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Judge Demands Information About Missing White House Emails 209

Posted by Soulskill from the time-to-come-clean dept.
Lucas123 writes "A District Court judge has ordered the Executive Office of the President to tell the court by May 5 whether any e-mail server backup tapes were kept for a period from March to October 2003 to cover controversial issues such as reasons for starting the war in Iraq, the release of a former CIA operative's name and the US Department of Justice's actions. The White House has been working for months trying to fend off a lawsuit filed last May in federal court in Washington by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. The judge cited what he called an apparent contradiction by White House CIO Theresa Payton as to whether backup tapes had been preserved. He also recommended that White House employees be ordered to turn over any flash drives or other portable media that may contain e-mails. The White House missing email scandal has been developing for some time now."
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Judge Demands Information About Missing White House Emails More

Judge Demands Information About Missing White House Emails

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  • ask TT&T and the NSA... they got everythig! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:31AM (#23213598)
    Why not just ask AT&T, the NSA, and all the telecoms that got their hands (or other appendages) caught in the cookie jar (data-pipe). They probably have some copies running around somewhere 8-/

    • Re:ask TT&T and the NSA... they got everythig! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NeverVotedBush ( 1041088 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @10:14AM (#23213796)
      If I had mod points, I would mod you up.

      The Bush administration's deliberate use of the RNC e-mail system, and the amazing coincidence that the White House allowed the e-mail records to get overwritten (or at least claims they have).

      It's a blatant coverup not unlike Nixon's 18 minute gap in a tape recorded conversation between him and H.R. Haldeman.

      The American people need to demand Bush surrender all evidence or that he and his administration be held in contempt of court.

      • The American people need to demand Bush surrender all evidence or that he and his administration be held in contempt of court.
        You think the American people care about this or that, if they did, the Bushies would bow to their wishes?
        That's so cute! Naiveté of that magnitude is so refreshing in this day and age and I congratulate you sir!

        --MAB

      • Why couldn't he have just had a nice sex scandal. They could have impeached him for lying about the sex. That would have been so neat and easy. Noooo, he had to go and do all this "God told me to" stuff and lie about WMD in Iraq and lie about Al Quaeda and Iraq relations. He had to get us in this illegitimate war (Saddam was a very bad man, but the reasons were lies). Heck, if he had just been honest about why, I would not be so indignant about his leadership today. But, his is a house of lies, and on

      • The problem is that the dems are going to do NOTHING. W. will be allowed to leave office in the same fashion that reagan was with his iran-contra and many neferous corruptions. If McCain gets in, I suspect that he will grant the white house admin a pardon. I would not be surprised to see the others do it as well.

        Keep in mind that the senate dems (the same ones that has obama and clinton) granted the telco's immunity for allowing NSA/FBI spying PRIOR to 9/11.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by RingDev ( 879105 )
          On a bright note, Obama said in a recent interview that if he is elected President, he will open investigations into a number of the Bush administration scandals.

          -Rick

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why can the Bush administration do illegal and unconstitutional things but be so high and mighty about their need to monitor every American citizen to make sure they don't do illegal things?

      How can the Bush administration invade countries and kill innocent civilians (shock and awe) and not see it as terrorism?

      What is the difference between a bunch of idiots crashing planes into buildings and another bunch of idiots sending bombers, fighters, tanks, and troops into a country to demolish their buildings

      • Re:ask TT&T and the NSA... they got everythig! (Score:5, Informative)

        by denton420 ( 1235028 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @12:14PM (#23214660)
        Your reply brings up some valid points. Let me help you tie it up in a nice neat little package that will bring you back to your last question.

        http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121004A.shtml [truthout.org]

        Here you are, there is just one of BILLIONS of examples of why this make sense, and why there is a big difference between the two.

        Oh and in case you were wondering, Dick and Bush have nothing to do with any of these companies getting billion dollar contracts. Anyone who tells you that is a democratic heathen.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          "Oh and in case you were wondering, Dick and Bush have nothing to do with any of these companies getting billion dollar contracts. Anyone who tells you that is a democratic heathen."

