Hard Drives To Hell
Emails? We don’t need no stinkin hard drives and email! And that is pretty much what the Bush Administration has told Judge John Facciola and the DC District Court, not to mention you, me and the rest of the citizens the government is supposed to work for. As you will recall, CREW and the National Security Archive (NSA) have been fighting Bushco for some time now over the missing emails. Yesterday I received the following in an email from the lead attorney on the matter for the NSA, Meredith Fuchs:
Since you have been following the White House e-mail story, I thought you would be interested in the latest government filing. Striking that they failed to respond to the court’s specific questions. Even though they are engaged in a major project trying to find hundreds of days worth of e-mail, they still don’t scknowledge that they have a problem.
Moreover, there are some things that simply are not credible in Ms. Payton’s declaration. For instance, she claims that EOP replaces 1/3 of their computers each year and so there are not likely to be any around from 2003-2005. Yet, she also says EOP has no record of which computers were replaced and when. How do they know they are not replacing the same 1/3 each year if there is no record.
Ms. Fuchs has a knack for the understatement when she muses that "there are some things that simply are not credible", both as to Theresa Payton’s statements and the government’s position as a whole. In a sick kind of way, you almost have to marvel at the intestinal fortitude of the Bushies to so ferociously and completely yank the chain of every court they come in contact with. Whatever the people and their Congress want, whatever the courts demand, the answer from the Bush Brigade is always "nope". The audacity of nope.
Here is the EOP (Government) Response pleading filed yesterday (3/21/08), and Here is the sworn declaration in support thereof filed by everybody’s favorite technical guru, Theresa Payton.
As you will recall, CREW and NSA had applied for an Order To Show Cause, which was granted by Judge Facciola with a return deadline of yesterday. In a nutshell, the Administration has responded that it has destroyed most all of the hard drives that could contain the missing emails and therefore "it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed." I know you all are as shocked as I am at this turn of events (insert appropriate Condiliar Rice bewilderment phrase here).
It appears that there is some new information, or at least expansion of previous information and positions, in the EOP response pleading and, more importantly, the latest Declaration of Theresa Payton. I will be very interested to see what our local tech experts have to say about this, and how they, from a practical standpoint, think Judge Facciola and the Court should respond as to orders and sanctions. My quick take is that it sure was cavalier of Bushco to keep on destroying hard drives and computers with all this information on them when they have been on notice, both from the Presidential Records Act and Pat Fitzgerald’s inquiries, that they had a legal duty to preserve evidence and records and that the emails were an important issue. But they willfully destroyed anyway.
Legal Disclaimer: As I was a little tough on my Bay State friends yesterday in Trash Talk, I wanted to honor them by posting the video to the song that kept running through my mind as I was drafting this. That would be "Hard Driving Man" by one of Beantown’s best, The J. Geils Band. J. Geils Band is one of the best live concert bands ever; Boston can be proud of these boys.
As you can tell, I’m no techie nor legal tender, but your “Audacity
of Nope” needs to be copyrighted…. Wonderful…
beat me to it, baystate. when i read that i pictured the little trademark symbol.
‘audacity of nope’ trademark bmaz, 3/22/08.
all hail.
‘Twas most clever!
I think Judge Facciola and the Court should make them hand over all the hard drives, the servers and the backup tapes/files that the White House possesses. Just copy everything, and read it.
In my checkered past I administered a small network. People were always moving their computers, downloading unauthorized stuff, uploading stuff that was out of date . . . stuff. It was next to impossible to audit exactly who had what, where. Now there are much more sophisticated networking tools, however, I am willing to bet that there is some one, some where in the White House who knows how to put up a good firewall to defeat the audit tools, and that that person knows how to hide things behind the firewall. I’d also be willing to bet that that person makes mistakes from time to time, referencing stuff that was at one time behind the firewall. Remember how Emptywheel thought that Cheney, Addington, and a few others used a separate network to communicate? Find all the White House machines, copy them outright, and see whether the phantom network exists, and whether or not the firewall Freddy makes mistakes.
You know, that is kind of my thought too. I wonder if there isn’t some computer in there that isn’t used all that much and might have a whole bunch of stuff tucked away on the hard drive, maybe even hidden in those goofy data type files that Mad Dog, WO, Raynes etc. are always talking about (pst?) so that the current user doesn’t even know what he/she has. I still am a little stupified that none of this appears to have been addressed by Fitzgerald any more completely than it was. If I were him, the second I requested a bunch of email and was told “gee, we can’t find much in the way of that, it must be lost”, I think I would have been finding out exactly what it was that they did, in fact, have and making forensic copies and demanding preservation of all remaining evidence. In fairness, this is the White House and there are a lot of implications, and he may have made some actions that were discreet and that we just don’t know about; but still…..
I say Amen!
I raised this exact point at FDL a few months ago on some thread, and for reasons that still puzzle me people rushed in to tell me to “read Jane Hamsher’s book” and I looked for it, and found something about her early days trying to break into the movie production business so I read the chapter on Amazon. It had nothing to do with the emails and Fitz’s turning tail.
The gist from people seemed to be that I was unfairly criticizing Pat Fitz–which wasn’t my intention at all. My intention was to fairly criticize Fitz, and criticize him significantly for not nailing the major people responsible for the Plame leak.
