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."

Comments

Finding Stuff

[KingAlanI]

They are unable to find Iraqi WMDs either - maybe the emails have also long since been destroyed.

Re:Finding Stuff

[The Master Control P]

Come on in, folks! Come on in, it's the epic Battle of the Stupids. Which is stupider? Come and see!

In this corner, moonbats claiming that Trig isn't actually Palin's son.

And in this corner, wingnuts who claim Obama hasn't released his birth certificate despite the Hawaiian government having released it.

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

Re:Finding Stuff

[MrNaz]

Sweet!, I've been waiting for UFC's answer to the Special Olympics!

Good Luck!

[chill]

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.

What the hell is a federal court...

[bagboy]

going to do with a 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 inch Penis?

Re:What the hell is a federal court...

[chill]

That gives the phrase "judicial probe" a whole new meaning!

Re:What the hell is a federal court...

[PhreakOfTime]

Fuck Alpha Centauri?

Re:What the hell is a federal court...

[Sebilrazen]

Hey, maybe there's something to this. Imagine a transportation system requiring only a vast amount of viagra and willing men.

People of the future may actually travel the universe by shimmying up someone's penis.

Why not, it works for the social ladder. Paris, get down from there!!!

Contempt of Court

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Contempt of Court

[jlarocco]

Important data is deleted by accident all the time. In other words, "real" IT people get it wrong all the time. You're expecting government IT people to get it right? Let's just say government employees aren't typically known for their competence.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Bush and the gang, but either possibility (purposely deleted or accident) seems equally likely to me.

Re:Contempt of Court

[1u3hr]

, but either possibility (purposely deleted or accident) seems equally likely to me.

700 days' worth of email are missing. I think you'd have to work pretty hard to "accidentally lose" that. You might neglect a backup or two. To do it for two years ... well, Bush can just isue himself and his staff pardons to cover it.

Re:Contempt of Court

[PhreakOfTime]

It is?

Maybe in your company it is, but believe it or not, there are places where that just isnt true!

For example, for me and my domain of users, an important file may be deleted by accident by someone. But that is why we have backups where the oldest file is no more than 12 hours old.

To try and claim that this much EMAIL went missing, when it is so trivial to accomplish that even a govt employee could do it with their eyes closed, is a bit too much slack to give.

"Real" IT people DONT get it wrong all the time. In fact "Real" IT people dont get it wrong at all.

I feel sorry for you if your environment has led you to believe that level of competence is normal. I wish you the best of luck in your quest to find a place to work at that shatters your surroundings of incompetence

Re:Contempt of Court

[Nimey]

Yeah, how the fuck does that Madoff thing work? Is he getting a pass because of the sheer enormity of what he did?

Re:Contempt of Court

[Lord Kano]

Of course, you convienently forget the emails that disappeared on the Clinton/Gore watch...

LK

Re:Contempt of Court

[carlzum]

I would argue it takes more effort to wipe out all traces of email and files than find a backup. I call shenanigans if the White House claims any email was "lost" and can't be recovered.

Re:Contempt of Court

[innocent_white_lamb]

Madoff hasn't been found guilty yet. Why should a "presumed innocent" person be in jail, whether he is Madoff, or you, or me?

Re:Contempt of Court

[PhreakOfTime]

Like I said, Im sorry that you also are in an environment where you think this is normal.

Personal attacks aside, the point is that 700 days of email server records dont just vanish. If your job is to make backups and ensure data integrity, then that is your job. Period. Its quite easily doable, and there are options available other than 'tapes'. It all depends on your personal cost/benefit profile.

If you arent willing to do what it takes to ensure your data integrity, then it isnt very important data. It is not wise to apply your life experiences to the rest of the world. What you are describing sounds like some backwards office in a strip mall. Im just guessing here, but I would think the requirements for U.S government duties when it comes to backing up and insuring integrity of data are spelled out pretty clearly in a law somewhere. I wont quote Title/Section for you, as Im sure you can look it up yourself if you so desire.

I liked this line the best;
"A lot of times, this doesn't go back further then 6 months because it is expensive to keep large volumes of unneeded data sitting around"
Unneeded data? Your choice of words betrays your mindset, as it applies to your understanding of the subject at hand.

Re:Contempt of Court

[JackieBrown]

Or the fact that people seem to think that Bush is the dumbest guy there is yet able to circumvent whatever backup and security precautions are in place.

I never no which Bush people are talking about -the evil mastermind or the bumbling idiot.

Bush is gone soon. Quit bitching and move on like we have done for Clinton and Carter and the rest

Re:Contempt of Court

[mOdQuArK!]

