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146 Comments
- flernk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+132So let me get this straight... All copies off these emails were lost from the RNC host, the senders' computers, the receives' computers, the originating servers, the destination servers, every Blackberry and cell phone which received copies, AND the archive system?
Yeah... I guess that can happen. - InfamousAtheist, on 10/12/2007, -5/+93This makes me want to rant, but it won't be anything I haven't said before.
Worst. Administration. Ever. - IrishJoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+76Those missing emails are with the 18 minutes "accidentally" erased from Nixon's Watergate tapes. Strange how that stuff happens. Dang.
- vatosplace, on 10/12/2007, -5/+75Like no one saw this coming. DOH!
- flernk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+58btw @sharpfork
They can't claim Executive Privilege because the emails were being sent using personal RNC accounts instead of the official White House email service. On top of that, they can't claim privacy or privilege for information that was sent through unofficial (i.e. not private and unprivileged) channels. The information sent through a non-government email account is just as subject to a subpoena as the information you or I sent last week.
In an effort to circumvent the law, they ran smack into a legal brick wall. Claiming to "lose" the emails is their last option. - returnofmalv, on 10/12/2007, -7/+60"White House Claims It Lost An 'Undetermined' Number Of RNC Emails"
...along with the war in Iraq and American trust. - The_Wallbanger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30Thank god the PATRIOT ACT allows the government to search for these emails on any computer without needing a warrant. It would be sweet justice if the Bush Admin stumbles because of their own overarching thirst for power.
@wild: "Losen" up man. - DDoSAttack, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26Ah but Clinton isn't actively in office now is he? Bush is, therefore he is responsible for what he and his administration does.
Quite frankly I am sick and tired of seeing the juvenile argument of "Well Clinton did it" or the Dems/Liberals/Leftists/takeyourpick did this or that too. That is ***** elementary school *****! Grow up!
About the article:
What would happen tomorrow if the Bush administration/NSA required Google to hand over a bunch of emails and instead of fighting it they simply said "we lost them"? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29They obviously seized on the perfect opportunity to try to slip this news under the wire... hoping it would be lost in the stories of Imus, Anna Nicole's kid and the Duke Lacrosse case... question is, will they get away with it?
- Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25Ironic how these are the same guys pushing the "let the NSA monitor everything you say, do, and think" policies. Surely someone over in one of these black-bag outfits not only has these e-mails, but the addresses for every pr0n site Rumsfeld ever visited.
- DavidYeah, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23huh?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19What everyone else said, plus:
No, he didn't. He tried to refuse to hand National Security Council emails over to a court by claiming they weren't subjet to the Presidential Records Act, and he lost *that* court battle, and he handed over those emails. What he did *not* do was have his staff use an outside email system so that they could conveniently "lose" emails subject to the Presidential Records Act. In other words, Clinton kept the records required of him and turned them over after a court fight, while Bush *threw away* the records he was required to keep. - Caffeinate, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Well let's see. They can't find documents they were legally supposed to keep, and they have also been communicating over insecure networks. Yes, I want national business transmitted via GMail, stray RNC accounts and who knows where else.
Think they have something to hide? I guess it doesn't matter if the wrong person gets hold of it. Security is so important that they can't even keep their own communication over secured channels, and they want to be in charge of national security policy?
And all because they keep trying to do things through improper channels. You can only hide the skeletons in the closet for so long until someone opens their mouth and a bone flies out of it. - sharpfork, on 10/12/2007, -13/+31I didn't see this coming. In a situation where the RNC and bush administration have something to hide, I would expect they would fight claiming executive privilege or that the email would give away important state secrets to the terrorists or some other BS. I didn't think they would be dumb enough to claim what some of you here on Digg as well as the computer forensics team the Dems are going to call in know is true- you can't loose email.
This may prove to be bush's watergate tapes...
remember- It's not the crime, it's the cover-up - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23Ok, so you send an email, right?
You have a copy, the server sending it has a copy, the server recieving it has a copy, and the recipient has a copy.
How the hell do ALL of them go missing? - nova912, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20It's been what, 7 years, get off his nuts already. You can't blame everything on clinton 7 years later when your guys is down. [/rant off]
- AhmedF, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17@Charlotte_Web - you gotta be kidding me. This isn't a simplistic IT issue - the government has special secure servers setup for communications. This channel was used to get around that - you don't need more than half a brain (and I would assume people running the country have half a brain) to know that anything related to the operation of the country goes on the secure servers.
Lets try to stop being an apologist .. mmm k? - Dumbledorito, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15"The Republican's won't allow the Democrats to SNOOP and SPY..."
Wrong s-word. "Subpoena" is what you're looking for.
