Remember all those emails that the White House "lost." You'll never guess....
A computer expert who worked at the White House provided the first inside look at its e-mail system Tuesday, calling it a "primitive" setup that created a "high" risk that data would be lost.
Steven McDevitt's written statements placed on the public record at a congressional hearing asserted that a study by White House technical staff in October 2005 turned up an estimated 1,000 days on which e-mail was missing....McDevitt's statements detailed shortcomings that he said have plagued the White House e-mail system for six years. He declared that:
_The White House had no complete inventory of e-mail files.
_There was no automatic system to ensure that e-mails were archived and preserved.
_Until mid-2005 the e-mail system had serious security flaws, in which "everyone" on the White House computer network had access to e-mail. McDevitt wrote that the "potential impact" of the security flaw was that there was no way to verify that retained data had not been modified.
The Clinton administration has established an thoroughly modern system, but the Bushies hated the Clintons, so they dismantled it. And now we'll never know what we missed, which, aside from some seriously unfortunate historical implications, also happens to be illegal.
The emails are never coming back, and the White House could care less:
After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.
The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration -- including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove -- will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.The RNC had previously told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it was attempting to restore e-mails from 2001 to 2003, when the RNC had a policy of purging all e-mails, including those to and from White House officials, after 30 days. But Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed during a hearing yesterday that the RNC has now said it "has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails."
"The result is a potentially enormous gap in the historical record," Waxman said, including the buildup to the Iraq war.
Because missing emails isn't a bug in the system, but a feature. Those laws requiring public records? They are for the little people.
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