Slashdot Mirror
Labor Dept. Wanted $1M For E-mail Addresses of Political Appointees
Virtucon writes with this snippet from an Associated Press story as carried by TwinCities.com: "'The AP asked for the addresses following last year's disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate email accounts at work. The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged—but often happens anyway—due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved.
The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses.' The reason for the $1 million dollar request was to do research including going to backup tapes. Some of the information has been turned over to AP but it still seems that the government just can't get their hands on e-mail addresses for their own people."
We need to cap, or eliminatee, fees charged to citizens seeking information from the government. Hell, they already paid for the information's creation via taxes anyway.
I'm shocked that top government officials are using secret government email addresses. We should insist that they turn over every email address so that they all have to waste hours each day deleting spam and irrelevant stuff like the rest of us!
The problem with Hanlon's razor is no one ever seems to believe it when it goes up against their conspiracy theories. It's such a helpful rule for separating conspiracy theories from reasonable assertions. Maybe Hanlon was a member of the Illuminati, or something.
Setting aside the ridiculous $1M issue, the accounts are called secret, but aren't they simply PRIVATE? That is, they aren't publicly distributed and shared widely, but they aren't "secret" since multiple parties obviously know that they exist. Even my low-budget church has a "Minister@.com" address for the public and a private @.com.
And the IRS was not politically targeting conservative groups.
Funny how people are so quick to admit they are idiots when they are caught doing something they shouldn't be doing.
Nobody's buying it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I disagree.
The only reason I can think of to have a secret email address is to try to skirt any paper trail and FOIA requests.
If people are conducting their official business in secret email accounts, it's hard NOT to think the sole motivation is to fly under the radar. If at the end you provide the 'official' account (which has nothing interesting in it), you can claim nothing happened.
These people already *had* official accounts, why would they need a second, undocumented email address? This stinks of having the official account to do mundane things, and the secret account to do all of the other stuff.
In this case, I'm going to assume malice -- since it actually had the effect of people inadequately responding to FOIA requests, because all of the good stuff was buried in a second account nobody knew about.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Ditto. It is malice to obfuscate the email system.
But, more important, these email addresses aren't really 'secret'. They were presumably used, so those who needed/wanted to use them knew them. This is just an undisclosed system. FOIA requires disclosure. The cost of uncovering a surreptitious system should not be borne by the requester.
And truly, if the agency is claiming they cannot determine the addresses of their email system(s), be they acknowledged or surreptitious, perhaps they need to hire in some contractors to fix that for them. Like the FBI. It is illegal, you know.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"According to law, any email older than 6 months on a server (example yahoo or google mail) is considered abandoned and available to investigative groups and agencies without warrant."
So you're saying all of the subfolders for my email account is full of abandoned messages even though it's an actively used account? Are you sure you don't mean email account?
The first one.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
President Obama said he was committed to being the most transparent Administration in history. It seems to be coming true, but not in the way votes expected. But it is true, the administration is becoming increasing transparent.
The EPA’s Secret Email Accounts
Most Transparent Administration Evah is Riddled with Secret Email Addresses
More secret email accounts for Obama’s EPA chief?
So, this can be added to the growing list of administration scandals fighting for public attention: Benghazi, IRS suppression of conservative political groups, IRS suppression of orthodox religious groups, IRS suppression of adoption, IRS seizure of health records, exploding costs for healthcare reform, ....
I guess it must be morning wherever the press has been on vacation the last couple of years.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Except laws already say that all of this stuff needs to be recorded.
There is no private here. If you're doing Official Government Business, you have to comply with the law. The law says that any and all communications you do are covered under a FOIA request.
Setting up a second email account for the same person bypasses the whole process, and then you get a case like this where they have no idea if they've complied with the request or not, because nobody knew about the email account.
And if you hide half of the context, how would anybody ever take then in context??
Sorry, but I don't see any situation in which this is beneficial to anybody except for a bunch of political appointees trying to cover their asses, or possibly cover up questionable actions.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Fascist.
Couldn't they just ask Bradley Manning to get them for him? Oh wait...
One of the primary reasons this sort of shit continues is idiots like you who think there is any difference at all between republicans and democrats. You've been had my friend.
No. You're wrong. Actually, you're assumption is wrong.
