If the contract with the government requieres to destroy the data storage device containing sensitve data, it is a known fact before the contract is signed. In this case you need a different concept for your daily work with this data and how to perform backups: - Don't store in on a SAN - Take into account, that you need to destroy your backup, too. - Recalculate your contract "cost" if you need to replace hardware at the end of the contract. - Place this "cost of contract" as a new position in your offer, because your customer has to pay compensation - if it is part of the contract, of course. - Btw. if a harddrive is defect, it has to be destroyed completly by an authorized/certified organization. Don't just throw it away. Encryption is no option if you work with government/Navy/...

or is this just a kind of prior art? It simply does not make sense to allow patents for such simple things. Is geo-caching violating location aware reminders?