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Judge Demands Information About Missing White House Emails
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."
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-/
enough said.
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.
The longer they manage to keep the law at bay the greater chance that whatever "evidence" remains is distorted, manipulated or just outright deleted.
The Long Now Foundation
Watergate - damning information on missing tapes.
Seagate - damning information on missing tapes.
Some things never change...
it was 99% spam
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 :-)
Several of the emails in question appear in Greg Palast's book, Armed Madhouse. Why the entire U.S. congress and judiciary seems unaware of the existence of this book is beyond me because "don't taze me dude" was holding a copy while being electrocuted.
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.
Privacy is terrorism.
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.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
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.
They're using their grammar skills there.
... might just come out. This instead of focusing on this distraction of, and excuse used, for invading iraq.
Hint: Wrongful World Stock Market Manipulation
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.
What are you talking about? I reckon some MJ would be just the ticket for that math geek party!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
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 because I don't know and can't prove what happened doesn't mean that I have to accept as gospel the words of the biggest bullshit artists of them all.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
While I'm stoned as I'm typing this, you're only hurting the cause, fwiend.
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.
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 anyway?
Privacy is terrorism.
and /. already ate this comment twice, but I'll try one last time. .gov who then forwarded the mails to Palast. It is surprising that the entire U.S. Congress and judiciary is unaware of this book when the famous "don't taste me, dude" student was holding in clearly in the video where he was tazed.
These emails have been published in the book Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast. Whitehouse staffers mistakenly emailed whitehouse.org instead of
Rosie?
Is that you?
It's me. Michael.
The "documentary" film maker.
Good to hear from you again.
Slashdot: you'll not find a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types...
As a counter to terrorism.... knowledge begets knowledge and specific knowledge begets its own with tunnel vision
What the World Wants 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.
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?
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
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? You would think someone would learn. Or should I believe that maybe Democrats and Republicans have something to gain from poor email archives?
as explained here:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=85392&title=server-crossfire&to=2
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
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?
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
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.
Or does the Clinton administration get more of a benefit of the doubt?
fail.
Ooops...wrong thread :)
"Afghanistam was all about the oil! So here's a link which talks about a natural gas pipeline which hasn't been built, but may some day (maybe) be built in order to serve countries which didn't even fight in Afghanistan."
Talk about a nonsequitor. Have someone check your temperature - you're probably running a fever.
If we really wanted the oil, there'd be much more efficient ways to get it. Such as:
1) Subverting the oil-for-food program like everyone else was doing.
2) Threatening Sadam with invasion.
3) Just going in, securing the oil, and ignoring the rest of the country. Which could have been done with a quarter of the manpower, and a tenth of the casualties.
I also find it fascinating that, even after years of trying to help these nations rebuild at a cost of billions of dollars, while taking none of their natural resources, people like you still seem to think it's perfectly logical to claim that all we want is the oil. I don't quite understand how you can believe in such an absurdity. Luckily your numbers seem to be dwindling, otherwise I'd be really concerned.
God dammit, isn't there any forum that you 9/11 Denier lunatics won't pollute with your idiotic spam? Yes, the September 11th attacks were coordinated at a cost of millions of dollars, causing billions in direct damage, killing thousands of people, and probably causing trillions in indirect long-term damage by harming the economy and the national psyche, all so that a few people could make a few million dollars on the stock market. Meanwhile, the CIA demolished a $700,000,000 building so that they could destroy records. Apparently they never heard of a paper-shredder. Or a "delete" key.
What I want to know is who the fuck put Dr. Evil in charge of this operation?
Also, what idiots modded you up? I mean, I suppose that your comment is "interesting" in the same way that a wheelchair hurdle race would be "interesting", but c'mon, that's hardly what that mod category is meant for.
will show up before the missing emails do.
...of the MEP (Most Evil President) and MEVP (Most Evil Vice President).
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"?
Furthermore, elected officials and the government they run is FOR AND BY THE PEOPLE; therefore, the government reflects its citizens MORE in a representative democracy than most other forms of government.
