No surprise here. (1 Viewer)

[DadsDream]

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.

Lest anybody get confused, the "National Security Archive" is not a goverenment department or something.

It's a Georgetown University group which seeks to get documents declassified and to archive declassified documents.

The "National Security Archive" is paid for by names familiar to most PBS viewers: Fund for Peace, Inc, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, Freedom Forum, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Congressional Quarterly, and Cox Enterprises.

The October 2007 ruling by the Federal District Judge is going to be challenged and will probably go down in flames, based on executive privilege.

 

[DadsDream]

http://www.ediscoverylaw.com/2004/1...-of-email-required-under-federal-records-act/


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

Edit - That was in 1993 by the way.

There's a lot more to that law and than the handy quote you've exerpted and you know it.

Is it possible that the White House's actions were not shady? Yep.

Is it possible that the White House's actions were shady? Sure.

The Reuter's writer carefully buried one notion way down in the story and played up the other aspect to the point that it seems like that's the only possibility. It's not.

It's certainly not unique to the current administration.

Ask most of the folks on this board who was the first president that recorded White House conversations and they'll quickly answer NIXON.

They're wrong of course by about 40 years, but let's not let facts get in the way of a good witch hunt.

 

[RebSaint]

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.

No, I'm disagreeing with you based on an irrational, illogical reason to further make excuses for this administration's possible malfeasance.

I'd figure you'd attempt to play the old "I know this issue, it's my field, not yours" argument.

Dude, you're a web content administrator for NOAA, which is hardly an "authority" on how the White House, Pentagon, or Congress preserves its highly-sensitive electronic government data. Your just as unfamiliar with the White House's computers as we are. Your no more qualified or unqualified to have this debate with most everybody on this board.

Unless an expert on the White House computers weighs in on this thread, I think everybody's input, whether they're computer experts or not isn't any more or less valuable than your input.

I find it hard to believe that the White House's computers don't or didn't have enough back-up capability. Nobody has to be an "expert" here to be suspicious. One doesn't have to be an expert in computer technology to figure out that there's a remote possibility that this story *isn't* just a case of the White House having technological problems because of the lack of advancements in archiving electronic data.

One doesn't have to an expert in computers to use common sense here.

And what's with the accusation of "cooking up conspiracy theories?" It doesn't take a "conspiracy" to delete data that possibly contained damning evidence of a deliberate manipulation of intelligence data to make the case for war. It doesn't take a conspiracy to delete a bunch of e-mails which might make the administration appear to be a bunch of liars before the Iraq war based on a selective examination of intelligence reports.

It boils down to whether or not one chooses to believe that it is *just* a coincidence that *these* particular e-mails regarding pre-war intelligence, intel leaks etc, were lost *forever*

It isn't just a big block of data which is missing. There's *specific* data which is missing, which can't be explained away by computer or technological problems.

 

[RebSaint]

Is it possible that the White House's actions were shady? Sure.

but let's not let facts get in the way of a good witch hunt.

So healthy skepticism is a now a "witch hunt?"

I suppose the same was said for looking into Nixon's actions.

The October 2007 ruling by the Federal District Judge is going to be challenged and will probably go down in flames, based on executive privilege.

And this decision would be hunky-dory and business as usual, right?

 

[DadsDream]

So healthy skepticism is a now a "witch hunt?"

I suppose the same was said for looking into Nixon's actions.

Oh, let's hear all of Nixon's records...but let's hear all of LBJ's, JFK's, HST's and FDR's too.

Yes, they all did recordings, although the technology sometimes involved grammaphone style metal cylinders instead of tapes.

But, it seems we only hear about Nixon's transgressions, not LBJ's highly abusive profanity and paranoia, not about JFK plotting with his brother to deliberately undermine the FBI...etc...etc...etc...

And this decision would be hunky-dory and business as usual, right?

Nah. It'll go down with the mysterious "gap" in the Watergate recordings and a PBS special will be done about it.

Amazing that an e-mail "gap" is now being touted as a smoking gun by various groups.

Amazing that the same tactics once used against Nixon are now being used to do the same thing all over again.

But, like you said in the title: No surprises here.

 

[RebSaint]

Oh, let's hear all of Nixon's records...but let's hear all of LBJ's, JFK's, HST's and FDR's too.

Yes, they all did recordings, although the technology sometimes involved grammaphone style metal cylinders instead of tapes.

But, it seems we only hear about Nixon's transgressions, not LBJ's highly abusive profanity and paranoia, not about JFK plotting with his brother to deliberately undermine the FBI...etc...etc...etc...

So I guess your point here is that "witch hunts" are only reserved for Republican Presidents.

Nah. It'll go down with the mysterious "gap" in the Watergate recordings and a PBS special will be done about it.

Amazing that an e-mail "gap" is now being touted as a smoking gun by various groups.

Amazing that the same tactics once used against Nixon are now being used to do the same thing all over again.

But, like you said in the title: No surprises here.

Well you just proved my point. There's enough smoke here to see if there's a fire--which is more than enough reason for an investigation. So the same tactics are being used to go after Nixon--good, I say in hindsight.

And this "e-mail gap" specifically refers to pre-war intelligence and the CIA leak controversy. But it's business as usual, right?