At certain levels of decision-importance, it is no longer sufficient to use incompetence as an excuse to escape punishment.

If you allow people who are involved with such matters to use incompetence to escape punishment, then they can easily use the facade of incompetence to cover both honest mistakes and malicious activities, plus there is no incentive for them to try and improve their competence.

Once the decision-making power reaches a certain level of importance, then if you want your leadership to behave in a competent manner, then you MUST punish them for screwing up, regardless of whether they made a mistake or whether they were deliberately misbehaving.

Re:Contempt of Court

[sumdumass]

I really don't care about your anecdotal evidence. I'm talking about the industry standards here and the practical limitations to any magnetic media.

The problem isn't that you found two bits of information that you could use, it is that archiving and storing the information isn't as easy as the parent pretends it is. There will be lost information and the potential for it is there. You cannot just say Guess what I dove my car on the wrong side of the road the other day, everyone should be able to do it when everyone knows that there can be problems with driving your car on the wrong side of the road.

I really do not care if you are trying to find an excuse for your hero's behaviour. Surely you can find another that makes a little more sense.

I don't need to find an excuse for anyone. Funny though how you actually think this is about protecting the administration instead of the practice pitfalls of long term data storage. Can I assume that your entire comment was politically motivated and should be regarded with as little respect as that would deserve?

Re:Contempt of Court

[ericspinder]

Why would he need to? There are no penalties over the deleted files.

From the Presidential Records Act

Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.

John Dean had it right when he called it 'Worse than Watergate'.

Re:Contempt of Court

[witherstaff]

If it was a server glitch, HD crash, incompetent admins, normal IT problem then sure I could easily understand. Giving 88 white house people separate email accounts, non .gov domain names, and going through the RNC computers instead of the normal white house computers is just too fishy. Read the summary of findings found by oversight committees and you won't help but see it wasn't an IT fault it was a deliberate skirting of the laws. This is as bad as Cheney making the claim that the office of the VP isn't part of the executive branch so he doesn't need to give records to the national archives.

Re:Contempt of Court

[sgtrock]

This environment is called the IT industry. One that you obviously don't participate in much. Shit goes wrong all the time. People who know better get complacent and don't do what they are supposed to. This all adds up and you cannot say that it has never happened in your company unless it is 2 months old of something. Give it 8 years or more and you will sing another tune.

Excuse me? If this is really what the IT industry is like, then I must be imagining all of the data retention laws that require my company to retain all electronic records for all of our registered traders (stock brokers and the like) for up to 7 years. Not just email, either. We also have to retain copies of all texts as well.

I must also be imagining the $12 million fine that we were slapped with 5 or 6 years ago when just one case of WORM media got accidentally destroyed by our external records storage vendor that unfortunately contained emails related to a civil suit that a former employee got us embroiled in. The Justice Department, the OCC, and the SEC have no sense of humor about this stuff. (Before you ask, yes, it was a real accident. Settling the suit itself cost us less than $1 million. You think we wanted to put ourselves in a position to risk that kind of fallout over such a small legal issue?)

BTW, you ever heard of Sarbanes-Oxley? Have you ever tried to tap dance your way out of an audit by claiming that you just "lost" some files that were more than a few months old?

I'll go further and assert that not even the most incompetent Federal organization is so bad that they accidentally lose that much email. This is about the most routine IT task imaginable. Solutions for automated, multi-level backups of email have been around for literally decades. There is simply no conceivable reason to assume that the Feds haven't implemented such solutions at every level and in every branch. The fact that you regard this as SOP simply highlights just how little you really know about what IT means in the context of large corporations and governments.

Re:Contempt of Court

[Random BedHead Ed]

700 days' worth of email are missing. I think you'd have to work pretty hard to "accidentally lose" that. You might neglect a backup or two. To do it for two years ... well, Bush can just isue himself and his staff pardons to cover it.

Indeed, you've hit upon the core point of the matter. This was either (a) an accident, or (b) a deliberate subversion of law in an attempt to avoid the public finding out what people in the executive branch (you know, our employees?) were doing. Both of these possibilities are extremely bad.

The latter possibility should have had people on both sides of the aisle calling for an independent investigation. But even if it were "merely" an accident, where was the high-level firing of IT personnel? In my company if two years' worth of e-mails were lost, a few IT people would be out the door in a heartbeat. Who got fired from the White House IT staff as a result of what most people would consider a serious calamity?

Cut GW some slack

[EmbeddedJanitor]

So they trumped up bogus evidence to started a bogus war that killed many thousand people and put a severe economic drain on the country.

