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Trying To Find White House Missing E-mails
Gov IT writes "On Wednesday a federal court ordered all employees working in the Bush White House to surrender media that might contain e-mails sent or received during a two and a half year period in hope of locating missing messages before President-elect Barack Obama takes over next week."
They are unable to find Iraqi WMDs either - maybe the emails have also long since been destroyed.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
For security purposes, it is a little known fact that Dick Cheney was a major proponent in getting the entire Executive Branch to adopt RCF 2549 methods of transport. Message deletion consisted of a little "hunting accident" on the family ranch.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
going to do with a 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 inch Penis?
There is no way in hell the emails disappeared without the act being intentional (and thus in violation of the law). George Bush needs to be held to account for this.
Prosecute an outgoing President?
I don't like Bush as a President at all. But the job of the President is to make tough decisions and along the way he will make lots of enemies. However, just because a person is my enemy, it does not mean that he made those difficult decisions with anything but his best intentions and the country's best interests at heart. So it would be petty and irresponsible for us "enemies" of the current President to pursue this type of vindictive hounding because 4 years from now those same tactics will be used against a President I support.
Respect the office.
A covenant without a sword is but words among men.
Good luck finding the agency with those emails. They've all been destroyed because there was specific Bush-related dirty laundry that couldn't ever be cleaned. These emails implicate so many people that they had to disappear.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Is that really so bad?
It's not like he got a blowjob or anything!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Between malice and incompetence, how much chance do they have of finding anything?
...it's sailing away!
Really people this is over.
I'm a serious lefty. I hate war criminals because I am Jewish. I marched in Manhattan against the war in Iraq the February before it started. It happened. The crimes have been committed. We blindly followed zealots and morons into domestic and foreign policies that have ruined our nation morally and economically.
My question is, what new things do you expect to learn? Is there any reason to read these emails? We know what they did and who is responsible. Maybe we don't have every gory detail. I doubt we need them. We could already try the major players.
But what punishment would be appropriate? The point of investigating these actions would have been to stop them and we did not do enough, as the American Citizenry, to stop them. WE EVEN RE-ELECTED the criminals.
We won't hang the offenders as is appropriate (Nuremberg anyone?), we won't hand them over to the victim nations. We didn't stop the crimes and as members of a democracy that makes us complicit.
Imagine a parent who gives their kid a case of beer and the keys to the car. The kid gets drunk and drives the car through the neighbor's house. What would the neighbor think if all the parents did was ground the kid for a few weeks?
Most of the world believes Bush is a war criminal, and that is not an overstatement. Bush claimed he had fun, while he was destroying the American economy, crippling any chance for true American peace, and while he was launching a lavish war against a CONCEPT, irrespective of Bush's theft of two elections.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - if it was to have an epic fail for freedom.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Because Obama will be sure to properly archive all of his emails...and SMS messages...
It's not the judge's prerogative to rule over the executive branch. The Constitution specifically grants Congress the authority to judge the President via impeachment, not the courts.
I read that Clinton and Bush both never used email while in office to avoid anything in the future to come back and haunt them ....This is a great example....Bama wants to keep his blackberry should be fun
This administration has been known for their easy relations and quick co-operation with the Department of Justice. I'm sure this request will be just as promptly answered, and always with courtesy!
All I have to say is good luck with that...
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Your people? __Your people__?
My people are humans. Humans are fucked up. Of course my people are doing wrong.
In Dafur.
In Isreal.
In Palestine.
At Guantanimo.
In Abu Grahib.
In the wilds of Uganda.
In the jungles of South America.
In China.
In Russia.
In Burma.
In Afghanistan.
Review IT architecture of (the late) Mike Connell for the GOP:
Read the links, Videos with Spoonamore, another GOP IT Guru.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F23%2F2128209
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJi7ViN35O8
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Foul_play_not_suspected_in_GOP_0113.html
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/
You telling me Systems people don't do backups?
Thought not.
