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White House Tape Recycling Possibly Erased Emails
Pojut points us to a Washington Post story which details the White House's admission that it routinely recycled backup tapes from 2001 to 2003, possibly destroying e-mail records from that time period. While the tapes are being analyzed to determine if any of the data can be recovered, the White House also indicated that some e-mail through 2005 may not have been preserved. We discussed the beginnings of this investigation a few months ago. From the Post:
"During the period in question, the Bush presidency faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Iraq war, the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he has no reason to believe any e-mails were deliberately destroyed."
Wait, I keep forgetting: Is recycling a good thing?
Or will everyone just give up on email since everything you ever say must be preserved forever to be used against you.
Will they all move to Instant Messaging?
Or maybe go back to handwritten paper mail as the only place to have a frank written conversation.
It's longer but that would have been so cool.
Or if the gap lasted until January 22, 2005.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
"White House spokesman Tony Fratto also said to keep sucking, he has no reason to believe the Bush Administration intends to cum in America's mouth."
The cock-up theory of history is widely believed. What better way, then, for administrations to circumvent the law and get away with it than by means such as this?
Plausible incompetence is just as useful a smokescreen as plausible deniability.
I believe that orginally read "...hopefully destroying email records from that time period."
It's a good thing Bush approved the illegal interception of domestic internet traffic. Now they can just ask the NSA for a copy.
There's an old joke that, sadly, is far too applicable here.
A mobster is on trial for multiple murders. The prosecutor, frustrated he may lose the case because of the ease with which the mobster and his associates lie under oath, finally tries to threaten him on witness stand:
DA (sternly): "Sir, are you aware of the penalty for perjury in this state?"
Mobster (smugly): "It's less than the penalty for murder, isn't it?"
Too bad for us there won't even be a penalty for perjury.
Stay tuned for another exciting episode of Presidential Idol! Who will be eliminated this week? Call in and vote for your favorite!"
Give me a break.. Lose email? Could this happen at the company you work? Not if it's a company with a half-competent IT staff. To think the White House IT staff is so incompetent that they'd do this by mistake is unthinkable. No, it's not a technical mistake. If it were, White House officials would be running for cover and would hang it on the poor bastard who made the mistake.
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They should subpoena the NSA. Surely *they* have copies..
Allow me to replace the current adminstration with a different government in this summary.
Pojut points us to a Washington Post story which details the Kremlin's admission that it routinely recycled backup tapes from 2001 to 2003, possibly destroying e-mail records from that time period. While the tapes are being analyzed to determine if any of the data can be recovered, the Kremlin also indicated that some e-mail through 2005 may not have been preserved. We discussed the beginnings of this investigation a few months ago. From the Post:
"During the period in question, the Putin administration faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Chechnya war, the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, as well as murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvenko. Kremlin spokesman Tony "Fat Knuckles" Fratto said he has no reason to believe any e-mails were deliberately destroyed."
Right, they only had the means, the motive, and the opportunity. But we are supposed to believe it was all an accident. Also we are supposed to believe that years worth of email disappears for the White House and no one notices until congress asks for it. Most places I have worked as a sysadmin if everyone's old email disappeared in multi-month/year blocks my phone would be ringing within the hour.
My failure to retain records of my communications isn't a violation of the Presidential Records Act.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Those dirty, scheming, lying, backstabbing bastards are at it again - covering their ass, just in time before the White House changes hands. Blaming it on 'recycling' too - what a nice "fuck you" to Americans... This administration will go down in history as the most egregiously shameful, dishonest, dirty in the history of the United States. I still can't get over the fact that he managed to get elected again after he stole an election, started a war on fake motives, and let his rich friends get richer on the back of troops and taxpayers.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
No - Former President Clinton had to have his backup tapes scanned for word sequences, and it was a running battle to agree on the regular expressions used. Back in those days there were noises about the back-up system, but the problem was only with a FEW tapes.
Tapes can save OR damn this Presidency. I vote subjecting ALL President Bush's tapes to scrutiny and prove how many times they were recycled - and when.
In the words of Ronald Reagan: Trust, but verify. Access to history may be lost; there is much explaining to be done.
Trust but verify would have been appropriate in 2001. These fuckers are well past the point where any further trust is merited.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I spent 18 months working with the EOP on the security of the email system used to send out presidential press releases. The story that this happened by accident is just not credible.
First the archives, the archives were a pervasive force that was felt throughout the EOP. Every piece of paper, every tape, every scrap of information had to go to the archive. It was a whole cultural thing. And it was clearly a pre-Clinton culture. The people I was working with had been there since Reagan. They never refered to this as a Clinton mandate, it was the law.
The idea that a tape could be recycled for any purpose was a total departure from the Clinton era culture.
Second FOIA, was a constant issue.
Now we could assume that these changes were only due to the goal of 'restoring' executive power that Cheney and other Nixon era accomplices have advanced. Or it could be that they knew they had much criminality to hide.
I don't think these legal issues are going to go away after Bush leaves office. We are going to see a constant attempt to suppress government papers that implicate Bush in the criminality of his administration.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
The other person who is lying here is Theresa Payton, the WH CIO. She claimed that she did not understand that these were archive tapes. ALL of clinton's email was taped in this fashion. Has been since the internet got commercialized. That means that she changed protocol. She would not have done so unless she was told that it was not an archive (zero chance of that), or she was ordered to do this by someone above her. I suspect that before this is done, she may be found guilty of perjury, conspiracy, and willful destruction of data.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's part of the problem with this Democracy. A turd gets elected (twice) and it's a game of fingerpointing, blaming the other 'team' for everything. This is not football.
I, as a registered Republican (but not one who has ever even comes close to voting a straight ticket) voted for Bush on the first go-around, and against him on the second.
The Democrat bastards I helped vote into office on the second go-around appear to be every bit as colluding, impotent and worthless as the last lot of idiots on the other side of the aisle.
It's ok, though. You don't like the way things are going? Just blame the party you're not a part of (right or wrong) and hang the rest on everyone else. Thou dost protest too much.
You know, we can keep ourselves busy bitching, or getting out there and doing something about it. The national politicians, almost without exception start their careers at the local and state level. In addition to writing letters to the people currently holding Federal office, be proactive in your state and community to make sure the people presently getting elected at the State and local levels are the kinds of people you might eventually want on the Hill or in the White House.
Also, get involved with whatever party your a member of, and start actively setting standards and goals at the lowest levels of the party.
Not many people are happy with this administration, and I'm certainly not either. But every moment spent bitching, complaining and blaming is time detracted from getting out there and making a difference.
For what it's worth, the current crop of buffoons vying for the White House are nearly imperceptible from the last bunch of idiots. With the possible exception of John Edwards.
But that's fine. We can just all sit back and treat this like the Super Bowl, throwing popcorn at the TV when our guy wins or loses, and then quite possibly spending the next four years wishing things had gone differently, passing our time with childish infighting.
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