When I found out that Marcy had written a book, I went to the bookstore immediately and was glad to find a copy–it goes without saying if she writes a book–I want to get my hands on it. But I still felt Fitz came up way short.
I have simply never understood (call me dense and not capable of grasping nuances) how Pat Fitz let Luskey and anyone else deter him from doing a scintilla of the investigation he has done on Tony Rezko, Conrad Black, and the “EBay Art Scam selling rich people Fake Picassos and other works of art” Homeboys–the next Fitz Production in the ND Chicgao.
I’ll say it. Pat Fitz screwed up. He should have nailed Rove, Cheney and Bush. He turned tail and backed down. There should have been nothing in the way of stopping him from sending Rove to prison and he dropped the ball like a passive wussie on Rove and the emails that couuld have nailed them.
I want someone to show me how that didn’t happen. I hope to be enlightened.
I think people said EW’s book, Pete. Anatomy of Deceit.
Someone said Jane’s book but I think they just mistyped or got confused–that set me looking for it and I was still glad to find it. I’m still reading EW’s book, and I might have missed some more recent comments by EW or others here but I still am mystified as to why Fitz didn’t drive Rove and Cheney into the ground. I would have done my damndest. I haven’t found anything to explain it to me, no matter how many times Rove kept going back to the Grand Jury and Luskie waited outside the door.
By the way the bullshit where Bush and Cheney were interviewed in the White House was a joke. There very human asses should have been dragged into a grand jury room like anyone else.
A lot brighter people have been beat up in front of grand juries.
I want to remind you what Mukasey has been sitting on.
He’s been sitting on the interviews Fitz did of Cheney and Bush in the Plame investigation among scores of other items. Why don’t we have it in our hands? We sure as hell paid for it and all they’re salaries.
Grand jury testimony is super ultra secret, I thought. Seemed to me like Fitz tried his best to get Rove, knew he was lying, but couldn’t prove it. He wasn’t going to take his to court on a maybe. Lawyers?
You want lawyers on this? Henry Waxman, from the California 30th, is Chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform ayk, and represents the cities of West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, and parts of the city of Los Angeles, and is a graduate of UCLA School of Law. Your favorite homeboy Darrell Issa is a stirling member of this committee, and he is in a tie with Tom Davis for the race to provide the most insipid obstructive comments at each and every hearing.
In addition to being an attorney for many years, Waxman has a staff of superb seasoned attorneys at his fingertips who are staff members of his committee as well as on his own personal staff.
This is the letter Mr. Waxman sent to Michale Mukasey on precisely the matter I mentioned on December 3, 2007.
Loo Hoo my experience with FRCrP 6(e) and DOJ is that in the last several years, there have been increasing illegal grand jury leaks.
Further, any witness in a federal grand jury is completely free to walk out of the grand jury room, call 1000 media outlets, stand before their cameras and report everything they saw in exquisit detail.
One witness you might remember who did just that is William Jefferson Clinton, husband of a current candidate who has no mathematical way to win the delegate race or the popular vote in the current primary.
Some clarifications on Grand Jury Secrecy are here. There are also variations in local state restrictions as to grand jury secrecy including one in California.
I will always believe Fitz could have gone several more miles as to Rove and Cheney and Bush.
There is nothing whatsoever legally preventing Mike Mukasey from releasing Fitzgerald’s interviews of Cheney, and Bush which did not take place before a Grand Jury anyway, although the contents may have been presented to them.
Libby’s case is over, although he will probably certainly get a full pardon from dim witted Bush who is now fully ensconsed in the “Give Americans and Congress the Finger in Spades” segment of his Presidency.
That’s what you witnessed in that tap dance Bush did while McCain was caught in Beltway traffic the other day.
But, I’m thinking they were on the planes with the nukes out of North Dakota. They do not exist.
Man, ew’s curse must be spreading. Every time I go out of town, something breaks on the missing emails. I just back from a week at “the happiest place on earth” and self-imposed partial news blackout. I have a couple of quick comments on the government’s latest:
1. As I understand it, the OCIO does not maintain a detailed historical log or other record tracking the precise user or location history of any given EOP computer workstation.
That’s either a lie or IT incompetence bordering on malfeasance. There are lots of COTS (government lingo for Commercial Off-The-Shelf) tools that allow sysadmins to do this. Asset management was a problem that was solved 20 years ago.
2. The OCIO is, however, able to remotely query computer workstations
currently in use on the EOP Network to detect technical characteristics from which it may infer generally how long a particular workstation has been available for use in the EOP, and whether it may have been used before October 2005. The query process is time consuming and labor intensive and even then the results of the query process will be
difficult to use to identify the user history of that particular computer workstation.
Any reasonably competent sysadmin should be able to script this in a day or two. If they want to hire me, I’ll take a couple of days vacation and handle it for them, but I’m pretty sure the MS guys they have could do it better and faster than I could.
Welcome home. And just exactly where is the “happiest place on earth”? Disneyland? I know McCain has been telling us it is Iraq, but I am betting that is not what you were referring to.
That would be DisneyWorld, which I enjoyed with my wife and younger children (and about a million other Texans on spring break).