~hylas
the reason why this needs to be investigated is for Justice. Justice is a simple promise that when someone breaks the law, and attempt will be made to punish them according to the rules laid down by society.
Because he is the president, it is all that much more important that a crime that he might have comitted be investigated and if needed, prosecuted. America was founded on the ideal that all men are equal, that there are no kings that are above the law, and the rules will be applied fairly.
One might suggest that dealing with a potential criminal in the highest office in a just fashion could be our greatest affirmation of that idea.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If its like the rest of his administration, he tried to delete it. Its still in the recycle bin, just undelete it.
Do they have to retain all spam messages too? If not, who determines what is spam and what isn't?
And he will probably never be held accountable for his unprecedented crimes, domestic and foreign. Nixon got away with his - and they were significant.
Meanwhile he just handed out little tiaras of encouragement - Medals of Freedom, an insult to every past and future recipient - to his two disgusting buddies in war crime: Johnny Howard of Australia and Tony Blair of the UK.
Meanwhile, the murder of innocents goes on, in the name of the US, using American made weapons, every day...
you had me at #!
The people have the right to sue the executive branch. The venue for such suit is naturally the courts. In that case, it is indeed the prerogative of a judge to resolve the suit according to law.
Impeachment is a different beast entirely, which could result in actual punishment instead of just forcing them to hand over their documents.
If you don't like the government, then open source it.
Really people this is over.
Not really. The only ship that is sailing is the executive pardon ship; there isn't a chance in hell Obama will pardon anyone from the Bush administration for the torture stuff, and when you're out of office, it makes it much harder for you to retaliate (or get anyone in the current administration to retaliate) for going after you criminally.
There was a long podcast on Fresh Air recently (I think this is the one) about how nobody in the Bush administration is traveling outside the US- no book deals, conferences, vacations, or speaking tours. It's uncharacteristic (look at Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Bush Sr., for example.) Basically, they're scared shitless of being arrested and extradited. The human rights violations (torture, for starters) are so heinous in international law that ANY COUNTRY that signed the various conventions can choose to prosecute- and any that does can use extradition treaties to get their hands on such a person. Worse still, they can press the US government to cooperate with the investigation; do you really think Obama will fight handing over evidence of human rights violations and war crimes? He's already pissing off people left and right with his inauguration choices and proposed appointments...
Now, suddenly, we also internally have no hold on the justice department (which will be working for Obama and a democrat-controlled congress) who could choose to investigate, mainly because it's much less embarrassing to take care of this in-house than not. It's practically a slam-dunk case; Cheney admitted on national TV that he reviewed (and thus authorized) the torture of gitmo prisoners.
Please help metamoderate.
And wink.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
What do you want....a body? He confessed - that's how this thing came to light...case closed.
I think that this whole business of constantly suing the President by the Congress for all of the records of his or her deliberations is a load of shit. It was wrong when Republicans did it to Bill Clinton and it is wrong for Democrats to do it to Bush and will be wrong when Republicans do it again to Obama.
The President is an independent branch of government from the Congress and the only essential things he could really do that cause his removal would be to attempt to engage in a power that belongs properly to the Congress.
This is my sig.
...if those missing emails get recovered, and wind up conclusively proving that Bush and Cheney did NOT lie about Iraq WMDs but instead were lied to intelligence and/or State Department minions who turn out to be Democrats?
Will it all get quietly dropped, or will the same zeal that was used to attack Bush/Cheney be used to attack the individuals responsible?
Impossible, you say? Consider the fact that the post-2006 Congress was none too eager to persue impeachment proceedings against Bush/Cheney, in spite of the loud drumbeats from the moveon.org minions. One would think they would have been delighted to do so if it were the open/shut case that some people claim.
Remember that The Law Of Unintended Consequences is always ready to pounce upon the unwary. Never assume that things will work out the way you think. Sometimes, things recoil the exact opposite way that you intend.
YES, those emails should be recovered if at all possible. They are important historical documents. Any and all significant facts in these emails should be added to the historical record and publicized -- no matter WHO it embarrasses.
And that includes the Democratic Party and other elements of the Left.
