No surprise here. (1 Viewer)

How many presidential administrations have had to deal with e-mail?

Two, possibly three.

I tend to view this article as a simple example of the rapidly advancing technology outstripping the federal requirements and laws governing archival requirements.

I can vouch for that, having been involved in the governmental computer network during the establishment and implimentation years of the e-mail system in the late 1980s up through the 1990s,

Evil and incompetence?

More like government bureaucracy at it's usual pace. This is not unique to this administration.

"An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications."
Robert A. Heinlein
 
I give the administration the benefit of the doubt, too. I mean, after all, they've been so forthcoming with everything else, surely nothing untoward would be going on here.

:rolleyes:
 
How many presidential administrations have had to deal with e-mail?

Two, possibly three.

I tend to view this article as a simple example of the rapidly advancing technology outstripping the federal requirements and laws governing archival requirements.

I can vouch for that, having been involved in the governmental computer network during the establishment and implimentation years of the e-mail system in the late 1980s up through the 1990s,

Evil and incompetence?

More like government bureaucracy at it's usual pace. This is not unique to this administration.

"An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications."
Robert A. Heinlein


So it's merely a coincidence that *these* particular e-mails are supposedly "lost."

Right.

You believe that, and I have some ocean-front property to sell in Tennessee.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the inability to store e-mails or "advancing technology" and everything to do with suppressing the brutal reality that this administration mislead/manipulated pre-war intelligence to convince the American people that invading Iraq was necessary for the national interest. Terrible.

I mean, like Pasty pointed out, the administration has been completely honest regarding all these issues, and we have every reason to trust their judgment. I mean, come on.
 
I tend to view this article as a simple example of the rapidly advancing technology outstripping the federal requirements and laws governing archival requirements.

Dads, give us a % chance that those e-mails were not automatically archived like virtually everything else a President and his staff does?
 
Dads, give us a % chance that those e-mails were not automatically archived like virtually everything else a President and his staff does?

Probably around 0 since White House electronic communication probably has back ups on back ups on back ups. We're not talking about a computer system for Lowe's, or even some other federal government agency. It's the White House, which I'm assuming has a state-of-the art computer system to prevent data from being lost forever. :shrug:
 
Dads, give us a % chance that those e-mails were not automatically archived like virtually everything else a President and his staff does?

Read the article. It was standard procedure to reuse backup tapes over and over again.

However, the White House recycled backup tapes until sometime in October 2003, taping over existing data.

It wasn't just the White House that did that.

Government beancounters at the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Government Accounting Office (GAO) commonly declined requests for more tapes for backups or money to buy more tapes, advising everybody to reuse backup tapes over and over again.

What some folks here seem to be implying as an evil conspiracy was (based on my experience) a common measure taken to save a buck and a common practice enforced by belt tightening by the GAO and GSA.
 
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Read the article.
What some folks here seem to be implying as an evil conspiracy was based on my experience, a common measure taken to save a buck and a common practice enforced by belt tightening by the GAO and GSA.

So this so-called "belt tightening" allowed *only* these particular e-mails to be lost forever.

:lol:

"Can it be a mere coincidence that some of the missing e-mail correspond to a key period during the Valerie Plame investigation?" asked Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Given everything else we know, that is nearly impossible to believe."

Pretty much sums up my sentiment.
 
What some folks here seem to be implying as an evil conspiracy was (based on my experience) a common measure taken to save a buck and a common practice enforced by belt tightening by the GAO and GSA.

Then it's one hell of a convenient cost-saving practice by the Government. Certainly skepticism is very easy to understand when the Government is more often associated with corruption and incompetence than it is with frugality.
 
So this so-called "belt tightening" allowed *only* these particular e-mails to be lost forever.

:lol:

"Can it be a mere coincidence that some of the missing e-mail correspond to a key period during the Valerie Plame investigation?" asked Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Given everything else we know, that is nearly impossible to believe."

Pretty much sums up my sentiment.

The title of the thread is "No surprises here."

I'm surprised I'm being lambasted for proposing a perfectly logical, rational reason why the backup tapes were taped over, verifying it based on my experience in dealing with government computer networks, up to and including Pentagon mainframe data.

But, I guess we shouldn't allow a knowlegeable person with first-hand experience of the evolution of government computer systems and email to stop people who do not possess such insight from dreaming up more conspiracy theories.

Drive on.
 
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Then it's one hell of a convenient cost-saving practice by the Government. Certainly skepticism is very easy to understand when the Government is more often associated with corruption and incompetence than it is with frugality.

DavidM, the rapid evolution of computer and e-mail technology quickly outstripped the existing laws and Congress' enactment of new laws and archival requirements, as I'm sure you're aware.

In my view, the writer of the article fails to place the overtaping of backups within the context of what was legally required at the time. It wouldn't be news if he did do that, of course.
 
Read the article. It was standard procedure to reuse backup tapes over and over again.

However, the White House recycled backup tapes until sometime in October 2003, taping over existing data.

The Whitehouse archives everything. It's required to by law. It can't not archive those emails and, in fact, is being sued by the National Security Archive precisely because of that. Which you're talking about are the backup files, which is seperate and distinct from archiving the emails.

The reason this became an issue is because of the National Secruity Archive lawsuit. The Whitehouse simply stopped archiving emails in 2003. A judge back in, November I think it was, ordered the Whitehouse to stop destroying emails and to provide the backups, what you're talking about, in order to fill in the gaps.

Now we find out the Whitehouse happened to recycle tapes until, and i'm sure this is a coincidence, 2003 when they stopped archiving emails. Ensuring a system which was designed to protect documents in duplicate failed twice over.

I'm not suprised (hence the title of the thread)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2163703,00.html
 
DavidM, the rapid evolution of computer and e-mail technology quickly outstripped the existing laws and Congress' enactment of new laws and archival requirements, as I'm sure you're aware.

In my view, the writer of the article fails to place the overtaping of backups within the context of what was legally required at the time. It wouldn't be news if he did do that, of course.


http://www.ediscoverylaw.com/2004/1...-of-email-required-under-federal-records-act/
Researchers and nonprofit organizations challenged the proposed destruction of federal records (email communications). The court held that substantive email communications constituted "records" under the Federal Records Act, and that, "since there are often fundamental and meaningful differences in content between the paper and electronic versions of these documents," the electronic versions do not lose their status as records when printed out in hard copy. 1 F.3d at 1287. As such, they must be managed and preserved in accordance with the Act.

That's the Federal Records Act. The Presidential Records Act also covers this.

Edit - That was in 1993 by the way.
 
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