          Uh, yeah, sure. It's nothing but irony that Halliburton and the Carlyle Group are neck deep in Iraq?

          And of course it's nothing but sound and patriotic business sense that Halliburton has been shown over and over to be supplying our troops with unsanitary water, food that isn't edible, or when it is edible and safe, overch

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jo42 ( 227475 )

        Why
        Because the Bushies [think they] have God On Their Side.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dintech ( 998802 )

          Because the Bushies [think they] have God On Their Side.
          Not really. They know that claiming they are humble, god fearing people is the best way to get Middle America to believe that by extension, everything they do is for the better good.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by inflex ( 123318 )
        The sad thing is, it wasn't Iraq or its people who crashed the planes into the twin towers (Afghanistan - Al Qaeda), but then the Bush administration did a mighty fine job pinning them together.

  • Greg Palast? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:36AM (#23213622)
    Greg Palast already published many of these emails in his last book Armed Madhouse. The whitehouse sent them to whitehouse.org instead of whitehouse.gov who then forwarded the mails to Palast. Check out the book and read them yourself. Why the U.S. Congress seems completely unaware of this book's existence is beyond me, but that one student who was tazered at the Kerry rally had one.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by pisto_grih ( 1165105 )
      When Bush was made aware of the books existence by a White House aide, he replied: "It don't faze me, bro."

  • Time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Narpak ( 961733 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:38AM (#23213642)
    The longer they manage to keep the law at bay the greater chance that whatever "evidence" remains is distorted, manipulated or just outright deleted.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      Don't forget though -- it's the coverup that is often the key. It's easy to destroy evidence, it's harder to destroy evidence of destroying evidence, then destroy evidence of destroying evidence of destroying evidence, and so ad infinitum.

      So first, you prove they're crooks. Then it's much easier to show the extent of their criminality, although this might involve. That's how the Valerie Plame case should have gone, but Scooter willingly took the fall, and Congress wasn't willing to take the next step an

  • no problem (Score:2, Funny)

    by wITTus ( 856003 )
    it was 99% spam

  • Data retention acts (Score:2, Insightful)

    by chabotc ( 22496 )
    I find it somewhat amusing that in this day and age where data retention acts in various countries are often the topic of the next, the US government can't even keep it's own emails :-)

    • Re:Data retention acts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by je ne sais quoi ( 987177 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:55AM (#23213726)
      It's not the entire U.S. government that's the problem. Usually the government keeps pretty good records. The problem is this administration believes itself above law and order. It also has infected large portions of other parts of the government with it's political appointees whose only quality is loyalty the administration. Whatever was on those e-mails was likely to be more damning the "hand slap" they're getting now for erasing, er "losing" the e-mails. I suppose it could have been an innocent mix-up, but if the administration is so incompetent that they can't make back-ups of data they're required to, I suppose it's no suprise they've failed miserably in just about every other enterprise they've attempted in the last seven years (except of course, smearing their opponents, they're rather good at that).
      • While this is a bit off-topic, this administration didn't infect other parts of government it infected it's own part of government.

        The Executive just put forth people it wanted and the Congress went along (still is in my opinion even thought the Democratic party nominally controls it) with the nominations and general incompetence).\\

        The unfortunate bit is that those parts of government run by the Executive (FDA, Federal Reserve, FEMA, Department of Justice and such) have a rather fundamental impact on our l
      • In a case of destruction of evidence, how do you deal with lack of evidence?

        For some cases, I think the onus of proof should be on the individuals responsable(to show they showed due diligence, at least).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by witherstaff ( 713820 )

        It's getting to the point that it is the entire US government that's the problem. Where are the congressional hearings about this, demanding answers as to why laws are not being followed? Where are motions to at the very least censure the Bush admin for failing to follow the Presidential Records act? As far as I know, only Kucinich has publicaly mentioned the impeachment process (Only to table the idea a few months ago)

        Our 3 sections of government are supposed to watchdog each other. When one of them mess

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Thing 1 ( 178996 )

        It's not the entire U.S. government that's the problem. Usually the government keeps pretty good records. The problem is this administration believes itself above law and order.