But then, you're a right-winger (judging by your posts here) so you would naturally be hypercritical of everything Obama does. You want to see Obama torn down before he's even sworn in. That's fine, but it's completely offtopic.
We're saying that we'd want to see Obama held accountable if he breaks the law. "Breaks the law" is not the same as "annoys right-wingers". He can annoy you all he wants, and that's fine.
They are not written by Congress, and the
Constitution says that Congress shall write the laws.
Since Congress did not write the signing statement,
the signing statement means absolutely nothing.
Signing statements are bullshit and an attempt to
con the public into letting a corrupt president
subvert the Constitution and the Rule of Law.
If you believe signing statements mean anything,
then you do not respect the Constitution and the
Rule of Law, and you are an idiot like bush.
It is only a matter of time and the Judiciary
to make my point clear to the public and to
the Executive branch.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Having some deniability was pretty handy too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
We don't know if bush did not get a blowjob.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
The problem then becomes what to do with the records to prevent deletion. You could have a branch of gov't that deals specifically with protecting the White House's data other than IT people. The problem is always going to be its for the Office of the President so 1) there's always going to be political interference in the decision making; 2) the data can be highly personal or classified; 3) the President is probably going to have a say or veto if in his/her best interests to get person of their choosing.
I'd hate to see e-mails go missing. Paper files are always better. But there's always going to be doubt in any system. People can used non-issued computers to communicate and paper can go missing easily with no proof it was ever written.
If 100,000 e-mails are missing, surely the date and time stamps + sender and receiver are pieces of information that should be kept on file in the archives. It would reveal some details about the discussion. Afterall, since they have a good idea of the precise number of e-mails missing, they should have logs to back up this evidence. If not, perhaps even more e-mails are missing.
life's complex. part real, part imaginary. - Phantom of the Opera's sig
Help stamp out iliturcy.
OK, I do believe in the imaginary :)
Still, I don't think these e-mail would reveal who allowed Israel to attack Gaza, very timely during the last weeks of Bush administration.
They couldn't have been that stupid.
.
...and clutching at straws. Fully agree with parent. This is the white house we are talking about. This is coming out of the US budget that can afford expensive military aricraft etc. and they can't afford the hardware and man power to stay on top of something like this? I don't think so. A quick look over our NAS shows files ten years old which would if I checked also exist on tape media in addition to disk. Oh and given the price of 500gb drives and NAS devices IT IS NOT EXPENSIVE TO KEEP LARGE AMOUNTS OF DATA AROUND. Case in point is the servers at work that store all the CCTV footage for a 1000+ employee department for a month. And we are talkikng cameras at all entrances and exits, to all building on all floors etc. the size of which would smash text based email communications. Again... your an idiot.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
"I'm sorry, your honor. We are completely incompetent." Who's NOT going to believe that after the last 8 years?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A bunch of these missing e-mails are in Greg Palast's last book, but apparently judges and congress have trouble reading it.
The only way this will change is if someone is held to account for it.
Dick Nixon was held accountable and all successive Presidents have learned from that lesson.
Maybe we can find out who killed JFK! Or who put thermate cutters in the WTC.
I'm not holding my breath though.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Personal attacks aside, the point is that 700 days of email server records dont just vanish.
Of course not, but as the Clinton administration proved, it is not punishable - "no controlling authority". The Obama administration which is already starting out with corruption will do the same. Status quo.
They started to impeach Dick Nixon over too many records kept and the only reason it didn't stick was that he resigned first.
In a few years we'll be talking about missing emails from Obama's White House. Nothing to see, move along.
When you have not had an honest President since Taft over a century ago, it is in NO ONE's best interest to have accurate records.
Hmmm, get busted for deleting email or treason?
Not a hard choice for Bushies.....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
...he'll find those missing emails in 24 hours.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For manslaughter, even though you didn't mean it.
Because his complete lack of intelligence has no bearing on what his staff can do, except to make it easy to hide it from him.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What about someone who pretends to be a surgeon. Goes into an operating theatre and someone dies.