Is that really so bad?

It's not like he got a blowjob or anything!

Re:Cut GW some slack

[AK Marc]

But what about the claim that he was tied to terrorism? The only "tie" they found was that al Qaeda contacted him, asked to train in his country, and Saddam turned them down. Yes, he spoke with them, that was the "tie" to terrorism. He refused to let them in. As for the WMDs, there were lies about yellow cake. Bush stated things in public after his administration was told that information was incorrect. Either false information propogates instantly and corrections take until the media notices, or they knew and lied. No usable WMDs were ever found. They weren't there. He may have had some facilities, but the only WMDs he had were essentially provided by the US and he was never really able to manufacture them effectively on his own. Not that he didn't want to. And yes, Saddam lied to indicate that he did have them. His people probably believed he had them. If he didn't have the appearance of having them, there was the real possibility of invasion or revolt. So Saddam was lying in saying that he had them. But, of course, no inspection ever revealed them and none were found.

Re:Cut GW some slack

[maladroit]

Where's the 'delusional' mod when you need it?

How about this lie? : http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/16/Armey_Cheney_misled_me_on_Iraq/UPI-53871221586641/

Re:Cut GW some slack

[yndrd1984]

I believe that since it has unique human DNA, it should not be killed

I find this moral stance quite odd - it would suggest that the deliberate destruction of the only surviving tissue sample of a deceased person should be treated as a murder.

Re:And then what?

[chill]

Don't you mean "respect the law"?

I have no idea if they could even remotely find evidence that President Bush was directly responsible for the intentional destruction of evidence, but I seriously doubt it. But the law trumps the office. That is one reason we have a PRESIDENT, not KING.

Re:And then what?

[Jafafa Hots]

"When the President does it, that mean's it's not illegal" - Richard M. Nixon

Re:And then what?

[TubeSteak]

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.

A) You seem to be lumping partisans who hate Bush alongside citizens who believe that public officials should follow the law.
B) If Obama pulls the same bullshit I sure as hell hope that he gets endlessly hounded for it.

Respect the office.

The office means jack shit if the President doesn't respect the law and the constitution.

Oh hey, look, in the distance, that ship...

[gorehog]

...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?

Re:Oh hey, look, in the distance, that ship...

[Mashhaster]

It's important for us to know every gory detail, if only for historical posterity; not that we're likely to be able to recover any of these emails at this point. After all, they likely contained incriminating evidence, and were destroyed for that reason. However, I still feel it's important for historical accuracy, and as a warning to all future presidents, that every last piece of dirty laundry of this administration be made public, and finally when that's all said and done, and the office of the presidency is muddy, bloody and dishonored, then we prosecute the criminals for their willful disregard of the rule of law, to the full extent of the law. If we do not take these steps, we are inviting future chief executives to do exactly the same thing as BushCo did. Not to mention the million innocent Iraqi souls who would still be alive if not for the pointless war we've waged over there; they deserve justice, as much as BushCo deserves to be brought to it.

Re:And then what?

[ucblockhead]

As someone who voted for Obama, I sure hope to hell if he does a tenth of the illegal crap Bush seems to have, he is vindictively hounded out of office a lot sooner than 4 years from now.

Right...

[zwekiel]

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...

Your people?

[Phantom of the Opera]

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.

Re:And then what?

[EsJay]

You fail

Fight or Flight

[not_hylas( )]

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.

Re:And then what?

[Tassach]

To paraphrase Dick Cheney [washingtonpost.com], if the president has the power to unilaterally launch a nuclear strike and wipe out the human race, he has the power to have water poured in someone's face.

FAIL. The Constitution explicitly names the President as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces (Article 2, section 2). As commander-in-chief, he can order the use of any weapon in the arsenal against any enemy that Congress has authorized him to attack. This is a legitimate, explicitly enumerated power granted to the president by the president.

The use of cruel and unusual punishment is EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN by the Constitution. As it is an amendment, it supercedes anything in the main body of the Constitution that might be interpreted as giving the President this power.

Constitutional authority aside there is a simpler answer to this: we are the good guys. We don't do that.

Re:And then what?

[sumdumass]

You do realize that Nixon was never impeached nor convicted of anything right?

How can you expect anything you say to be taken seriously when you don't even have basic history right? It isn't like Nixon was another no eventful minor era in the history of the united states. You should at least have a basic understanding of it if your going to open your mouth on it.

Perfect Defense

[Greyfox]

"I'm sorry, your honor. We are completely incompetent." Who's NOT going to believe that after the last 8 years?

Dick Nixon showed the way

[SL Baur]

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.