        Reading this, I realized how the government is very much like Diebold. Diebold is great at making ATM machines, and they never lose a penny. But voting machines, they leak like a sieve.

        The government has its IRS, which does a great job of keeping track of every penny (well, we round, so every dollar); whereas the White House e

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )
      Its not that they can't its that they don't want to.

  • Public information? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fuzzums ( 250400 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:49AM (#23213696) Homepage
    At least it's good to know a government is willing to go a long way to keep you from knowing if they fucked up.

  • For the Future... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by txoof ( 553270 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:51AM (#23213698) Homepage
    It's fairly obvious that the tapes have been misplaced (misplaced into the shredder next to the giant electro-magnet and then shot into the sun). There's really no hope of seeing them again. If a copy turns up, it will only be because of a sudden outbreak of morality on some stooge's part, not because a court orders it.

    That being said, what can we do to ensure this doesn't happen again? One obvious method would be to have each branch of government actually run the backup for another branch. For example, the Judicial would backup the Legislature, the legislature would backup the Executive, and the Executive the Judicial.

    I know this has flaws; how do we keep everybody from peeking into the backups, for example. I'm sure the Legislative branch wouldn't want the Executive branch to be flipping through its emails, and vice-vice-versa for the other branches.

    In any backup scenario, those that could be incriminated by the backups, should NEVER be allowed to manage them. An independent organization should be tasked with managing the IT behind the scenes, it should not be left in the hands of the administration. Someone like the library of congress, the secret service or some agency that is not directly under each branch's control would be vastly superior.

    Let's figure out which scape-goat will be ritually sacrificed for this screw up, then move on to a real solution that makes this sort of thing a whole lot more difficult in the future.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ihmhi ( 1206036 )

      The problem with that is, who runs the independent organization?

      Anything in government is susceptable to private interests. Let's say you get a guy who is secretly pro-PETA heading the thing. For all we know, he could be trolling through the backup tapes looking for evidence of animal rights violations in the U.S. government.

      The best way is a divided trust scheme. During the Berlin Wall days, the guards were sent in patrols of three - it made it harder for guards to escape or let people escape. (It's ea

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by dark_15 ( 962590 )
        There are Vendors such as Iron Mountain [ironmountain.com] that will do this. Of course it will be at the government 'discount' of twice the price as normal, but at least they be bound by contract to not tamper with tapes.

      • Let's say you get a guy who is secretly pro-PETA heading the thing. For all we know, he could be trolling through the backup tapes looking for evidence of animal rights violations in the U.S. government.

        I like it! Guy finds evidence of some official beating on a kitty cat. It makes it to Oprah. She says,, "4,000 American soldiers and 80,000 Iraqis is one thing, but this is going too far!" Guy gets popped, hung out to dry by the administration. He turns states evidence and unloads a shitload of backups...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Narpak ( 961733 )
      What is needed is a Government for the People By the People; where the people have good solid oversight over all the actions taken, laws enacted, appointments made; and the background for these decisions. If the Governing body is not transparent then it can not be trusted to be just or democratic. All decisions made behind closed doors are suspect, though in some cases it is justified for the public good; however "for the public good" is a concept that can all to easily be abused by those hungering for powe

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )
      Thats a nice little plan until the backups get miss used. The Executive / Legislative / Judical brances do have the need to keep secrets from each other. Some of that actually protects or liberties.

      For instance if the FBI(executive) was investigating senators(Legislative) takeing bribes would you want the senate to know when they were getting to close?

      As soon as that happens everyone will be saying each branch should handle their own data backups.

      Don't anybody suggest encrypting all the backups because th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      I know this has flaws; how do we keep everybody from peeking into the backups

      Encyption, with the keys put in a special location only available under special orders, and to be passed on to the presidential successor?

      Or just have them done by a neutral third-party... unfortunately when politics and money are involved, neutral (and being trustworthy enough not to leak the data to a third-party) is a pretty hard thing to find.