Does he get away with it because he did the work to the best of his ability?
What if Osama Bin Laden got the presidency (through a sock puppet, of course). Would he be able to turn the US into a Muslim state, all correct and legal since he was unable to NOT do this due to his religious beliefs and so therefore, the removal of the US constitution for Fatah law WAS done "to the best of his ability"?
No.
What about someone signing up for a high power DoD job. He does his duty to the best of his ability. However, he's a devout believer in communism and he's a spy.
Is that OK because he *did* do his duty to the best of his ability?
Stop living up to your nickname.
Dumbass.
And being a Citizen of the United States, is under the Jurisdiction of United States Law.
Therefore, the United States Attorneys, IF they had a shred of Honor and Integrity would bring the clear evidence that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell el al violated ( at least ) both 18 USC 371 and 18 USC 1001 to a Grand Jury for possible Indictment.
Now, while there's the ADDITIONAL impeachment process in Congress, it's silly to pretend that any of these US Citizens have super-powers keeping them immune from US Law.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Don't worry Mike will fly them down to the Judge,
Uhh.. Ooops.
I think that this whole business of constantly suing the President by the Congress for all of the records of his or her deliberations is a load of shit. It was wrong when Republicans did it to Bill Clinton and it is wrong for Democrats to do it to Bush and will be wrong when Republicans do it again to Obama.
It is pretty well known that Bush deliberately used computers and accounts he should not have been using for government business.
Perhaps if he played by the rules, then this would not be necessary.
The people allegedly hired the president, we have a right to check his work.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'll see your "Contempt of Court" and raise you "Separation of Powers".
And I'm sure in the final days of a lame duck administration where everyone is trying to transition things to the next administration and a lot of people this was applicable to have moved on...I'm sure they have plenty of time in the remaining 6 or so days (1 being a holiday) to do this.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The people allegedly hired the president, we have a right to check his work.
You have a right to check his work but have no right to how he does it. You have no right to his personal thoughts or associations. He is an employee, not a slave.
You have the result, and if you like it, you can re-elect him to one term, and if you don't, then you don't. That's all you get because it is all you need.
This is my sig.
Are your real IT people anything like a true, sorry REAL, scotsman?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
It was with considerable amazement that I heard the news that Bush had actually protected a natural area -- one with oil, no less! The mystery of why Bush set aside so much area around the Mariana Trench and other Pacific natural areas is now solved.
A secret mission is now under way with a navy vessel to drop Chency's Man-Sized Safes, the backup tapes with emails, and lots of other incriminating evidence into the trench. What safer place to bury the bodies?
Message deletion consisted of a little "hunting accident" on the family ranch.
Meh. Pigeons or Planes, no difference...
http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/36482529.html
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
According to the DOJ http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm, "a presidential pardon ... is granted in recognition of the applicant's acceptance of responsibility for the crime".
President Gerald Ford granted "a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States." (http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/740060.htm) which means that Nixon had to accept responsibility for his crime(s).
Impeachment proceedings (i.e. prosection) were started but various deal-making (including resigning the Presidency) delayed completion long enough for him to get pardoned for his crimes before any impeachment or prosection could complete.
When the criminal pleads out before the jury hands down a conviction it does not make the criminal not-guilty.
The DOJ's instructions for receiving a pardon may not be part of "a basic understanding", but its not very polite to insult someone when accusing them of a lapse you're busy committing yourself.
Holy crap, dude, you've got it completely backwards. If the president that you currently support pulls the same shit as Bush, you should be happy if he gets hounded.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I think it's a highly erroneous policy stance to say that once someone is removed from office, we should let slide their misdeeds. If Bush committed felonies - or warcrimes - while in office, or anyone in the administration did, then they should like everyone else be judged in a court of law by a jury of their peers.