Btw, you should tell CREW and the National Security Archives to suggest to the judge that making a forensic copy of the WH Exchange Servers would be a good idea.
More goodies from Theresa “Sgt. Schultz” Payton:
Although there may be exceptions, it is expected then, that the vast majority of computer workstations used during the relevant time period would have been replaced approximately every three years in connection with this refresh program.
Is there any content to that statement? I’ll send that one to Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy). He loves weasel words.
“Replacement” seems irrelevent is the data on the drives should have been copied to comply with archival or records retention purposes. Companies, of course, replace computers all the time, but don’t lose the data on individual ones.
My thoughts exactly. Many offices budget to replace individual computers on a regular schedule, but the contents of the employee’s old computer are always transferred to the new model. Add to this the legal mandate of White House record retention and massive file loss can only be intentional.
Agree with you, and #25.
#5 – “Asset Management is a problem that was solved 20 years ago” … on what planet? Desktop Asset management is still a bitch. Most organizations know what they have, some organizations know who has what, very few organizations can tell you they trail of who had what during any given period of time.
As I understand it EOP isn’t that huge a place. 1000 PCs? I don’t think you need the whole damn disk, you just need the PST file. Some people just don’t delete stuff. You have to think somebody who was cc’d on something regarding US Attorney situation, or god knows what else from Rove or whoever has a smoking gun. They can’t run a script to copy those back to a server? They are big files, but for gods sake this is doable.
Jeez if someone suspected a democrat of having porn on their computer this would be done in a heartbeat.
What a great analogy…
I’ll just say this:
Ask any government contractor who’s using computers paid for by the feds. They better be able to tell you exactly where those computers are and have been from the time they were delivered until they are disposed of. Is it too much to expect the freaking WH do as much?
In Cheney’s version of CEO Land, none of the rules apply to him. (A species not unknown in the private sector.)
The refresh rate for IT equipment probably meets two objectives: cover for “mislaying” data the administration wants lost to the public; the ego trip of having whatever they want because they want it.
As is abundantly clear, in this administration’s mismanagement of the entire federal government, it doesn’t consider the efficient use of taxpayer funds except when it wants to say “No”.
Yeah I do remember from my days at a major defense contractor (12 or so years ago so I may be out of date) you had to fill out a form every time GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) was moved. That didn’t stop us from losing track of lots of stuff (including tooling).
I also think GFE at a contractor is a different than government equipment at a Government office. The government puts alot more scrutiny on its contractors than it does on itself. (That may not be saying much).
An understatement. This crowd shows a remarkable sophistication in computer skills when it comes to their own projects. They can tell within seconds whether I’m a registered RRRepublican and thus allowed entry into a “public” speech by el president or George Bush. Had there been a system inadequacy that their in-house staff could not fix, such as Karl not being able to read an earlier e-mail to Sara Taylor about an upcoming meeting with Jack Abramoff, they wouldn’t have hesitated a nanosecond to outsource the fix.
This crowd would also not have connected hundreds of computers and not been able to locate one used by a neocon who had fallen from the faith, and was “misusing” it by, oh, say copying communications onto a pen drive and slipping them to a Congressional staffer or the NY Times.
So, “a lie” would be my first thought.
It seems Ms. Payton is answering to a higher authority in this second declaration, carefully remaining illustratively within bounds prescribed by her trial attorney Helen H. Hong. For example, Payton provides the gloss that an effort entailing “hundreds of hours of work by OCIO staff and management personnel”. If stockholders and retirees were driving this action and the barriers to following the records preservation laws for the presidency were instead, say, corporate disclaimers by Enron that it could not find the offshore entities’ books of accounting, the politics of the mesh would be such that the administration would show considerable alacrity in responding positively to a judge’s order that only ‘forensic’ copies would satisfy the rules for archiving the executive’s daily records. Doubtless, at this very moment, 4th branch is engaging in colloquies with the likes of pricewaterhouseCoopers, which sometimes serves as a rescue team for companies in international imbroglios. Both of the government documents provided Friday March 21, 2008 to the court of judge Facciola are carefully parsed evasions of some basic demands the judge asserted three days prior. I think CREW-NRA might appreciate how accurate their motion was by the government’s response at p7 which comes as close to one of this administration’s favorite ploys as it can by citing the circuit’s precedent in Dorfmann v. Boozer 1969; the government attempts to warn the judge about something that sounds a lot like whether CREW-NRA have standing to engage his service in this matter, or, in the response’s words …power to issue such preliminary injunctions “should be sparingly exercised,…
Communications and IT law are a lot more subtle than this scattered government response; I trust some readers who have visited here before to provide some of the tech insight, as well.
Payton. when she first surfaced, I posted links to her corporate past at Wachovia and as a frequently cited and quoted example of successful women in the world of IT security.
I also noted at some time that Wachovia was the lender to the RNC whose obligation thereto w. regard to loan reporting requirements may be what triggered the Ward’s resignation in August, IIRC.
Midnight past in BlueBayState, so I hope I will be forgiven if I don’t look it up.
Apropos, Baystater honor those who appreciate the hometeam, whether band or the other stuff, you know the merry band managed by a cool guitar player named Epstein. Thanks Bmaz, for the nice word.
