Bush Administrationin In Hot Water For Not Preserving Emails As Required By Law.

[Msterbeau]

"Last week a federal magistrate judge ordered the Bush administration to answer some pointed questions about its failure to preserve White House emails as required by federal law. ARS examines what the law requires, what the White House has done, and what the rest of us should do about it."

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/bu...ost-e-mails.ars

[ttogreh]

Some poor IT slob who was just trying to save server space is gong to prison over this, right?

[Msterbeau]

Yeah. The administration isn't responsible at all...

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Your link doesn;t work. and there is no such thing as "deleted"

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

also, there is that whole immunity thing.

[Msterbeau]

Link fixed

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

after reading the article... I think "luke warm water" would be a better description.

[hunhee]

Wow..this is dumb.. with all the really great IT people out there, and I know a few.. these guys had to be fucking up on purpose? Seems a bit too convenient..

I agree with Gaf, this is luke warm water..

[Msterbeau]

I'm quite sure I'm not alone in thinking that this has nothing to do with the IT department and everything to do with this administrations willful attempts at keeping much of what they do secret. They reclassified many documents that had previously been available under the Freedom of Information Act. They regularly snub pretty much everyone when requests for information come to them. Deliberately neglecting the mechanism to ensure required information is backed up properly seems par for the course.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

but, that does not equate to "hot water"

There is very little that can be done to a sitting President and even less when he gets out of office.

We have this thing called a Constitution. it defines what can and cant be done to the President. Impeachment is the only thing that can be done and what a president can be impeached for... well, that list is a lot shorter than you might want.

My point being.. they can sue all they like... they cant enforce shit.

[Msterbeau]

but, that does not equate to "hot water"

There is very little that can be done to a sitting President and even less when he gets out of office.

We have this thing called a Constitution. it defines what can and cant be done to the President. Impeachment is the only thing that can be done and what a president can be impeached for... well, that list is a lot shorter than you might want.

My point being.. they can sue all they like... they cant enforce shit.

So the Presidential Records Act means nothing, even though other presidents complied with it?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Wow..this is dumb.. with all the really great IT people out there, and I know a few.. these guys had to be fucking up on purpose? Seems a bit too convenient..

I agree with Gaf, this is luke warm water..

Maybe.. but Lotus, though easily backed up, is clunky and hated by most people in IT along with most end users. Exchange is far easyer to manage and Outlook far easyer to use. They have tape backups... noone wants to go through them as tape backups are as SLOW as turtles fuck.

[hunhee]

Maybe.. but Lotus, though easily backed up, is clunky and hated by most people in IT along with most end users. Exchange is far easyer to manage and Outlook far easyer to use. They have tape backups... noone wants to go through them as tape backups are as SLOW as turtles fuck.

Ahh.. I get it now..

So umm.. like why is it taking them over two years to figure out a backup replacement?

Edit to say:

You'll have to excuse me that I don't know a whole lot about computers/backup and all that other garblie gook. I never really had to figure it out because before my 12 year relationship with my previous husband, my brother did all the techno stuff.. (meaning I never had to). I'm not saying I know nothing, and I haven't figured some stuff out. I just never really had a need to look this type of stuff up.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

So the Presidential Records Act means nothing, even though other presidents complied with it?

The Final legal say on all things in this country is the Consitution. Don't like that? Then get a majority of the country to agree with you and change the Constitution... I really doubt your going to ge the support to take away the authority of the Bill of Rights, Seperation of Powers and all that the Constitution gives us by being the final say on things.

Besides, you might want to read that act. He is still in office, they are his records to do with what he wants and noone can look at them unless he says it's OK. After he gets out of office, he has 12 years to make them public. Just like all the other Presidents that this act covered.... Bill has yet to release all of his records.

So bring the court cases on... waste your liberal special interests group's money... they lack Constitutional power and the President has 12.5 years to comply.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Ahh.. I get it now..

So umm.. like why is it taking them over two years to figure out a backup replacement?

Edit to say:

You'll have to excuse me that I don't know a whole lot about computers/backup and all that other garblie gook. I never really had to figure it out because before my 12 year relationship with my previous husband, my brother did all the techno stuff.. (meaning I never had to). I'm not saying I know nothing, and I haven't figured some stuff out. I just never really had a need to look this type of stuff up.

Exchange keeps all emails in a database that only it can read... Now.. you back said Database up onto a tape.. that might take 4-16 hours to do. You do that once a week.. maybe a month... every other day your do a backup that backs up just the changes...

To recover a specific email... from a specific day....

