(a) Employees shall not remove, alter, destroy, mutilate, access, copy, or retain documents or data in the custody of the federal government or provided to them in the course of their employment, without proper authorization.

(b) The term “documents” includes, but is not limited to, any written, printed, typed or other graphic material, recording, computer tape, disk or hard drive, storage medium, blueprint, photograph, or other physical object on which information is recorded, including all copies of the foregoing by whatever means made, and any electronic file, data, or information stored on or created on a government computer, database, application, program, network, or storage medium.