They set up second e-mail addresses because as public figures, their well-known e-mail addresses are flooded with crap from everyone and their dog who thinks it is neat to directly e-mail a Presidential appointee. They work for the PEOPLE, don't you know. The second address is used to do actual work, not bypass any process.
Those second addresses are fully subject to FOIA and it was not suggested in the article that they were "secret" -- just "non-disclosed".
If you read the article the costs -- not allowable and quickly rescinded -- we do have people dig thru a couple of years of backup tapes to make sure everything from former employees was also captured.
Take a deep breath and calm down. There is plenty of questionable crap going on in government, so there is no need to make up more.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Oh boy, it would help if I read tfs, eh?
I'll go hide over here....
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
No, it's because Slashdot leans far to the left in comparison with the country as a whole. Our system (what's left of it) of accountability, fairness, oversight, and rule of law is being systematically dismantled. The NYTimes is ignoring it, people on the left are justifying it, and frankly it scares the hell out of me. And if you had any ability to look objectively at the situation, you'd feel the same.
And here we are.
Its legal because I am a lib and I hate Sarah!
Good argument.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Apple and Oranges. Sarah Palin and staff were using non-State issued e-mail addresses to avoid record retention laws.
The article here talks about STATE-issued e-mail addresses to avoid spam and frivolous e-mail filling up their inbox. No public e-mail addresses were issued, and FOIA requests for e-mail included messages from the multiple addresses.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
If you're doing Official Government Business, you have to comply with the law.
Only if there are personal consequences for failing to do so.
Otherwise, compliance is optional.
Left? the US doesn't have a left. it has a right and far right.
It could be reasonably argued that government officials hava a legitimate need for both publicly-facing published email addresses and private, unpublished email addresses for inter-governmental communication. Presumably the former would be handled by their staffs for public communication and the latter used for professional communications between government officials.
If that were the issue, there would be no scandal here, merely a difference of opinion between what is good practice. What makes this a scandal is not that the email addresses themselves were secret, but that 1). The practice of maintaining secret email accounts was itself secret 2.) With one single exception the agencies exempted the contents of the secret email accounts from FOI searches. 3) In violation of its own policy agencies sought to charge the AP fee, and quite a hight one.
So this looks like a widespread attempt by government officials to avoid transparency and accountability, not a pragmatic attempt to manage their inboxes efficiently.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
From the article, a government employee named "Lisa Jackson" set up a separate ID with the alias "Richard Windsor" who people assumed was a unique individual.
I think that dismantles your argument about having one public facing e-mail address for crap and a private one for work. You're not going to get much work done if everyone in the organization is using different names for different things.
Thanks for reinforcing my point.
I think you have this wrong. There are already ways for government officials that actually need it to get confidential information and candid opinions. This is something different. The point of transparency is to provide information on current government operations so that the public can provide feedback to the government, and so that voters can hold the government accountable. The benefit to historians is ancillary. There is no way now to provide feedback to the JFK and LBJ administrations, they are long gone. There is no way to improve their effectiveness. All that is left is the history. Voters need to be able to act every 1-4 years, depending on the office. The actions at EPA and other agencies clearly undermines providing that information and subverts accountability. Part of the reason this is occurring is that many people currently in government aren't separating there personal views from their government job and are illegitimately using their government position to engage in activism. That at least partially explains why the IRS is now involved in so many scandals for suppressing conservative political groups, conservative religious groups, Jewish groups, pro-life groups, and even adoptive parents. That also explains why they want to hide their tracks.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Your point seems to be that you are the only 'objective' one here and your 'enemies' are biased. The very fact that you think that can be reinforced by others who have no facts, only biases, proves you are wrong. If all the people who disagree with you are offering only unsupported or biased opinions, you should not change your fact based opinion in the slightest. If hsmith ()or me for that matter) has no objective facts, then he has given you no new data to either reinforce or moderate your conclusion. So, was your position reinforced by a non-fact, or are you ignoring a fact that disproves it - which is it?
Who is John Cabal?
Only if the demarcation between 'left' and 'right' is 'prohibiting/allowing ownership of property'. Because 'state ownership of land' is about the only plank the European left cares about that the American left doesn't.
The left in America believes in abortion rights, gay marriage, social and racial justice, legalizing drugs, social safety nets, taxing the rich, limiting corporate power, restricting corporate executive pay, and many other of the planks in the international leftist movement.