Midnight past in BlueBayState, where we honor those who appreciate the hometeam, whether band or the other stuff, you know the merry band managed by a cool guitar player named Epstein. Thanks Bmaz, for the nice word.
When will the courts (not the bought and paid for courts of course) call BULL SHIT and start jailing these prigs for contempt! The niceties of laws are a joke to them and like all bullies, must be forced to comply.
bmaz, I would like to concur with those above on “the audacity of nope”. That was a stroke of genius : )
It also says it all really. BushCo will continue to tell the rest of the planet to go Cheney themselves until someone holds them accountable by impeaching/prosecuting these people. IIRC from our earlier discussions, contempt of court is a relative slap on the wrist compared to the penalties for the underlying crimes. They will keep failing to produce any documents until someone goes to jail. Just another day for BushCo. They’ve kept it up for 7 years, and I still have yet to see any of them face any serious consequences for their conduct. It’s no wonder they continue the stupid, incompetent, it’s-just-too-damn-hard-to-do-my-job act…
Jeebus, most businesses do better than this. Where I work, IT comes through several times a year and checks the asset tags on the computers – if one gets moved without IT knowing about it beforehand, the sh*t comes down. They leave via IT and the company salvage program – and I’d bet that they don’t go out the door without the tags being checked carefully.
If the WH doesn’t do that, it’s something else for the incompetence (criminal type) list, especially since they’ve known for at least three years that this was an issue, and that the e-mails would be called for by one or another court.
Here is a story about “Property of D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue” (servers) found next next to a commercial trash compactor in a Northwest Washington alley. There is fire in an ‘electrical closet’ in Cheney’s office. Unfortunately there are lots of ways for data to go ‘out the door’ besides being overwritten so many times it is indecipherable.
Didn’t anyone in this administration print out and save emails, if only as a CYA? Where are they?
WO, MadDog did a nice post about Sherpa and Documentum a few days ago but I am not finding it; it addressed the issue of erasure logging, as well.
I remember reading back in the late DOS/Early Windows period (early 90s) about the Christian Coalition (One of the few nice things I read about them) and how they leased their computers and replaced them every 18 months. The difference was that they only had around 120 or so and they replaced them all at once, so everybody had the same hardware and software. Seems to me the need for replacements is much slower these days. I thought the 18-month period was pretty reasonable back then, but I brought a computer in 2001 and haven’t yet seen the need to replace it. Replace computers every three years? Seems kind of excessive.
And as a sailor, no frikkin’ way would we replace an item like a computer without extensive documentation! EVERYTHING had to be documented and explained if the documents didn’t match the equipment! I was the Admin RPPO for my ship about 1993-1995. I handled supplies of all kinds for the Yeomen & the Personnelmen. Old equipment must be recycled, new equipment must be purchased through extensive procedures. No way these guys just purchased expensive items like computers without specifications and receipts!
I replace the hardware, sort of, when things wear out. That’s why I now have three computers, all of which actually run … and no two of them run under the same operating system. (Vintages: 1991 with a major upgrade in 1995, 2003, 2007; the 1997 machine died for real, but parts of it linger on.)
I had to chuckle at this sentence out of Payton’w declaration:
Yeah. Of course. Because you are always running the latest and greatest email management software (okay, maybe not eh?) and your security is so impressive (okay, not so much on that either, since the system was completely open to thousands of people for a long time). Really, these people are just like trained monkeys that spew out any BS that comes to mind with no compunction as to how ridiculous it appears.
It is funny, isn’t it? (Well, if you’re a masochist, I guess.) They have to keep losing everything so that they can update to save and protect everything better.
Friar WO, I found the Sherpa and Documentum information MadDog posted a few days ago there. Mostly it works from Payton’s first declaration plus the ocio Email Archive Process Risk Mitigation discussion document ocio submitted archived on Waxman’s site dated October 2005; the MadDog post includes the links.
What would a court do with Al Capone, who’d repeatedly told the court he was still making and selling whiskey in 1929 (four years before it was legal)? That he acknowledged he’d been told to declare all his income and pay the appropriate tax, but admitted to the court he had done neither and then laughed at it?
Cite the president for contempt for failing to comply with its prior orders and conclude that the president had violated and was in continuing, knowing violation of the PRA. The district court knows that this DOJ will send him a horse’s head in bed before it enforces the rule of law over an edict from our papally infallible president. What else is it to do?
If it is to enforce the law, it’s only option seems to be to authorize some sort of special master and insert him or her into the bowels of the White House’s digital infrastructure to develop a detailed plan to ensure compliance with applicable statutes.
That creates a potential stand-off as constitutionally frought as the White House’s unconstitutional stone-walling of Congress’ investigative authority. That requires Congress’ support in a political pissing contest. How does Congress find the backbone to do that when it won’t enforce its own subpoenas?
The thinking behind replacing one-third of your PC inventory every year is five-fold,
1. three years is a good length of time for useful life of a PC so your equipment is 1, 2 or 3 years old but not older.
2. three years fits well when financing with a lease
3. it allows you to keep only three images of the standard workstation
4. turnover project is one-third of your PC base not the whole inventory.