Note that for Clinton, we didn't move on. We dragged an ultimately silly sexual interaction out for years - and he still gets crap about it. We like to pretend, though, that Bush didn't authorize illegal wiretaps, didn't authorize torture, didn't authorize a war and cover it with false evidence. Frankly, I think people are too afraid to face the fact we, as a nation, aren't perfect. But we all need to get over that, and deal out justice where justice is due.
[Ego]out
Quite honestly, if the law cannot be made to serve against literally any citizen that breaks it, then we are all diminished in our freedoms. Even if he made decisions with the best of intentions, if he chose to break the law, he should be held accountable.
If the right thing to do was break the law - that is what appeal is for, so that we can examine the law and decide if it is just. But to avoid the judicial process entirely - regardless of it's length or apparent vindictiveness - is to remove a primary protection that each of us, as citizens, count up to sustain our freedoms.
It is neither petty nor irresponsible. It is quite the opposite; it is the only way we have to shed light on the truth, be that what it may. In what other manner are we to operate this democracy? Or are some truly more equal than others?
[Ego]out
Should not be too hard to walk across the street from the courthouse and get copies of all of the e-mails ever sent anywhere...
This is a lie. The republicans held 51 seats of the senate from 2002-2004 and gained even more in 2004-2006.
Actually, not. Before you go and start calling people liars, you should learn how to read. You show a chart for the election in 2002, which was held in November. The Iraqi war vote took place BEFORE that election. Here, check this out..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Majority_Leader
And explain to me, how Tom Daschle, a Democrat, is Senate MAJORITY leader, up until 2003? Just thought I'd throw that out there.
The Iraqi War Resolution was passed in October 2002. Democrats were desperate to retain the Senate, so they voted for the war really for politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
As I've said. The facts are there. One month before an election where the Democrats were in trouble, (they would ultimately lose), they voted to hand George Bush JR a blank check to invade Iraq. Senior Democrat Robert Byrd said, on the floor of the Senate, these three things:
a) there was not sufficient evidence that Iraq was building WMD
b) they were voting on a defacto declaration of war.
and finally
c) this was a gulf of tonkin resolution, which only reaffirms the idea of trumped up charges leading to a us intervention.
Therefor, if one of the more respected leaders (earmarks aside) of the Democratic Senate thought the war was a crock, and lead a charge of some against it, then, obviously, Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and others were rolling the political dice when they voted for it, and THEY KNEW IT.
So all this talk about the war being a lie cooked up by Bush and the Democrats were just goaded into it and were victims, is a lie. Bush may have pushed for war for oil, but Democrats did it just so they could pick up some votes in an election they would lose anyway, and then, to evade any moral responsibility with their own base, they went and cooked up the "lie" story, and idiots on the left just believed it.
This is my sig.
They were warned and STILL continued making mistakes. The lost data wasn't quickly recovered but was stalled so they had time to accidentally overwrite it a dozen times. Not to mention the run around they'd give if somebody forced them to hand over the drives... they'd give the wrong ones etc.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. If they didn't know it is no defense; especially when they were made aware of it.
"Mistakes" still gets normal people in trouble-- just imagine how much better the MOB would have done if they could have taken victims for hunting accidents.
The Executive branch is the enforcer of the law; although, its gone way out of bounds since the founding. Its their JOB to enforce the law (which include implementation.)
Are American's so incompetent that they excuse other people's incompetence out of self pity? Golden Rule??
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I'm no fan of GWB, but give him credit: the Free Speech Zone policy did not originate with Bush.
Remember the Battle of Seattle? Who's watch was that on? And that wasn't the start of it.
GWB certainly made use of the FSZ policy and did not reverse the trend, but it's more that many on the left only *noticed* the accelerating trend toward limiting public protest after they no longer had the glare off Bill Clinton's saxophone to blind them.
Here's hoping Obama doesn't get a free pass to do the same stuff just by flashing his grin and speaking in complete sentences. Sadly, I'm not very hopeful.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
All I know about these WORM tapes and T1000 backup stuff is that the backups work best if you don't first delete all the emails to be backed up.
You have the result, and if you like it, you can re-elect him to one term, and if you don't, then you don't.
If only it worked that way.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"