      Perhaps an arrangement with another country? Maybe the US/Canadian governments

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nbritton ( 823086 )

      I know this has flaws; how do we keep everybody from peeking into the backups, for example. I'm sure the Legislative branch wouldn't want the Executive branch to be flipping through its emails, and vice-vice-versa for the other branches.
      That's not a flaw, that's accountability. And why not have the GAO [wikipedia.org] do all the backups?
    • That being said, what can we do to ensure this doesn't happen again?

      We could disincentivise future crimes of this type by classifying them as treason; employing "non-torture enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding in investigating said crimes; and establishing a compulsory minimum sentence of death.

      The problem with the president's crimes is he can block investigations under national security rules and pardon people in the unlikely event their crimes are proven. In other words, there is no n

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by douthat ( 568842 )
      So who backs up the DNC's and RNC's email? My understanding is that most of the emails they're talking about went through RNC servers instead of federal servers.
    • "In any backup scenario, those that could be incriminated by the backups, should NEVER be allowed to manage them. An independent organization should be tasked with managing the IT behind the scenes, it should not be left in the hands of the administration."

      Better yet, emails should be "backed up" straight to the web for anyone to see a copy. Classified or sensitive information could be backed up by the other branches as mentioned (encrypted and requiring two branches to decrypt).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Atario ( 673917 )

      One obvious method would be to have each branch of government actually run the backup for another branch.
      Another would be to make the penalty for not having proper backups be the same as the penalty for the worst conceivable crime one might cover up by not having them.

  • IT Infrastructure at the Gov (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Identita ( 1256932 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @09:53AM (#23213712) Homepage
    Keeping backup tapes for more than 2-3 years including housing all corporate email on worm drives has been a common practice at large companies for years now. Those practices obviously don't apply to the White House. Of course the CIO will likely take the fall, get fired and be rewarded with a post as the new CIO at Exxon.
  • I was under the impression that all correspondence sent and received by the white house was public record unless classified and required to be archived as such. even classified correspondence is required to be archived. The white house staff knows this. The president even knows this. Anything else is a violation of the law.
  • ... might just come out. This instead of focusing on this distraction of, and excuse used, for invading iraq.

    Hint: Wrongful World Stock Market Manipulation [pbs.org]

    Follow the money winners and losers, Dot com boom and bust, worldcom, enron, etc..

    9/11 WTC building #7 containing SEC investigation evidence..... Building #7 intentionally destroyed.
    • Nobody "credible" will dig, and those who demand that digging be done will merely be ridiculed as crazy. Which I guess is true; you'd have to be crazy to think that the truth (whatever it might be) will come out on this, but you'd have to be stupid to think that on this one particular issue this administration is at all trustworthy when they've been caught brazenly lying about pretty much everything else they've ever done since they took power - and it was taken, not given. This is no different. Just bec
    • I can perfectly understand Iraq was all about securing oil reserves for the future. Same for Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline [wikipedia.org].

      Butwhat's wring about being honest about is, instead of coming up with lame excuses like "terrorism", "W's of MD" or "suffering people".

      Just say "Hey, we need to get rid of Sadam because we need his oil and he wouldn't let us have it". I'm sure we'll understand and see the reason in that.

      After all. Camels don't run on oil, so why would they need it

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 3seas ( 184403 )

        As a counter to terrorism.... knowledge begets knowledge and specific knowledge begets its own with tunnel vision

        What the World Wants [unesco.org] and from this we can pretty much knopw that its some fraction of a percent of the population on this planet that are in positions of abusing the rest of us with positions of power and dishonest use of that power.

      • I can perfectly understand Iraq was all about securing oil reserves for the future. Same for Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org].

        *sigh* I can perfectly understand ignorant people believing such silly assertions. What I can't understand is someone like you stating it, and then linking to an article which all but disproves your statement. You're effectively saying:

        "Afghanistam was all about the oil! So here's a link which talks about a natural gas pipel

    • You'd have to go quite far to convince someone to kill himself and a load of innocent passengers in order to protect your own damning evidence though. How on earth would anyone pull it off?

    • Re:Dig deep enough and maybe the honesty of 9/11 . (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @12:33PM (#23214838)
      Come on, that's just starting to stink of loopy conspiracy.