Several members in our Congress are hard core leftists based on those criteria. Just because the US also has an actual right wing, doesn't mean its left wing is missing. This turkey may not fly, but it does have the equipment needed, if only it knew how to utilize it properly.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Those second addresses are fully subject to FOIA and it was not suggested in the article that they were "secret" -- just "non-disclosed".
Can you explain the difference between secret and non-disclosed, when the definition of secret is essentially to not disclose something? Can you explain how, in this case, the supposed non-disclosed email address are subject to FOIA? The problem here is not the usage of said addresses, but instead their usage (whether intentional, or incidental) to evade FOIA requests.
My mistake. I thought this discussion was specifically about the DOJ stupidly requesting $1+ million from AP for FOIA requests and "private" e-mail addresses.
You are a slippery weasel with words. The DOJ demanded one million dollars to fulfill a single specific FOIA request for non-disclosed email addresses.
Do you really really think that it costs a million dollars to run a fucking LDAP query? Is there some job where we can be paid that much for something so mundane? Are you really so naive to ascribe this to simple stupidity; that they forgot the addresses, otherwise they would tell?
The left in America claims to believe in abortion rights, gay marriage, social and racial justice, legalizing drugs, social safety nets, taxing the rich, limiting corporate power, restricting corporate executive pay, and many other of the planks in the international leftist movement. In practice, there is no discernible difference, as evidenced by little to no progress in any of those areas, even during periods of "Left" supermajority.
FTFY.
Left? the US doesn't have a left. it has a right and far right.
That is a mistaken idea commonly held by people without a strong understanding of the American political system and politics. The US does in fact have a full political spectrum from left to right, including real, honest to Lenin and Marx Communists , and Communist Party. (More than one, actually.) It even includes people who have been willing to go the Stalin or Pol Pot route (see below after reading the rest of this). The difference is that people in the United States generally won't vote for Communists if they understand that is who is running for office. That is why many on the hard left camouflage themselves by rhetorically moving to the center and refer to themselves as progressives, or some other label, to merge into the larger body of the moderate left. If they make it into government, they are forced to govern by incrementalism using ordinary political means since they gain office by votes, not by revolution.
William Ayers' forgotten communist manifesto: Prairie Fire
We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. . . .
...We need a revolutionary communist party in order to lead the struggle, give coherence and direction to the fight, seize power and build a new society.
And more....
The Weather Underground openly discussed exterminating 25 million Americans who refused to be "re-educated" into communism...
... I bought up the subject of what's going to happen after we take over the government. We, we become responsible, then, for administrating, you know, 250 million people.
And there was no answers. No one had given any thought to economics; how are you going to clothe and feed these people.
The only thing that I could get, was that they expected that the Cubans and the North Vietnamese and Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States.
They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education centers in the southwest, where we would take all the people who needed to be re-educated into the new way of thinking and teach them... how things were going to be.
I asked, well, what's going to happen to those people that we can't re-educate; that are die-hard capitalists. And the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated that they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these re-education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill. 25 million people.
I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.
Who is BILL AYERS?
William Ayers says Weather Underground, Boston bombings not same
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I lived through the Nixon era. Calling what is going on in Washington more corrupt than what was happening under Nixon is ridiculous.
The stuff going on now doesn't even rise to the level of the Iran-Contra affair.
You are also looking back through history at the Nixon era and what else has come out.
We've got spying on journalists, enemies lists (only public ones in the case of Obama), using the IRS to target political opponents... the only thing we are missing is a break-in by his subordinates and a subsequent cover-up... granted we've got multiple cover-ups and perjury's ongoing today.
What we've seen over the last month alone is pretty damning... how much more do you think there will be?
The economy remains stagnant, increasing numbers going on disability (rather than working), the impending implosion of the American health care system... the list goes on. In fact while Nixon can be credited with the creation of the EPA, and Reagan (since you mentioned something from his time in office) for ending of the cold war... what major achievement do you think people will look back on the administration of President Obama and hold up?
Go broader... this President has often liked to compare himself to presidents of old... how many Presidents in 50 or 100 years will want to be compared to Obama?
How many Americans were killed due to the direct actions (Fast & Furious) or indirect actions (Benghazi) where the President either opted to go to sleep and/or ignored what his underlings were doing in Iran-Contra?
Oh no... it is hard to imagine a President who could do more to damage this country in the short and long term than what we have today.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans