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Obama Staffers Followed Palin's Email Lead On Inauguration Day
theodp writes "Using Yahoo's free e-mail service to conduct government business was good enough for Sarah Palin. And now the Washington Times reports that Obama staffers turned to Gmail on Inauguration Day to conduct their business. Those wishing to contact members of the incoming Obama administration were instructed to contact staffers at wh.LASTNAME@gmail.com until official White House e-mail addresses became available."
I know this is /. and I know people can't be bothered to read...
However, if you'd been following the story, you'd know the White House IT people dropped the ball. When the Obama staff walked in at 12:01 to take over, they had phones that didn't work, computers that didn't work, users couldn't log in, and the e-mail servers, for which the White House is infamously known, seemed to be down.
What bothers me is that, knowing this was coming, they didn't have everything tested and ready to go at the throw of a switch (or literally, the click of a mouse). I'm not even going to get into the whole, the staff isn't familiar with the Windows platform and wants Apple issue, because that was covered extensively a few days ago, except to say, it's not as if they haven't had since November to plan for this transition...
Will those emails then be transfered to the official email server?
Most likely, yes. FTFA:
In addition, Cherlin noted that any e-mail sent to the Gmail accounts "could be forwarded to White House accounts and subject to the Presidential Records Act."
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When this was started it was noted in official White House policy that these email accounts will be archived with the rest of the official White House email. The issue with the previous administration was that they were using RNC accounts precisely because they wouldn't be archived and therefore can remain hidden from the press and future historians trying to delve into what made the Bush White House tick.
It's the archiving that is the problem, not the private mail service.
IT staff at the White House are actually career staff (not political appointees) at the Executive Office of the President. Their infrastructure is run mostly by contractors with five-year contracts assigned by the previous administration. (You can find vacancies there on http://www.usajobs.com/ if you search "Executive Office of the President.") To get an email address there, you have to actually be employed at EOP (White House is a part of EOP) and fill out the requisite paperwork. Using non-government emails for official government business a violation of the Presidential Records Act. It's been illegal for quite some time, and Obama criticized Bush for doing it. There's also nothing to prevent me from using wh.whatever@gmail.com and sending fake orders out.
The issue was never security. Dude, it's unencrypted e-mail, there's no such thing.
The issue was an attempt to dodge records retention laws that allow "we the people" to keep an eye on what our employees - public officials - are doing.
Since 1) the official e-mail accounts are not yet available, 2) it seems to be only for a few hours, and 3) in TFA, an Obama staffer notes that "could be forwarded to White House accounts and subject to the Presidential Records Act," these concerns don't seem to apply. (Though I wonder WTF these folks couldn't either be provided with the new e-mail addresses earlier, or hold the transition accounts a little longer.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Welcome to the government. Each needs to go through CAC setup. That's an "in person, get your photo taken and wait for the card to print, oh, whoops, this one didn't laminate right, let's retake..." type of process. Email and network access is non-existent before CAC access. Or, likely something similar. Every agency's a little different.
You can always track his campaign promises. As of right now, 7 are kept, 1 stalled, 14 in the works, and no status on 488. Not a bad start after 3 days.
I donno, seems like the real story is how backwards the whitehouse is technologically. A few quotes from the Washington Post story:
"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.
And:
The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.
And finally...
Another White House official whose transition cellphone was disconnected left a message temporarily referring callers to his wife's phone.
Several people tried to route their e-mails through personal accounts.
But there were no missing letters from the computer keyboards, as Bush officials had complained of during their transition in 2001.
And officials in the press office were prepared: In addition to having their own cellphones, they set up Gmail accounts, with approval from the White House counsel, so they could send information in more than one way.
This doesn't seem to have much to do with trying to circumvent any sort of records keeping, but rather a way to function for a few days while a #&$%@# up system is worked out.
Though I admit, I would be more suspicious of the last president doing this then the current one, but I suspect with the last guy we wouldn't have heard about for 3 years until a whistle blower leaked it.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
The Bush staff had government accounts and chose to use RNC ones specifically to avoid oversight. And they did it for YEARS
did you skip this line when reading my post?
As a Republican I was just as upset about the Bush administration trying to hide official communications behind RNC email addresses, as the rest of the people on this site.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde