"Small slice" of White House Staff = 5 million missing emails

[dukeuch]

About a week ago when the missing e-mail story picked up steam, Dana Perino said a "small slice" of the White House staff was involved. Now she's acknowledging that there may be up to 5 million missing emails, there's talk (anyone wanna bet it's not true?) that many had to do with the outing of Valerie Plame, as well as the Gonzalez affair. Now, the WH is spreading the blame to up to 1,700 Executive employees. Was Perino lying before, uninformed, or is the administration totally out of control, having no idea?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/...ail/index.html

[Axegrinder]

It looks like they need a communications czar.

[BurgundyNGold]

I've not been keeping up on this. Why are they examining WH emails again? Valerie Plame? I though that was over with. And since when can WH emails (or the emails of any government agency) just be sifted through? I'm sure that Congress has a few emails that might be worth reading -- especially as it relates to lobbyists and special interests. How come nobody is looking at those?

[Axegrinder]

They used RNC e-mail accounts for White House business,and this is a no-no.
Now the e-mails in question have been erased or disappeared.The White House has admitted screwing up.This isn't going away anytime soon.

[BurgundyNGold]

Originally Posted by Axegrinder

They used RNC e-mail accounts for White House business,and this is a no-no.
Now the e-mails in question have been erased or disappeared.The White House has admitted screwing up.This isn't going away anytime soon.

So, is the rationale for the investigation a security breach?

[akhhorus]

Originally Posted by BurgundyNGold

So, is the rationale for the investigation a security breach?

Its a violation of federal law for White House officials to discuss official governmental business on outside email accounts. The point is that all WH communications are supposed to be preserved. The can use(and are supposed to use) outside email accounts for political/campaign business, but from the DOJ released emails, they were using outside email servers to discuss who the WH should nominate as US Attorneys.

[BurgundyNGold]

Originally Posted by akhhorus

Its a violation of federal law for White House officials to discuss official governmental business on outside email accounts. The point is that all WH communications are supposed to be preserved. The can use(and are supposed to use) outside email accounts for political/campaign business, but from the DOJ released emails, they were using outside email servers to discuss who the WH should nominate as US Attorneys.

Ah, I get it now. They didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about so they used RNC accounts to do government business, which = illegal. Additionally, they deleted actual WH emails from the server, which apparently is also a no-no.

Ridiculous.

[akhhorus]

Originally Posted by BurgundyNGold

Ah, I get it now. They didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about so they used RNC accounts to do government business, which = illegal. Additionally, they deleted actual WH emails from the server, which apparently is also a no-no.

Ridiculous.

exactly. I guess its not much of a crime if they asked the outside server to preserve all emails and the record was reconsiled. But they didn't. However, the joke's on them: you really can't delete any email.

[BurgundyNGold]

Originally Posted by akhhorus

exactly. I guess its not much of a crime if they asked the outside server to preserve all emails and the record was reconsiled. But they didn't. However, the joke's on them: you really can't delete any email.

You can, but you have to overwrite the space where the file resides. You can just wait for other files to overwrite the space where the file resided. Or, if you're in a hurry, you could deliberately "scrub" the area or opt for a full destruction and reconstrucion of the file table (like through a full format). But that would be even worse, because it would illustrate extremely motivated intent to deceive. Or maybe not. If there was nothing to recover, it would all be he-said, she-said. In any case, deleting the emails should show enough intent.

[Spence]

Originally Posted by Axegrinder

It looks like they need a communications czar.

Dude, you are the king of the one-liners.

[lakewinola]

Originally Posted by BurgundyNGold

You can, but you have to overwrite the space where the file resides. You can just wait for other files to overwrite the space where the file resided. Or, if you're in a hurry, you could deliberately "scrub" the area or opt for a full destruction and reconstrucion of the file table (like through a full format). But that would be even worse, because it would illustrate extremely motivated intent to deceive. Or maybe not. If there was nothing to recover, it would all be he-said, she-said. In any case, deleting the emails should show enough intent.

Actually, that won't even delete them, because it resides on servers outside of the RNC as well.

[BurgundyNGold]

Originally Posted by lakewinola

Actually, that won't even delete them, because it resides on servers outside of the RNC as well.

That's correct. Even if they delete and scrub the files on the client, any server would still have to be deleted and scrubbed.

[fent]

Originally Posted by BurgundyNGold

I'm sure that Congress has a few emails that might be worth reading -- especially as it relates to lobbyists and special interests. How come nobody is looking at those?

congressional emails are all public record and just require a FOIA request to get ahold of them. the reason people don't go poking through them at random is because there are so many staffers and email accounts that unless you have smoke already, you're wasting your time trying to find one bad apple hidden in there. take the house for example...in just the 435 personal offices, the staff limit is 18 (district and DC staff) so including the members, there are 8,265 email accounts active at any given time and we're not even to the point of committee staff, leadership staff, and former staffers yet. Then we get into the Senate side which is about the same size. All those tens of thousands of staffers send and receive close to 100 emails a day so you can see why just randomly searching through them looking for a random illegal or unethical act is a waste of time and money.

[Spence]

Especially since so much of the correspondence on Capitol Hill involves one staffer inquiring of another staffer: "Where are you going to get drunk/laid/drunk&laid tonight?

[Keino]

Originally Posted by Spence

Especially since so much of the correspondence on Capitol Hill involves one staffer inquiring of another staffer: "Where are you going to get drunk/laid/drunk&laid tonight?

I knew there was something Fent wasn't telling us.