Searching ESI: A Lesson from Aunt Judy

Imagine you borrow your buddy's mobile to phone your wife.  When you type in her cell number and hit send, the phone recognizes the number as belonging to "Aunt Judy."  Huh?  Your wife's name is Cindy.  Suspicions aroused, you start poking around in the text messages and find exchanges confirming that "Aunt Judy" and your trusted pal have been doing the horizontal mambo.  Ouch!

That apparently triggered the sleaze fest swirling around Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose dalliances with his campaign treasurer, Cynthia Hampton, prompted questions about the Senator abusing his office to funnel hush money to Cindy and her cuckolded husband, Bob, a longtime friend and aide to the senator.  Unlike the fictional corrupt womanizing Nevada Senator Pat Geary in The Godfather II, there was no Michael Corleone to make it all disappear; but, it sounds like Senator Ensign nonetheless labored to find patroni with the fortunes to play godfather to Hampton.

The e-discovery lesson?  A search for "Cindy," "Cynthia" or "Hampton" wouldn't have turned up the randy exchanges with "Aunt Judy;" but in all likelihood, a search for her phone number would have done so.  When framing searches, remember that all of us have electronic aliases in the form of phone numbers, e-mail addresses and messaging avatars.  Be sure to include phone numbers, e-mail addresses and messaging identities as queries when searching for information about and communications to or from persons of interest.