I could pull out the "if they've done nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear" argument your ilk has been using to justify the Orwellian legislation the GOP has been rubber-stamping for the past 6 years, but I'll just rest on the evidence of wrongdoing already discovered justifying the turning over of these "lost" e-mails. - ruley, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23OMG you are amazing! in an attempt to say that liberals have just as many scandals as republicans (which is false, look at the number of R scandals in the past 3 years and the number of D ones, even on a percentage scale the republicans crush liberals.) you just reinforced the point that republicans are riddled with scandals.
bravo for admitting it
PS. not all republicans are bad, i get to vote for the first time in 2008, and i'm leaning towards Rudy. - fatfinger, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17Impeachment is long over due for this group of stupid mother *****.
- ichbinladen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12This story stands as a worldwide challenge to all the most skilled hackers in the world to break into the RNC servers and recover those lost emails for the poor Bush Administration.
- polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13This is ***** idiotic.
I am not a hardware guru, but can't they confiscate the hard drives and recover the deleted information? They should snag them before they 'accidentally' burn them all. - ruley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a mother ***** duck- the surprisingly intelligent D.L. Hughley
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17and the answer, I'm afraid, is a resounding YES.
There will be little noise about this, as most of the population is either too stupid to believe this sort of thing is really going on, or too damn ignorant to care. - flernk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@Carlotte
By your logic, this administration and the RNC were so sloppy they couldn't even manage an email server...? Really? That's your defence? - etnu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9You can't have sex with underage emails.
- HotMovies, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The republicans are just making things worse.
When you tell a programmer some bold face lie like "the data is lost forever" they know you don't know what you're talking about and they'll prove you wrong as a matter of principal.
Never piss off the IT team. fact. - avik42, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@Charlotte_Web
The email server running qmail in my basement which serves only my wife and I is BACKED up daily. If I EVER lost my wife's emails, I will be in pain that will equal to, having been hung from my nails, flogged regularly and tarred and feathered. And I believe that wrath will be very much well deserved since it is something I am responsible for and some of those communications are very very important and can never be duplicated or relived. This is the mail server in my basement; surely it can not compare technologies that is implemented in the White House of one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world.
I surely hope you haven't thought through the entire event because the staggering amount of links that needs to be broken for email to be "lost" from White House will not only border on gross negligence but sheer improbability.
It seems your GoP (please keep in mind, I am neither Rep or Dem.. so I personally have no emotional attachment to either party nor do I feel the need to tow the party line or defend one over the other) is betting on the fact that American people are going to believe this, in mass, because most of them won't know any better. And they will be right. Most people will not understand and perhaps they don't need to, yet.
What I find disturbing about both our great countries is that knowledgeable people, such as you, defend improbable actions/events based on perhaps benefit of the doubt or party loyalty. I don't think we do our respective countries any favour by doing so. My first priority is the well being of my country/world (perhaps in that order) not the party I support or my doubts and insecurities.
You sound knowledgeable. Please reconsider your position on this matter, based purely on the technology that is in place. The amount of places these email will literally have to evaporate to make this GoP claim true is astounding, inconceivable even.
At the end of the day, people like you and I are the check and balances of our government. - edverb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Here's how bad it is:
"I can say that historically the White House didn't give enough guidance to staff on how to avoid violating the Hatch Act while following the Records Act. We didn't do a good enough job." - WH Spokesman Scott Stanzel, yesterday
Wait, did he just say "we didn't do a good enough job"?!? You know it's bad when the White House that NEVER admits a mistake goes right ahead and admits a mistake. You know it's bad when "sorry, we're incompetent" is the best excuse they could muster. They're desperate, grasping at straws to try and bury these emails.
It's not going to work. - polyGone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Shut up with your blind loyalty. Think beyond the partisan label, idiot.
- realyst, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I agree.
Especially since the asshats who 'lost' their emails are probably too technologically ignorant to actually junk their HDD or zero-write it for a few weeks. The data's more then likely still sitting pretty and intact under their drive's index table. - EntropyMan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Let's be clear. This may be the first time in this administration where they've VOLUNTARILY admitted wrongdoing. Does anyone honestly think that there's an explanation for their sudden [retroactive] respect for the law other than those emails containing evidence of a greater crime?
Charlotte_Web, certain WH staffers apparently NEVER used their @WH accounts. Jennings' dot-signature contained only his @gwb43 email, not something to distinguish his campaign emails from his official ones to anyone who might reply. That doesn't show a mere laziness in switching accounts. It shows intent to circumvent the PRA.
And if he ever emailed any of his superiors from those RNC accounts, surely Karl Rove or some responsible lawyer must have realized that was a potential violation of the law. Not buying it for one second. Any WH lawyer who didn't say something to stop this practice over the last six years should be summarily "out-sourced" as well.
