Are deleted e-mail messages destroyed?
Not always. Just hitting the “delete” key doesn’t always remove a message. By deleting a message, and removing it from any “recycle bin” or “trash file,” you are telling the computer that the file is unimportant and to remove any reference links to the message. If the computer then needs the space taken by the deleted file, it will overwrite the file with a new one. If your computer is not at its memory capacity and the computer doesn’t need the space, then the message may not be removed. This is how “lost” computer files are recovered. There are special programs that can search hard-drives and recover these files. Deleted messages may also be stored on backup tapes, or on the agency’s e-mail server, for several days, weeks or months after they are deleted from an employee’s workstation. Employees need to keep in mind that sending an e-mail message allows that message to travel across a wide network of computers, any one of which could retain that message indefinitely. Individual emplo
