. We archivists have ready access to the collections and the expertise to identify records that are intellectually significant or have the greatest resale value. We enter this profession mindful of our role as stewards and guardians of the historical record, but a few of us ultimately repudiate this obligation. The reasons for doing so are, of course, varied:

• Life-changing developments such as addiction, a sick child, a messy divorce, or a disastrous investment decision can render a person desperate for cash. Some people feel compelled to ensure that their families enjoy a certain standard of living.
  
• In some instances, an archivist's love of the past has a covetous component.
  
• Workplace resentments may lead a person to lash out at an employer or decide that he or she could take better care of the records at home.
  
• Some people become archivists because they seek access to materials that they can steal and sell. Others enter the profession and then realize that theft can augment their earnings.
  

Before we all get jumpy and paranoid about our co-workers, let's keep in mind another fact that Knight emphasized: less than 1 percent of NARA employees have been proven to be thieves. I suspect that the percentage of dishonest staff at other repositories is similarly low.

Most of us are honest, and we have to keep in mind that security policies are meant not only to protect our holdings but our own sanity and reputations. Several years ago, my colleagues and I learned that one of our co-workers had been stealing materials from our holdings and that of our sister institution. Fortunately for us, the authorities quickly pinpointed him and he readily admitted his guilt. Archivists at several other repositories that experienced similar thefts haven't been so lucky: they worked under a cloud of suspicion for months on end, had their personal lives and finances picked apart by law enforcement personnel, and couldn't lean on each other for support.

Moreover, good security policies support our efforts to maintain physical control over our holdings. As Knight pointed out, records " go missing" for a variety of reasons:

• Staff fail to complete sign-out cards or pull-slips. A slip or card should be completed every time a box is moved . . . even if the staffer plans to bring it right back.
• People make mistakes when re-shelving -- especially when supervisors give the impression that speed is more important than accuracy.
  
• Catalog records or box tracking systems are outdated or inaccurate.
• Staff leave them unattended, either at their desks or in public areas.
  
• Inadvertent discarding or destruction -- a threat in facilities that house both archival and non-permanent records or in areas in which a lot of rehousing is taking place.
• Deliberate discarding or destruction. In one instance, a disgruntled contractor working in a NARA facility sporadically pulled boxes off the shelves and tossed them into the trash.

What to do? Senior management must create and enforce policies that safeguard holdings:

• Insist that staff complete pull slips, sign-out cards, or otherwise document the movement of records.
• Make it plain that leaving records in unsecured and unattended areas -- even for a moment -- is prohibited.
• If stacks have electronic card key access, each person who enters the stacks must swipe his or her ID. "Piggybacking" (i.e., following a person who has swiped his or her card and failing to swipe one's own card) is not appropriate.
  
• Emphasize that accuracy, not speed, is paramount when reshelving records.
• If at all possible, monitor contractors who work in areas housing records.
• Staff who discover security breaches must report them to their supervisor or to another person in the organization and, if appropriate, take immediate action to rectify the situation.
  

Knight mentioned at the start of his presentation that one of the Holdings Protection Team is, in essence, helping to create an institutional culture that enables everyone to take ownership of physical control and security matters. In the days following the training session, I spent a lot of time thinking about the Holdings Protection Team presentation and Richard Strassberg and Mimi Bowling's archival security workshop, which I attended a couple of years ago. For what it's worth, I drew up a list of what I consider to be the core characteristics of a security-focused institutional culture:

• Senior management encourages and expects all staff -- managers, archivists, technicians, clerical/support -- to identify and address security issues.
• Senior management solicits input and feedback from all staff.
  
• Supervisors train subordinates properly, encourage subordinates to share their concerns, use minor lapses as teaching opportunities, and use punitive measures as a last resort.
• All staff understand why security and physical control policies exist, accept that everyone is responsible for helping to protect the repository's holdings, and feel comfortable speaking up when confronted with the unusual or unexpected.

About 15 years ago, when I was still in graduate school, Richard Strassberg came to my Archives and Manuscripts class and gave a guest lecture on archival security. He placed a lot of emphasis upon the relationship between labor-management relations and archival security. A few people are inherently honest, a few people are inherently dishonest, and the vast majority of people can go either way depending upon the situation. Creating a work environment in which everyone -- custodial and security staff included -- is made to feel valued and respected reduces the risk that staff will steal because they feel demeaned, excluded, or powerless. In light of the Holdings Protection Team's training, I would argue that a work environment in which everyone is made to feel valued, respected, and empowered to address security issues also increases the chance that insiders who steal for monetary gain or to augment their own collections will be caught sooner rather than later. In the final analysis, repositories intent upon protecting their collections from insider theft must consciously create a positive, open, and supportive work environment.

NARA's Holdings Protection Team hopes to offer additional training sessions for non-NARA staff in the coming months. If you get the chance to attend, by all means do so.