In fact, I'm not even buying into the idea that those emails were actually deleted. Any responsible sysadmin would make backups. And I don't care what party he/she is -- I'm calling that sysadmin out as an irresponsible poser if he/she didn't backup those drives. We need to find out who that person is and apply "IT pressure" to live up to the standard. Let him/her admit fault or produce the drives. I'd love to see it.
I think this may very well be like the Nixon tapes, where they were at first denied, then denied access, then edited, and finally impounded. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I recently heard and unpopular talk radio host complaining about why they still use pages in washington and not email or other messenger services. Its simple, everyone knows that all electronic communications are prone to recording and interception. If you send messages via courier in a securely sealed envelope not only will it not be recorded but its easily destroyed afterwards. This is very important if you are negotiating deals to rob the national treasury and ruin the country for personal gain.
- Ecowarrior, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It has been established that the missing minutes are Nixon enjoying a rousing rendition of “Alice’s Restaurant” (which happens to be this long).
Don’t believe me, then ask Arlo Guthrie - okaroleo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I wonder how this is going to play out. Employees connected to White House and the president are bound by law to use White House email system specifically because it's mandatory for it to have an archive. Yet another completely broken law.
Party loyalism is why communism fell. Loyalists are very rarely competent people. Read up on it. - JohnnyZito, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Isn't there some kind of provision in the patriot act or the spy chief's bill that can force the RNC to let a forensic team take a look?
- flernk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"...this administration and the RNC were so sloppy they couldn't even manage an email server...?"
"Well, isn't that what the administration is claiming?"
Wow. So... you are such a strong Bush apologist that even when the administrations says, "Sorry, we're idiots," you see it as a valid and logical argument. I'm sorry, but that is pure politics. Even when they ADMIT incompetence, you stand by and defend their incompetent actions.
If my IT department lost an undetermined number of emails from our servers AND from our backup, they'd be fired. We would then make sure that our computers had copies of the emails on our own computers and then back those up immediately. If someone had systematically deleted THOSE emails, they would be fired and I would sue them for damages.
The "Oops" defense might shake with the base, but it won't stand up in court. - flernk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@Charlotte
"However, the point that seems to be escaping a lot of people here is that the whole PURPOSE of setting up a separate email server was specifically that it would NOT be archived in any way, and thus not subject to being searched or subpoenaed by the opposition, because they were supposed to be discussing party business, tactics and strategies."
You are hopeless. If you honestly believe this and don't know how illogical, illegal, and incompetent this is, then there's no point in discussing politics with you. Your grasp of remedial constitutional law is frighteningly poor. The law doesn't ALLOW the White House to discuss official business on servers that aren't backed up. Simple as that. - CraigB12, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I wonder if they lost the backups to the exchange server too.... hmmmmm
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@caketank
While I admire your faith in the public, I fear you are being naive here. The Bush administration has done a lot worse than this already:
Going to war on falsified evidence for one
Guantanamo Bay
Patriot Act
Obvious 'jobs for the boys' policy as far as Iraq (Halliburton, et el)
and yet they still got voted back for a second term, for Christ's sake... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9@cartoonal:
Don't be too sure. This one really isn't complicated, and there isn't really any way the administration can obfuscate it. The White House is required to retain records, so this administration intentionally avoided using White House record-keeping systems and then "lost" records when Congress demanded them. You don't even have to understand the US attorneys scandal to know a coverup when you see one, and to know that where there's smoke there's fire.
Waxman's going to be pissed, and if the press picks up on it so is most of the country. Nixon wasn't that long ago. - lagrange, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Calm down Mr Cheney, you will give yourself another heart attack!
- geekee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6quote from Leahy
"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vermont
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/12/fired.prosecutors.ap/index.html - gthrank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'd like to say to the white house:
sudo rm -r /bush - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Are you simple?
- realyst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You're right. The mail server sysadmins. The senders. The receivers. Because that's the only way you're gonna 'lose' email.
I say take one of their HDDs to a forensic data retriever. Or hell, they probably didn't know any better, give me 5 mins with SpinRite and GetDataBackNTFS and I'll find those 'lost' emails. - Elbart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7rm -rf
OOPS! - BeefyCow2001, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Grab your torches and pitchforks, for I do believe it is time to do some torching and/or pitchforking!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I would actually point to Sarbanes-Oxley. There's a ridiculous amount of record-keeping required by that law.
I have absolutely no idea whether or not it applies to political parties, though. If not, I really hope the Dems put a lawyer on it to find a suitably similar legal precedent. - Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Emails don't mysteriously vanish like your favorite pen or your bank finances (when you're married)......the emails are stored somewhere, hence, "The White House has now shut off employees’ ability to delete e-mails on the separate accounts"
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