Blaming government is ultimately blaming its people.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
What is the big deal here? It should be easy to retrieve "lost" email from Carnivore.
I can believe that it's possible it wasn't for oil. But just curious, what was it about then?
Former CEO Cheney who is still being paid a salary and has thousands of stock options has no vested interest in the success of Haliburton? Really?
RC?
not likely but thats how i would arrange it.
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 provisions, perhaps even rewards although that may be going a tad far.
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
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.
Too long to be sarcasm.
Too paranoid to be serious.
Just what is your game here?
Seriously. I have first-hand experience "fending" them off.
Melanie Sloan and "CREW" are in this game to try to make a name for themselves. All they do is try to file "high-interference" lawsuits, hoping to find something for their own self-promotion. Melanie will keep filing until she finds something that "sticks". Think of monkeys throwing their own feces, and you'll have an accurate description of CREW.
If slashdot readers have any sense of self-consistent ethics, CREW and it's actions should be highly scrutinized...unless you condone the filing of nuisance and meritless lawsuits.
Slashdot pointed to article suggest its a government cover-up game.
Tell enough lies and you'll start getting caught. Destroy enough evidence and your'll get caught.
And that seems to be what is happening. The path deception walked is starting to show up in the trampled ground.
Simple observation. Ever notice how the words "conspiracy" and "paranoia" are so often used to dismiss what amounts to conspiracy.
Be it intentional in full scope or just the sequence of simple little seemingly disconnected acts that sum up?
Or is it just easier to believe conspiracy doesn't happen in government?
Try reading "The Declaration of Independence" for assurance of the government abuses of its citizens.
... the judge hand-carries his order over there.
I've heard that the Whitehouse has been having problems with its e-mail lately.
Have gnu, will travel.
We have another paranoid listener for you!
Next show will cover Vince Foster, SR-71 trips to Iran, Area 51, and the Government Engineered AIDS virus
to tell WTC was an inside job, make no sense, and i do see this.. as a conspiracy theory which goes nowhere.. the little valid point, one could make, could be architect, or some builders comment (students i think), saying WTC couldnt collapse the way it did. I can hardly figure out myself cons and pro of such allegation, also so far, i do also remember not long ago, physicist didnt expect water on mars. Well to make it simple, for me, there is not enough to make such a point valid. On the other end we all saw those air planes crash into the buildings, and there is more then that.
I think people should remember the following http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bojinka_Plot, it happened under Clinton presidency, and at the same time they did http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_8969
and that explains to me why Clinton was concern by AQ as he wrote on his book (my life).
When he left the white house, he told bush about the AQ threat, bush talked about Iraq (regrets of his father was not to have end up Saddam's regime). By 9/11, Clinton was the first man, i heard say that was AQ, and since i heard about bojinka, i understand why.
Now the worst part
9/11 is not an inside job, but
secret service declassified document, related to 9/11 attack --> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266291,00.html http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/France_knew_of_and_told_CIA_about_al-Qaeda_hijack_plans_prior_to_9/11 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041707J.shtml translation of http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-896448@51-892780,0.html (a serious newspaper)
Clarke ex-chief counter-terrorism adviser, Among his highly critical statements regarding the Bush Administration, Clarke charged that before and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke
but when you take into the 2 documents above, memos sent by french secret services, Richard Clark and i can add one more.. moussaoui case (well known terrorist arrested 1 month prior to 9/11), you wonder what US secret services were about at the time, with so many raising alarms ???
And what they were about according to Richard Clark comments, is Iraq.
What i tend to think, is bush changing secret service priorities as soon as he became president of the united states by january 2001. This change of priority opened the path for the terrorists to move forward, despite french raising alarms and evidences (see doc above, and have a look at this http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/shapiro20030301.htm ).
Now the question is.. have they opened the path intentionally, letting the terrorists make an attack on US soil and take this as an opportunity to promote war in iraq, or that was just unintentional, and only a side effect of the fact, when bush been elected, radical islamism was no more a priority for secret services ???