5. you don’t have to go back for funding authorization, it’s automatic.
That said, either a leasing company or IT would HAVE TO keep track of the serial number or asset tag in order to execute the strategy. I bet the White House IT actually does have the practice but it is astonishing that they assert no record of when the PCs were acquired, which is the other side of when the old ones were replaced.
On another note. Peter Wolf, the lead singer of J Geils Band and former radio jockey, hangs out around Boston. When there is a good band at the Orpheum, you’re sure to see him pull up in a nice, with a pretty girl on his arm and duck into the sounds truck to hang with the road crew for a few… minutes.
* A couple things… 1st Payton is talking about replacing HDs, not entire PCs. Whether true or not, she’s claiming they destroy old disks. This scenario may involve a hardware contractor, but not a lease.
* HD meantime life, for some years now, has been over 5 yrs. There are corp scenarios where HD upgrades are indeed required before exceeded meanlife, but for presumably strictly data storage (documents/spreadsheets and such… eg: not hi-volume-storage media such as multi-media), I find this hard to envision.
* Payton said these updates are required to keep up w/new software (etc etc): such requirments are far more dependent on CPU/chipset/video than HD.
Agreed, destroying hard drives just doesn’t make much sense. I think the whole replacement of PC’s, hard drives, and software is a red herring. An organization could turn over their workstations, software, and hard drives each week if so desired. The critical issue is the data was properly backed up and archived whenever hardware or software is replaced, upgraded, or destroyed.
In this case, the answer is a resounding, “No”. The court should insist on retrieving all available data, rather than engage in the Executive Branch’s gameplaying and stalling. If the Executive Branch wanted to comply with the law, they could have done so, and could do so now. The fact is, they are not preserving records as the law requires.
Forensic scrubbing of a replaced hard drive is standard practice, unless there are mitigating circumstances. Who knows where the old hard drive will end up?
I did not assume Payton meant they replaced hard drives but that they replaced entire PC desktop systems that would include a hard drive, which does need special treatment in order to secure data stored on it.
Helen Hong and her running buddy Tamra Moore maybe should learn some basic stuff:
In one of my cases, the FBI took a forensic image of 13 servers and heaven knows how many workstations. Outside contractor? My foot.
My reply to Ms. Hong would be a Cheneyish, “So?”
Like how much? Say, for instance, as much as was spent on three senior AUSAs, other career level AUSA staff, a team of field level FBI and IRS agents, months of wiretapping and document acquisition, and who knows how much personal surveillance, expended over more than a year, to catch Eliot Spitzer shagging a call girl with his own money (a local New York misdemeanor offense not even within the Federal jurisdiction)? Would it really be that much??? Yeah, I guess we could never afford anything like that….
bmaz, did you see this Scott Horton post today:
What type casts a political agenda in the Spitzer case for me is this simple logic. Even if the conspiracy theorists (and I’m proud to be among them here that Garcia brought some of his illegal manuevers from DHS ICE into SDNY) let’s say that the SARS/FinCen mechanism ID’d Spitzer. As Bmaz and many have pointed out, this became the ID of a guy in search of a crime.
I find articles like U.S. Defends Tough Tactics on Spitzer in Friday’s NYT on the government’s rationale in this case simply not credible. Boyd M. Johnson III, who runs the Public Corruption Unit began this investigation in 2006. He has had ten times more time than anyone needs to realize he has no criminal case against Spitzer. People singing Mann Act aren’t in contact with reality. It’s not prosecuted absent a predator or a slavery/forced prostitution ring.
People who say the Public Corruption unit SDNY on the Spitzer case are operating independently without Mukasey and ten times more people than you ever want to realize are being paid at Main Justice aren’t all over this case have the same lack of contact with reality.
Johnson hasn’t twitched a finger without direction from Main Justice in this case. I think they look consumately stupid in the waste of resources and the ratio of DOJ and FBI personnel in Manhatten who are johns far exceeds the number of escort services who are prosecuted by state or federal law enforcement in SDNY or any other area of the U.S.
I’m just gob-smacked by the Roger Stone stories (see also @ 52). How can this be going on? Can’t someone stop it? (Apologies in advance for being naive.)
I don’t know that much about the behind the scenes workings of the passport files. *g* I rely on the many astute commenters, bmaz, Mary, EW, to help me learn these things as they unfold. If Roger Stone had theoretically hired employees sureptitiously of companies like “Analysis” to snoop to try to do a Swiftboatesque smear of a candidate, (note that all 3 candidates’ files were allegedly improperly accessed) it is going to come out and you’re going to learn more here faster about it.
If DOJ were functioning competently, and it certainly isn’t, Mukasey would have gotten off his fat ass and started an investigation. There are myriad unanswered questions, but as the articles I linked (one from Glenn Greenwald and one from Time Magazine) the other day on this, there is little control or accountability for contractors for the many agencies.
I must say that State seems to have had some of the most serious situations with the allegations towards Blackwater, other contractors as to fraud, waste, and actual rape and murder.
I rate Condi Rice as a poster lady for one of the most incompetent and damaging people to ever occupy the office of SOS. Her deputies for the most part are equally incompetent, and they help get a lot of people dead.