Create a Restore Server... a full Windwos server including Exchange. Create the exact same users on it as your production server... set it up to allow backups to be used...

now, restore that days back up.. this may take a day in itself as it may be across differnt tapes. Restore the given email box on the server within Exchange (you cant just copy it there and then be able to use it... connect to the Restore Server and download all the emails in the users mailbox... start your search to see if you got the right day... if not...

This is not somethign the average tech knows how to do.

[hunhee]

Hmm.. what I have to say is..

BEFORE email, all this stuff was on hard copy.. and umm.. that stuff probably was probably conveniently lost, damaged, stolen.. blah blah blah..

I'm sure both parties have done something to hide some "official/unofficial" correspondence between parties.. *shrugs*

12 years? really? damn!

Seems to me all this stuff could totally be tampered with.. and by then who the freak cares...

Everyone knows, at least by now (I hope), not to be spreading your secret shit by sending it through email if you don't want to get caught.. phone lines aren't safe..printed documents are completely unsafe... they're WAY too easy to falsify.. Also video isn't really 100 safe.. technology is truly scary.. and neat at the same time.

[Msterbeau]

The Final legal say on all things in this country is the Consitution. Don't like that? Then get a majority of the country to agree with you and change the Constitution... I really doubt your going to ge the support to take away the authority of the Bill of Rights, Seperation of Powers and all that the Constitution gives us by being the final say on things.

Besides, you might want to read that act. He is still in office, they are his records to do with what he wants and noone can look at them unless he says it's OK. After he gets out of office, he has 12 years to make them public. Just like all the other Presidents that this act covered.... Bill has yet to release all of his records.

So bring the court cases on... waste your liberal special interests group's money... they lack Constitutional power and the President has 12.5 years to comply.

And you're perfectly OK with the executive branch hiding everything they do from the public? I'll grant them that they need a certain amount of privacy to do their job, but not to the point of ignoring laws requiring them to back up their communications that are pertinent to reasonable oversight. You bitch that the liberals are trying to take away your rights but the Bush admin is doing exactly that.

[Shade Everdark]

And you're perfectly OK with the executive branch hiding everything they do from the public? I'll grant them that they need a certain amount of privacy to do their job, but not to the point of ignoring laws requiring them to back up their communications that are pertinent to reasonable oversight. You bitch that the liberals are trying to take away your rights but the Bush admin is doing exactly that.

It's been a few weeks (months) since I last checked in on this story, but isn't it worse than that? Weren't they keeping official emails on the RNC mail servers, and not on the White House servers where they should have been?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Hunhee - Hoovers secretary burned shit loads of documents. So, when Watergate happened Congress passed a law that made all his documents Federal property. In 1978 it was expanded to include ALL Presidents and Vice presidents.... but didn't go into affect until 1981. (Makes you wonder why Carters docs were not included) Reagen changed it a bit so that before anything could be released to the public, both the sitting President and the past president (who's records they are) can look them over and decided it's NYFB and not release them. Bush limited it again by adding to the list of things that cant be released. Every administration since this came into law has opposed it in some way. Bill Clinton actually proved in court that it does not apply to the National Security Council.

Msterbeau - I have many laws and acts that govern my life... but the only "Rights" I have are outlined in the Constitution. Freedom of Information is an Act... not a Right. Also, Bush is still in ofice... His records are not subject to Freedom of Information yet. Legally, we cant even ask to see them for 5 years AFTER he leaves office... 12 if they were deemed classified. That part of the law dates back to the beginning. Unless they can proove that someone delibratly deleted emails from the server, they cant do shit until 12 years after he leaves office.

Shade - Correct. Carl Rove used an RNC email address for 90% of his correspondence. This part has already been bitched about and courts tossed it out. He was not officially part of the Administration and is there for not subject to Freedom of Information any more than you or I. Some few others were caught doing the same thing.. those that were part of the administration... The RNC turned over thier email and sat on those that were not part of the Administration.

[Shade Everdark]

Shade - Correct. Carl Rove used an RNC email address for 90% of his correspondence. This part has already been bitched about and courts tossed it out. He was not officially part of the Administration and is there for not subject to Freedom of Information any more than you or I. Some few others were caught doing the same thing.. those that were part of the administration... The RNC turned over thier email and sat on those that were not part of the Administration.

My problem with this is: what constitutes an email that is part of the Administration? Is anything that gets emailed to Rove considered outside the purview of the Administration, even if others within have been cc'ed on it? I'm honestly curious, I mean where is the line drawn?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Not sure... a line was drawn though during the Clinton administration. If the National Security Council is not subject to Freedom of Information... why would Carl Rove, a campaign advisor be subject to it?