      If there really was a conspiracy to destroy a whole bunch of documents, you're seriously telling me the simplest, easiest plan they could come up with was "Let's find and finance a bunch of nutjobs to fly planes into buildings - and make sure that two of those buildings are the towers of the WTC"?

      • Re:Dig deep enough and maybe the honesty of 9/11 . (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @08:06PM (#23218154) Homepage Journal
        For your loopy conspiracy thinking.

        First you start with manipulating the world stock market and you proceed with draining southeast Asia, including 88% Muslim populated Indonesia.
        you have put together a deal that requires investors to put in 1 billion just to get in and they have to stay in for 3 years.

        Once you start having a very draining effect on the south east Asia economy and persistently ignore any effort of communication on those you are draining from and finally get a sign that you have drained them as much as you can via formula comming up wrong persistantly, and then offered them interest bearing loans thru the world bank whioch only pissed them off more.....and they make one attempt to take down the WTC but fail...

        You have managed to set up the "loopy conspiracy"

        Of course there are American investor losers in the deal too, such as enron worldcom and some califorina power company....etc...and this helps take suspicion off of your conspiracy motives. But you then buy the WTC with its asbestos sickness and insure it from terrorist attacks for way more then you are paying for it. And as you proceed to remove the deteriorating asbestos you also plant demolition explosives in the main shaft. As you know that there will be another attack, as the NSA has told you and its agreed upon to have the military not available during this inevitable attack. To of course let it happen.

        Of course the SEC is investigating the dealing of this world stock market manipulation deal and ironically have the documentation under investigation in building seven. So the attack happens and damages some building worse than others but the worse continue to stand where the less damaged building seven was evacuated and intentionally taken down.

        In summary and in full support of your "loopy conspiracy theory" It really was all about destroying some paperwork. And of course the paperwork had to first be created.
        So it wasn't about a trillion dollars or draining south east asia economically or even about indonesia being by CIA reports 88% Muslim, but all about distroying some paperwork. For the sake of creating a "loopy conspiracy"

        But that doesn't explain why the pentagon was hit and what some think was also a target "The White house"

        There is no way it could all be based upon human greed, simple human greed.

        I suppose the anthrax was a much bigger conspiracy, as it certainly couldn't have been done by some one person with enough authority and knowledge to access the anthrax store without being questioned and do this themselves. One person doesn't qualify as a conspiracy, but any fool could easily guess how the political parties would respond to this. But that doesn't support conspiracy theories, certainly not your loopy one.

        There is no way it could possible be a retaliation of a wrongful world stock market manipulation that would backed by politically controlled military where our own NSA knew enough to assist by not doing anything to circumvent it. Greed figures out how to make a profit in loss they know will happen.

         

  • I have the information (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AlHunt ( 982887 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @10:54AM (#23214028) Homepage Journal
    Here it is:

    a) We short circuited the whitehouse email by using GOP addresses
    b) There was stuff we didn't want anyone to know in there
    c) We deleted it all and trashed the server storage just in case

    Does that answer your question?

  • It has happened before, and they didn't learn (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @10:57AM (#23214058)
    In my mind, the amusing thing is that this has happened before... under the Clinton administration. Remember Travelgate? [bbc.co.uk] Remember the lost emails [nytimes.com] that the White House couldn't find? You would think someone would learn. Or should I believe that maybe Democrats and Republicans have something to gain from poor email archives?

    • That was actually a system problem that, rather importantly, did not ultimately result in any lost email.

      Read it carefully, it says the backup wasn't storing email 'properly', whatever that means. I suspect format problems, the email system at the time was using a VAX. So they couldn't just 'restore' the email, they had to munge it to make it usable in whatever format Congress thought it was supposed to be in.

      But in the end, all the email was recovered after a few months.

      It is rather funny to read Republican complaints about a delay of months in turning over email in an investigation about Hillary Clinton possibly lying about firing people in the WH travel office, who are part of the WH staff and can be fired at will.