Pete: passports … sex … dirty tricks … corruption of entire justice system … skdadl is getting confused. (IOW, I think we’re conflating scandals here, not that that isn’t a most tempting and probably logical thing to do.)
I’m not sure what you mean. By sex I guess you’re referring to the unusual prosecution of a NYC escort service by the Public Corruption Unity of DOJ in consultation with many of their superiors in DC.
Dirty tricks have become SOP as DOJ has become a tool for Rove, Addington, Cheney, Fielding, Miers, Gonzales and Bush.
Much of the “justice system” is flawed and compromised since many federal judges are cowed by State Secrets arguments and the general systemic fear ethos pushed by this administration and their DOJ. The vast majority of the 760 or so federal judges (both appeallate and trial) come from the ranks of DOJ with an agenda in support of Federal Rules of Evidence and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that Congress and the Judicial Conference have badly skewed for the government and against the defense bar.
If you add the dimension of politically targeted prosecutions that have now become the norm in many federal jurisdictions, the landscape becomes much worse.
You have only to examine the situations with respect to Spitzer where SDNY Public Corruption and DOJ above them have not been able to figure out what the hell to prosecute as to Spitzer, and have left hundreds of other prostitution rings intact in Manhatten, or the Siegelman situation or the many moves of Christie in New Jersey.
I noticed the other day that Christopher J. Christie, the political Hack that wass installed as USA in New Jersey made the stupid pronouncement that many doctors were taking bribes to use orthopedic devices for gender specific total knee or total hip procedures.
The more serious problem that involves Christie are his targeted political prosecutions, like the investigation that attempted one of Senator Bob Menedez during his campaign or his corrupt and illegal awarding of lucrative congracts resulting in millions of dollars worth of profits for John Ashcroft’s law firm that is going uninvestigated and unprosecuted.
Christie has simply shot his mouth off, as he is wont to do, and Christie wouldn’t understand a total knee procedure if it bit him in the ass.
New Focus of Inquiry Into Bribes: Doctors
Well, yes: when I mentioned Roger Stone, I was thinking about the Spitzer case, as I thought you were and MinnesotaChuck was.
Stone has been mentioned as both the source of the Spitzer info (I still think it could have been ICE and no one has accounted for why the SDNY Public Corruption section in conjunction with Main DOJ who is telling them when to jump on this case) has had 2 years to come up with a charge for Spitzer and cannot nor are they prosecuting several other hundred escort services on Manhatten or in NY state.
Stone has been mentioned (he always deserves a reference) as the source of possible payment for the contract employees who accessed the State Department Passport files.
I meant to say I still think Garcia brought with him the usual and customary ICE activity he learned at DHS which was illegal accessing of bank accounts via SWIFT.
They found info on a prominent democrat, and they used it to bring him down by smearing him even though they had nothing actionable to charge him with, and still don’t.
Bmaz, did you see
for EOP FRA components would require OCIO to outsource the project to a third-party vendor.
2d Decl. ¶ 7. That process would likely trigger a potentially lengthy and costly procurement
process.1 See id. ¶ 7.”>this from dday at Digby’s place? Looks like people are figuring out that the “North Fork Bank SAR” story is toast, like we said here the first day.
Wow, terrible linkage. Try this one.
‘audacity of nope’—the mendacity of dopes.
What I want to know is this: when is the court going to prosecute the Bush Admin for destroying evidence? Isn’t that a fair charge against their behavior? And don’t we all have “legal standing” to press that charge?
The judge has to hire a computer consultant to refute these liars
and then lock ‘em up for conspiracy…
a preservation order would be a good idea at this point, for starters.
The judge would probably have a tough time making the WH hand over the hard drives. If he ordered them turned over, the WH would claim that this would disrupt the daily function of the executive branch, blah blah blah.
But what the judge could do, is order federal marshalls to find and copy each hard drive in the executive branch. literally send an IT guy and a marshall all around the white house and their offices, with one of those nice IT carts, picking up people’s computers, copying the hard drive, and then returning the comp.
probably would be a good idea to inventory and search the place, especially certain offices.
That would work, and it really doesn’t take that long if the computer has a firewire or high speed usb ports.
Dagnabbit, late to the party and all the cookies are gone. *g*
In any event, I’ll jump in here with a couple thoughts:
1. WO at # 5 – Ditto and double bullshit on Chief Idiot Officer Theresa Payton!
The White House Office of Administration is running Microsoft’s MOM product (Microsoft Operations Manager) which has as one of its zillion features, an ability to properly audit, track, inventory and characterize each and every single PC on the OA network down to the ittiest, bittiest hardware component.
For those not techies, you can peruse a high-level description of MOM (now renamed as Systems Center Operation Manager ’cause Microsoft was the butt of too many MOM jokes) here.
Chief Idiot Officer is either lying or totally technically incompetent to hold her position when she says:
The MOM product is totally automated and runs as a hands-free agent on client PCs to document all the hardware and software bits and bytes and automatically sends all that info back to the MOM server(s).
The only time consumed would be reading the fookin’ management reports that MOM also automatically generates.
Perhaps Chief Idiot Officer Theresa Payton was referring to how much time is consumed by rolling her eyes ’cause that’s the only physical activity she’d be doing.