What is puzzling me, but conclusions it could draw, doesnt please me much... Well what is puzzling me, as i read about 6 memos sent by french secret services to US secret services, is.. why US secret services, said they never received those memos ? not exactly.. why they never received those memos, but why US secret services said they never received those memos ?
Either the french never sent them (1), been received on the wrong place (2), received, put it in the bean (3), received but seen as not serious, and prefer to tell they never received (4), or they received, and dropped them, thinking that a terrorist attack would help promote a war in Iraq (5).
(1) i dont think the french have any reason to say this, especially as you read this http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/shapiro20030301.htm, and radical islamism is since long part of the big issues they have to deal with, since long.
(2) as i know Allied secret services do have some people in char
As much as I love your loop conspiracy theory, did you not read the link you posted? The minimum investment for LTCM was $10 million, not $1 billion as you state.
You know, you make this point as if it actually validates your post. Bit of a sad thing that it actually doesn't.
The government is as much a 'regulated industry' as for example the financial world (in which you *have* to keep 7 years of backups of ALL your data, including email, RTPs, databases and everything pertaining to your functioning). This is not optional, this is not something you can make your own policy about, it's quite simply the law.
Now. The law states that all communication within the government that is not explicitly marked top secret should be available to the public. Having a retention period after which this information gets deleted instead of archived is once again, simply against the law.
If you make local retention policies, you better be *very* sure you're not destroying material that you should keep by law, since your company will really not survive a serious audit or lawsuit based on those materials (the penalties for not obeying these parts of the law are really rather severe)
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
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.
Wasn't the www designed to SAVE data in case of a nuke attack?
Anyone ever hear of RAID? br. RR
Wow.. A hit and run job that couldn't be more them wrong. Better luck next time. Perhaps if you left your name, we could point to links showing how wrong and perhaps brain washed you are
Though the GP is an AC and may not ever revisit this thread to address replies, I suggest that such links be provided to enlighten other readers in this thread.
It would take too much of my time when this is common knowledge. If the AC actually thought it was true, he would have linked to some site or paper article over it. This isn't the first time this has come up.
Cheney severed all pay packages from Haliburton and sold all his stocks in the company before taking office. There was a provision that stretched one years salary over 5 years presumably for tax benefits which he received a portion of while he was in office. But that figure had already been determined before he ran for office and was for work performed before he took office. He has donated that money to charity and was called on it because even though he reported it when taking office, he didn't continue to report it for the 3 years after he took office. Evidently, he declared the entire amount spread over the time frame which was proper, he just didn't realize that he also had to report it when he received it. What the GAO wanted was the entire amount, when you are supposed to receive it, and if and when you actually receive it. That last part was missing even though they knew he was receiving it and how much it was.
That is the entire basis for the myth of the current administration lining their pockets with Haliburton. But this problem happened during his first term and was dealt with then. The GAO saw the income on his tax return and wanted to know why it was there because he didn't verify actually receiving it.
This is true. ...and if I were in Cheney's boots, I'd sit tight until after I leave office and than enjoys the spoils of my labors. In two years, after he has left office, I'd like to have this discussion again. I would wager that Cheney will be right back at Haliburton or at the very least, receiving payment.
Time will judge the right and wrong and I fear that America will not look good as a direct result of the Bush administration's actions.
Huh?
Cheney isn't stupid. He will find something away from Haliburton simply because of the stigma surounding it. I'm sure we will be around in 5 years to have this discussion later.
I don't think time will judge us in the way that you do. Right now most of the rhetoric is politically charged. Time has a was of removing that and when you attempt to view the actions from a neutral point or even as if some politician you liked more done them, you see that they aren't as outrageous as they are made out to be. I see people claim that Americans just don't care and when I talk to them, I find that they do care, they just don't see it the same way as some of the more outspoken people do. History will probably side with the middle pulse of america were enough people reelected Bush to another term.