 

[DadsDream]

No, I'm disagreeing with you based on an irrational, illogical reason to further make excuses for this administration's possible malfeasance.

I'd figure you'd attempt to play the old "I know this issue, it's my field, not yours" argument.

Dude, you're a web content administrator for NOAA, which is hardly an "authority" on how the White House, Pentagon, or Congress preserves its highly-sensitive electronic government data. Your just as unfamiliar with the White House's computers as we are. Your no more qualified or unqualified to have this debate with most everybody on this board.

Unless an expert on the White House computers weighs in on this thread, I think everybody's input, whether they're computer experts or not isn't any more or less valuable than your input.

I find it hard to believe that the White House's computers don't or didn't have enough back-up capability. Nobody has to be an "expert" here to be suspicious. One doesn't have to be an expert in computer technology to figure out that there's a remote possibility that this story *isn't* just a case of the White House having technological problems because of the lack of advancements in archiving electronic data.

One doesn't have to an expert in computers to use common sense here.

And what's with the accusation of "cooking up conspiracy theories?" It doesn't take a "conspiracy" to delete data that possibly contained damning evidence of a deliberate manipulation of intelligence data to make the case for war. It doesn't take a conspiracy to delete a bunch of e-mails which might make the administration appear to be a bunch of liars before the Iraq war based on a selective examination of intelligence reports.

It boils down to whether or not one chooses to believe that it is *just* a coincidence that *these* particular e-mails regarding pre-war intelligence, intel leaks etc, were lost *forever*

It isn't just a big block of data which is missing. There's *specific* data which is missing, which can't be explained away by computer or technological problems.

I'll take the first half of this as a semi-defensive response and tacit admission that you know next to nothing about the evolution of the US government's computer networks or the government e-mail.

This reminds me very much of the discussion you and I once had about George Bush using the word "Internets."

Who was right and who was wrong on that one?

 

[JimEverett]

Its amazing how incredibly gullible and naive people can be.

Yeah - it was just a bureaucratic oversight that those emails were not archived

 

[DadsDream]

Hi, Jim!

 

[RebSaint]

I'll take the first half of this as a semi-defensive response and tacit admission that you know next to nothing about the evolution of the US government's computer networks or the government e-mail.

This reminds me very much of the discussion you and I once had about George Bush using the word "Internets."

Who was right and who was wrong on that one?

Frankly, I think you know next-to-nothing about the evolution of the White House's computer networks, which makes us pretty much even in this regard. You're a web content editor. You edit web documents, which doesn't make you some kind of an expert in the technical nuances of the White House's computers, which are not the same as NOAA'S.

I'm pretty much calling your self-proclaimed "qualifications" to know more about this issue as pretty much bs.

 

[Coach_Largent]

This is absolute garbage of the highest order.


Forgetting for a moment the idea that ANYONE could over-write the White House's email back-ups -- and I find that IMPOSSIBLE to believe -- the White House uses a clustered Exchange e-mail server. This isn't an old sendmail box and this isn't some local company account. That Exchange Server Cluster is likely backed-up at least DAILY (if not much more often) and then the weekly backup is duplicated with one copy going to secure off-site storage for redundancy. MINIMUM.

That doesn't account for any likely mirrored copies of those hard drives by the network security team (which would be different than the Email/Windows guys) (or any of the three letter agencies) who are tasked with keeping audit-capable trails for reverse engineering code/malware, or for post-event forensics.



I'd love to see the changelogs for when the email servers were patched and updated with various security updates and/or new software additions and OS upgrades -- because they certainly didn't recover from any of those events without backups and they certainly didn't risk an upgrade on OS version without ensuring they had backups as well, right??

yeah. sure.

 

[DadsDream]

Frankly, I think you know next-to-nothing about the evolution of the White House's computer networks, which makes us pretty much even in this regard. You're a web content editor You edit web documents, which doesn't make you some kind of an expert in the technical nuances of the White House's computers, which are not the same as NOAA'S.

I'm pretty much calling your self-proclaimed "qualifications" to know more about this issue as pretty much bs.

In the early 1990s, I was an instructor who taught Department of the Army civilians and soldiers how to log in and download secure data from Pentagon mainframes. You know that.

 

[NCSaint]

I don't think Dads is dismissing that key info was cleverly not made available to someone who asked for it. Dads - don't want to speak for you but when you said government at is usual pace and not unique to this admin that is what I thought you meant.

And anyone who thinks that any of the current day candidates wouldn't be doing some of their own shananigans is sorely mistaken.

Rebsaint -- man are you OK? I have never seen you so caustic.

 

[RebSaint]

In the early 1990s, I was an instructor who taught Department of the Army civilians and soldiers how to log in and download secure data from Pentagon mainframes. You know that.

Which would make you more qualified than others here on the technical vagaries of the White House computers after 2000 how?

I also know that computers have changed a lot since the early 1990s.

 

[JimEverett]

I don't think Dads is dismissing that key info was cleverly not made available to someone who asked for it. Dads - don't want to speak for you but when you said government at is usual pace and not unique to this admin that is what I thought you meant.

And anyone who thinks that any of the current day candidates wouldn't be doing some of their own shananigans is sorely mistaken.

Rebsaint -- man are you OK? I have never seen you so caustic.

other people are doing it or have done it - great defense.