2. Neil at # 22 – Yup, most computer leasing organizations use a 3 year lease, so this sounds like the typical PC lease deal. Many corporations lease rather than purchase their PCs because:
a. A “cost of money” decision that is entirely done by one’s Finance division.
b. Depreciation rules favor leasing versus buying if the “cost of money” ration is also in your favor.
c. Leasing means you don’t get stuck with old assets that you now own, and are now pretty much worthless.
I missed (or more likely just forgot, I blame it on Mickey and Friends… uh ok, did you know that the Rose and Crown in Epcot serves Guinness and Boddington’s on draft?) that they’re using MOM.
It’s increasingly clear that Payton’s job is to stay uninformed so that she call file these bs statements.
LOL! Say howdy to Minnie!
I think it is becoming clearer by the minute that a hiring call went out for the CIO (Chief Idiot Officer) position at the WH OA. The job description must’ve been something like this:
One more waste of taxpayer funds in order to cover the Enron President’s trail.
I think someone pointed out on threads a month ago that Payton was uniquely qualified for that job — as she was in the CIO seat at Bank of America when they lost about 10 million customer records when a magnetic tape got lost (in the mail).
I’m sure the White House just knew they had to have her.
I’ve been seeing more and more companies move to a 4 or even 5 year refresh at least on desktops over the past couple of years (laptops are still have a shorter cycle). This mostly because Hardware Technology has been ahead of software technology.
You also have to take a look at what your users are doing. I have to think that EOP does not have a whole bunch of users running complex engineering applications, or querying huge databases (they just e-mail nsa for that stuff) that would push the envelope on software. They probably send e-mail and create the occasional word or powerpoint document.
Their egos could be driving them to a shorter refresh.
What you say is true…however, unless the government has changed the depreciation schedules (and they may have, I’m no tax expert but just a wee techie *g*), the 3 year lease squeezes the most out of things.
Yup! I’d imagine that most WH users could get by with “kiddie PCs” for the little amount of actual computing they do.
Never late to the party; it’s always open here, even when mom’s on vacation and somebody’s feeding bmaz cookies and milk while we play.
The claims of this system’s features are so off the wall, they sound like outright lies or they describe a system intentionally archaic and unfit for what the taxpayer would regard as its intended purpose.
In which case, I should think the court should not only make forensic copies of disks on all identifiable machines, PDA’s etc., which might contain “presidential records”. It should also copy system settings and history, etc. Did the administrator(s), for example, turn off some of the standard features you describe? Is that why the White House can’t be more responsive. Is this data readily available and the White House is lying about it. If so, we are in uncharted territory even for Nixon.
The “erased server” and “erased backup tapes” excuses are BS. I work in information security, and if the court or Congress wants white-house e-mails, it is important to keep in mind copies of every email sent and received are stored on the source and destination workstations. If this were treated like an actual criminal case, every involved system should be seized by the authorities. And erased information on hard drives and tapes, and even overwritten information on hard drives and tapes, can be recovered.
I don’t know why law enforcement puts up with this situation – every system involved in these felonies should be seized as evidence immediately.
increasingly absurd, makes the toenails curl. there are just so many things so very wrong with all this. but snafu, par for the 43 course.
the legal and techno input here are fascinating, and hopefully the good judge will finally do something with all your wisdom.
but i’m just wondering.
isn’t it a bit odd that this explanation is trotted out now, after all this time? i mean, if this is a standard procedure as payton implies, and it’s as old as, well, as old as the very emails the judge is after, then why are they just now offering this little tidbit up as one of their many, endless excuses?
this doesn’t just fail the laugh test, it descends into scary pathetic. sorta like that that jon lovitz character, tommy flannagan: “yeah, that’s the ticket.”
hard to tell if it’s just raw insolence, or possibly desperation.
Us techies call upon our resident Legal Eagles to translate this legalese please:
Is my reading of this correct in that Deadeye is again asserting that he is a 4th branch of government, and that any suit against the EOP cannot be inclusive of Deadeye’s OVP 4th branch?
I don’t think it is the classic “Fourth Branch” argument. I will have to plow through a couple of pleadings to be certain, but it looks like they are positing that CREW/NSA did not name the OVP as a party defendant and that the OVP is not part of the EOP, therefore the court does not have subject matter interest as to any hardware, data or whatever under the auspices of the OVP. Actually, I guess that is kind of a Fourth Branch argument isn’t it; that OVP is a separate entity from EOP? Kind of odd that they keep using what they have discovered as existing, and not existing, in relation to “red letter days” for the OVP as support for their argument that there is no reason to believe they have lost anything; and then turn face and argue that OVP isn’t part of this suit and is irrelevant.
Not just from this one part, but the whole response pleading is one of the bigger legal circle jerks I have seen in a while. Abbott and Costello could pretty much plug it into their “Who’s On First” routine. Jeebus. And I renew my question about the what the relative cost that the evidence gathering requested here would be compared to those for the massive Spitzer panty sniffing exercise.
bmaz,
The original complaint was brought under the FRA:
This is an action under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) and the Federal Records Act (“FRA”) challenging as contrary to law the defendants’ knowing failure to recover, restore and preserve millions of electronic communications created and/or received within the White House.
