Lois Lerner's IRS E-mails- "The Dog Ate My Homework"

[HankB]

. . . What Obama et al are doing is political check kiting- eventually someone, somewhere is going to collect on him.

Best description I've seen for what's going on . . . but I'm afraid it's going to be a cold day in the underworld before we see Obama, Holder, Lerner, et.al. doing a perp walk in orange jumpsuits. 

[birdman]

This latest thing is almost funny if it weren't so horrible....its like they don't even bother vetting their lies before using them.

[Fitz]

I thought of a situation in which her computer crashing could account for the emails being missing.

SUppose that they were violating several rules related to archival of emails and data integrity

Suppose also that during regularly scheduled audits, they were falsifying the results.

Then suppose also that none of the contractors doing any of this have stepped forward to admit it, because they're all complicit.


So, either the IRS is lying, or many of their IT staff should be in jail

[Angel Eyes]

So, either the IRS is lying, or many of their IT staff should be in jail

Not a mutually exclusive choice.

[lupinus]

So, either the IRS is lying, orand many of their IT staff should be in jail

FTFY

[Ben]

Hey, so you guys never heard of a computer crashing before? Man, are you all dumb.  "Dude! We're the hip, Obama college frat boy team. It's a computer. They crash. Get over it! It was like two years ago."

http://michellemalkin.com/?p=157082

[Angel Eyes]

. . . and the IRS has "lost" more emails:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/380576/irs-has-lost-more-e-mails-eliana-johnson

[RocketMan]

Okay, show of hands.  Who here is really surprised by the accidental loss of all email history of seven different IRS employees involved in the scandal?  Let's see...still waiting, anybody?  Hands up, anyone?

[lee n. field]

Okay, show of hands.  Who here is really surprised by the accidental loss of all email history of seven different IRS employees involved in the scandal?  Let's see...still waiting, anybody?  Hands up, anyone?

[Scout26]

From back in March:  Congressman Chaffetz grlls the IRS commissioner re: the Subpeona.  It asks for ALL of her E-mails from that two year period.  Not just the ones dealing with Tea Party applications.  But EVERY, SINGLE, LAST, ONE.   They have staff (lawyers) that read through looking for key words and phrases or anything that catches their attention as to the matter in question.  We used to have a member that did document scanning/searching for law firms suing medical application manufacturers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x74oo-5VJYA

[bedlamite]

I just can't help but wonder when the computer in question crashed if it was onto the cement four stories below.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

"Obstruction of Justice" 

Clinton was impeached for obstruction of justice.

A guy can hope, right?

[230RN]

Okay, show of hands.  Who here is really surprised by the accidental loss of all email history of seven different IRS employees involved in the scandal?  Let's see...still waiting, anybody?  Hands up, anyone?

<raises hand>  I'm surprised.  Only seven?

[KD5NRH]

<raises hand>  I'm surprised.  Only seven?

Yup.  I'd expect a preemptive mass wipe of anybody she might have copied an email to so they don't have to keep having mysterious crashes as the subpoena gets expanded.

[Ben]

Well anyways... :)

http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/stockman-bill-allows-taxpayers-to-use-same-lame-excuses-as-irs

[AJ Dual]

Clinton was impeached for obstruction of justice.

A guy can hope, right?

And that impeachment without conviction turned what was supposed to be a constitutional nuclear bomb into a wrist slap.

[lee n. field]

Yup.  I'd expect a preemptive mass wipe of anybody she might have copied an email to so they don't have to keep having mysterious crashes as the subpoena gets expanded.

crashes being computer crashes, or their car accelerating suddenly and wrapping itself around a utility pole before burning?

[French G.]

Well anyways... :)

http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/stockman-bill-allows-taxpayers-to-use-same-lame-excuses-as-irs

Oh pleasepleasplease!  What income?

[brimic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbBvDiW5gp4

IRS commissioner being questioned by Paul Ryan. Watch this video- it clearly illustrates what kind of smug power drunk bureaucrats Americans are up against.

More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4zq0TpDLmQ

[RevDisk]

Having worked with the email side of things peripherally (policy, rather than actually touching the mail servers), i can say that each agency has a period of time where ALL incoming and outgoing mail has to be archived outside the mail servers the user touches. There are many ways to skin this cat, including dedicated arrays of appliances whose sole purpose is to hold onto email for a long time.

At DHS, it's 7 years. Every single email. RevDisk could probably tell you how the DoD does it.


A company i may or may not work for has some .gov clients. We keep their emails for 5 years, at their request per their policy. Not irs, though.

Previously, bases and/or services ran their own. Now it's being consolidated into DoD Enterprise Email. Which is an Exchange cluster. DEE is housed at Defense Information Systems Agency, specifically their Defense Enterprise Computing Centers. I worked in one. They're grey concrete cubes that house the DoD data centers. It's scanned by McAfee GroupShield.

Exchange uses something called "journaling". Which is essentially a copy of all mail going in or out. "Users are unable to delete or modify content contained in this mailbox, and messages are retained for a period of up to 10 years." Retention policy is set by whomever contracts for the service from DISA.

Source: http://www.disa.mil/Services/Enterprise-Services/Applications/DoD-Enterprise-Email

I don't think I'm violating national security by saying the data is put on tape for long term storage. We used a lot of them.

[Fitz]

Thanks. Although I was a dod contractor, I worked indirectly for DHS so didn't deal with the transition

[RevDisk]

It's possible a server hard drive failed, but the overwhelming majority of places back up to tape. Tape very very rarely fails.

Also, when you send an email, there's at least two copies. On the Sent folder of the sender, and the Inbox of the receiver. Multiple receivers, multiple copies. It's very rare for a server RAID to fail. It's more rare at a very large organization for the sender and receiver to be on the same server RAID (not the case at smaller organizations with only one email server). It's very rare that organizations do not back up to long term media.

Only alternative I ever see is if an entity has a very aggressively short retention policy mandating destruction in a short period of time.

[French G.]

When this started last year wasn't the scandal du jour that IRS officials were using their personal e-mail to end-run FOIA requirements? Almost like they knew official e-mail was required to be retained?

[lupinus]

When this started last year wasn't the scandal du jour that IRS officials were using their personal e-mail to end-run FOIA requirements? Almost like they knew official e-mail was required to be retained?

Hush peasant. We don't need your thinking here.

[Ben]

Sooo... Now it's apparently the fault of budget cuts that emails can't be recovered:

"It is not unusual for computers anywhere to fail, especially at the IRS in light of the aged equipment IRS employees often have to use in light of the continual cuts in its budget these past four years," Koskinen said. "Since Jan. 1 of this year, for example, over 2,000 employees have suffered hard drive crashes.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/23/irs-commissioner-says-agency-is-not-obstructing-congress-in-heated-house/