      The WH claimed there were financial irregularities and that the FBI confirmed it, the people were quite correctly fired. The right claimed the Clintons made it up so family friends could take over or some really stupid nonsense, and used the FBI 'improperly'. The whole investigation was a precursor to Blowjobgate, where the Republicans do a bunch of investigating, throw wild accusations around, found nothing wrong, and finally get someone (Hillary, in this case) to state something (That she didn't have a lot to do with it.) and then investigate her for perjury. At worse, it was a little bit of attempted nepotism and then denial of said attempted nepotism...that showed up after it was realized that the WH travel office had been 'skimming'. Along with a bit of an overreaction of mass firing by the Clinton administration, which it corrected by rehiring the innocent people.

      Yet the GOP is now blithely accepting the total loss of emails in an investigation of the politicalization of the justice department, which is, if not illegal, at least worth investigating, unlike some supposed issues in the WH travel office. And constantly refusing to investigate anyone for lying to Congress, which the Bush WH has done so repeatedly. (The most obvious, but not only, time is in the lead-up to Iraq, and it's worth noting lying during the State of the Union counts as lying to Congress.) And refusing to investigate nepotism and conflicts of interests, of which the current Administration has a lot more.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dpilot ( 134227 )
        That's all because the Republicans are the RIGHT wing, and therefore whatever they do is RIGHT. Whatever Bush does is RIGHT, because he's President and he's a Republican. By the same token, whatever Clinton did, and whatever the next Democratic President does, will be an abuse of power, because he/she's a Democrat, and that WRONG reverses the President's RIGHT, making it even worse.

        And if you can't follow and buy into this clear chain of logic, you must be a liberal treasonous traitor.

        What's really scary
      • My point may have been too subtle. I don't trust either the Democrats or the Republicans. In the case of the Clinton problem, I have some first hand knowledge. My neighbor works at the White House and is one of the worker bees involved in both fiascos. He also happens to be a Republican. During the Clinton administration, I was at a neighborhood party, when another neighbor, also a Republican, was screaming "The Clintons are caught in a cover up." The worker bee neighbor says, "No no, we screwed up th
    • As a slasdot poster I assume you know what an "order of magnitude" is.

      The current email scandal is several orders of magnitude worse than Travelgate. Comparing the two is just silly, like saying Warren Buffet and I are the same because we both own stock...
    • In my mind, the amusing thing is that this has happened before... under the Clinton administration. Remember Travelgate? Remember the lost emails that the White House couldn't find?

      I guess you were hoping nobody would click through you "supporting" links.

      The actual article Headlines:

      Hillary escapes 'Travelgate' charges
      Clinton Aide Vows to Provide Subpoenaed E-Mail Soon

      I guess you meant to say "remember when the Clinton administration was cleared of these allegations".

  • Copies of emails proliferate (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bartwol ( 117819 ) on Sunday April 27, 2008 @11:15AM (#23214200)
    A challenge for many record retention policies, especially with email, is to prevent the proliferation of copies and avoid "unplanned retention." Many (most) of the emails being sought in this case were long iterative threads with large cc lists. When you factor for network distribution mechanisms and the variety of personal practices (use of various POP clients, personal folder management, people who still insist on printing stuff, desktop archive and cache settings, etc.), it is quite humorous and implausible to believe that the emails are gone. In fact, you can't practically make them go away.

    You can, however, wipe the server and make the "Backup Tape" go away, and then try to keep people focused on that.

    No, the rabbit really isn't in the magician's hat, and no, the rabbit didn't really disappear.
  • Do we have monthly backups of current White House correspondence held securely by a separate body like the Judiciary?

    And, if not, why not?
  • I've believed for some time that their should be a new level of criminal offense, namely the afore mentioned "Crime Against the System". This designation should be a multiplier to the range of penalties for a crime.

    For any crime where someone uses their position of public trust to further their crime they should pay a much higher penalty for reducing the trust the public has in the position and the government in general.

    To facilitate identifying such crimes there should be extensive whistle blower provisio
    • I believe what you are describing is what the UK courts call Perversion of Justice. Basically trying to game the court or the system can result in a 6 year vacation.
      In the US, contempt of court can get you jailed indefinitely - one schmoe has been in jail for his divorce for 15 years.

  • ... the judge hand-carries his order over there.

    I've heard that the Whitehouse has been having problems with its e-mail lately.

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