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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."
It's not just Republicans using insecure communications? Politicians don't consider or understand IT security? Go fig...
Closet Republicans are funny.
So, someone presents a rational argument, and it's mocked because they're defending Palin? Nice. Maybe you think his facts are BS. That's fair. Attack his facts, provide a reputable source of evidence that things are not as he claims they are.
If things are as he says they are (and I have no idea if that's the case), his statement is very reasonable. If you refuse to counter his statement with fact, then you're just spouting partisan drivel.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
>>>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
>>>
So things have improved.
When the Bush staff walked-in 8 years ago, they had phones that were glued "shut", computer keyboards with keys missing, users forced to stare at walls covered with offensive language, and messages etched into wooden desks and cabinets with knives. $17,000 dollars of damage.
The Clinton IT staff didn't just drop the ball - they left behind vandalism and chaos. Obama had it much easier, thanks to a cooperative president.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Bush's people were VERY busy making sure nothing that wasn't supposed to be there would be hanging around for the Obama people to come across.
I bet Cheney himself had a staff of twelve running shredders continuously for the last week...
But there's always something that gets missed. If even a quarter of the rumors and accusations that have flooded around over the last few years are true, I'm sure a few skeletons will be discovered in the darker closets of the white house in the next 4-10 months.
I find the very act of spending your last minutes anywhere trying to do a thorough job of "burying the evidence" etc to be a cowardly, shameless act. For the office of the presidency, it takes it to an all new low. I would personally like to see some new legislation put in place that would put some teeth into the Presidential Records Act that would make such "last minute cleanup" in the white house unarguably illegal.
The office of the President of the United States should be 100% transparent. That person is our representative to the world, and there is simply no excuse for this behavior.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
That chart is worthless, look at the list of items it is said he accomplished. What he has signed have huge loop holes are just signing what President Bush already put into effect.
For instance sets look at lobbyists a very simple thing, and we will ignore that he has no plans of making these changes law just an executive order he have change at anytime.
On the same day he signed the lobbyist order he sent William J. Lynn for confirmation. Mr Lynn has been appointed to directly manage and award contracts for people and projects he lobbied for less then 6 months ago. Must be a change in the definition of lobbyist. He is not the only person Obama has appointed who lobbied to Congress less then 1 year ago, but those are easy to pass off since they were not registered lobbyists. BTW, all the time leading up to his swearing in he kept saying that he was going to ban lobbyists all the way; "No lobbyists in my White House!" In addition he use to say that he would place limits on people who had family members as registered lobbyists, looks like his word on that is gone.
Ignore that he is not going to push to make them law, it has no bearing in the previous message. However to bring it up the executive order is a good start but having no plans to give the orders the backing of federal law points that the signing was to fool his followers only. It is like his stance on Gitmo, it is very bad and should not exist but as President I will keep them around for year and hold meetings about them.
If you were not blind to the truth you would know that his intention to ignore his own executive orders was demonstrated on the same day when he sent a person who would not of qualified under his executive orders and would of not qualified under current law if President Obama had not signed a waiver to the law.
I guess one other change we get under Obama is that telling the truth is now hate.
The interesting thing about this story is people's reaction. A lot of comments about Sarah Palin's use of Yahoo email - "Anonymous" Hacks Palin's Private Email were pretty critical. A lot of comments about this story offer up excuses.