Montana School District Ensures Compliance with Latest Court Ruling on Email Archiving by Implementing Message Journaling from Lightspeed Systems.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Even before new federal rules went into effect Dec. 1 requiring all employee email, instant messages (IM), and other digital communications be kept tabs on, Frenchtown School District in Frenchtown, MT, was in compliance. Last November, Mark McMurray, Frenchtown School District's technology coordinator, thought it prudent to implement Message Journaling from Lightspeed Systems after nearby school districts had all their email records subpoenaed by a politician suspecting school email accounts were used to defeat his initiative. Lightspeed Systems, developer of integrated content filtering and security software products for K-12 school networks, includes Message Journaling with its Total Traffic Control software suite.

"In Montana," McMurray explains, "all email in public schools are public documents." Knowing this and the trouble his peers were having with producing email records, McMurray took swift steps to ensure Frenchtown School District would stay out of the hot seat. "After setting the policy to archive email for two years, Lightspeed's Message Journaling puts the district on solid ground for any future inquiries," says McMurray. Although he hasn't been required to yet, Message Journaling allows McMurray to easily search for email and attachments sent internally and externally through the Exchange 2003 server. User mailboxes are not altered in any way and the entire process remains transparent to the user.

"The end result," according to Joel Heinrichs, Lightspeed Systems CEO, "is a network-wide message journal that supports selective reporting of any message traffic occurring on a network, regardless of its source or destination." Heinrichs reports heightened interest in Message Journaling among Lightspeed's school customers since the new rules took affect.

About Lightspeed Systems

Lightspeed Systems, Inc. develops network security software to ensure CIPA compliance and provide total traffic control to educational IT professionals through a single interface. TTC is deployed in approximately 600 school districts throughout the U.S. and protects over 4 million end users from the dangers of the Internet. The company has been developing software for over 20 years to provide leading-edge networking software for a worldwide customer base of education and corporate organizations. Lightspeed Systems maintains its corporate headquarters at: 1800 19th Street, Bakersfield, California. Telephone: [phone]. Web site: http://www.lightspeedsystems.com.