The VP’s immediate staff’s email is covered by the PRA (Presidential Records Act)
Yep that is what I kind of figured out as I was writing the preceding comment and why I changed course right in the middle of it. I should have erased and started over, but got lazy and just kind of changed in the middle. It is amazingly inconsistent and duplicitous the way they in one breath trot out 4th Branch and in the next rely on findings from the OVP search to say everything is hunky dory.
It does seem like a Fourth Branch argument. It’s hard to imagine anyone before 2001 arguing that the virtually “responsibility-free” vice presidency was anything but the appendix of the president and the EOP. The argument seems devoid of legal basis; it seems to be based purely on the personal power Cheney has over the Goopers and the government, which is a function of his power over the Shrub.
No competent president, cognizant of the Constitution and his need for authority to perform his job, would tolerate Cheney or his spurious claims. No court should accept his claims.
What I see shaping into the comments could be a set of policies. In our private company workstation replacement policy is fairly freewheeling; we have 1000s of seats, and supplying a little more RAM in a pretty much identical replacement box is facile, and IT people often authorize it instantaneously. Suppose MZM assisted with the equipment recycling, but, as some commenters observe, there might be a few among the 2,500 seats that opted to keep their machines; or, eg, the political architect’s office might like to have 15 machines, mostly with continuity. Given the issue with portability of pst files and some people’s penchant for saving messages for reference purposes, the likely worry is that even with a 3-year recycle horizon some VIPs or stickInTheMuds declare their favorite machine will be exempt from the recycle. I read the cite about OVP two ways; one as suggested that no way is that office going to comply, as it is actually somewhere Bradbury and Coffin defined it as in between the executive and capitol hill; but also I read it as saying there was one email responsive to the court demand. I agree about the political egoes commentary, having worked in quasipolitical settings with nice computers for convenience everywhere and the latest tech toys. And I think we are perceiving Payton’s second declaration as even more revealing than the first one the CIO filed because the script the legal people are asking her to respond to is more awkward to complete authentically. So I see a delaying action now in the dealings with the court in the crewNra matter, but also a delay in the upgrade from the Notes environment to Exchange precisely because of the information-preservation shyness that is legion in this administration.
John, I think you make a crucial point here!
Regardless of all the to-ing and fro-ing about the technical stuff, what is really going on here is equivalent in basketball to “holding the ball” until the clock expires.
The OA’s latest declaration seemingly says “We’re too busy doing our day jobs to worry about missing emails. Who cares? Move along, there’s nothing here to see.”
Since there is no penalty for failure wrt PRA, the defense’s object against this suit is to continually whine that nothing is wrong, nothing can be done if there is something wrong, and finally, you’re trying to make us do our job and we don’t want to.
It will be interesting to see how much patience is left with the Judge. Is more “deference” coming or will the Judge finally kick some Administration ass?
This is absolutely right.
The real crux of all this lies in the reasoning behind cancelling ECRMS:
1. The system would require l8 months to ingest the existing backlog of messages in the Microsoft Xchange system. We pointed out that that would still have Ieft time to complete before transition if it had worked out properly. Ms. Payton indicated that the normal types of delays associated with implementing such a system would have prevented completion in time for transition.
2. The system offered users no option to distinguish between Presidential record and political or personal materials. This would result in a large amount of inappropriate material being transferred to NARA intermixed with the Presidential records.
The first reason is total BS as the NARA folks pointed out. The second is the real reason and should be translated thusly:
The system offers users no option to scrub their email of evidence of federal crimes.
Re item two, it’s not a problem unique to this administration, except insofar as this one has subordinated all governmental functions to partisan ones. Their unspoken argument is that everything they do is Party business, not presidential business; therefore, they need save nuthin’.
Will look forward to catching up the full thread later, but the WH ‘delay, delay, delay’ approach has worked for them too well, too long.
To pull back a bit:
1. IF the WH really was/is this sloppy, then the US has a huge security risk in the Exec Branch and Congress needs to staunch it ASAP. The courts need to back up Congress’s efforts.
2. IF employing ‘incompetence’ as a camoflauge to evade criminal charges, then they can only keep up the ‘oh, we made a mistake’ fiction until they trip up. They’ve gambled they can run out the clock first.
How bad must the content on those emails have been for them to not only overwrite, but actually destroy those hard drives?
After this insult, what would it take for a judge to recognize the contempt with which the WH/OVP treat the entire judicial system?
The brazenness of the WH lies become ever more breathtaking. But as JohnLopresti points out at 51, this is yet the latest in an ongoing list of evasions, excuses, and b.s. They’ve certainly mastered the art of ‘looking stoopid’ to run out the clock.
And the courts are letting them get away with it?
Unbelievable.
Sorry, should be:
2. IF the WH is employing ‘incompetence’ as a camoflauge to evade criminal charges, then they can only keep up the ‘oh, we made a mistake’ fiction until they trip up. They’ve gambled they can run out the clock first.
I think that’s exactly the problem, this isn’t about incompetence or whatever the excuse du jour from the WH is. And I also think it isn’t just a case of hiding particular email content. Cheney truly believes that the President ought to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t legal. They are telling Congress and the Courts to piss off as a matter of principle and they will continue to do so until either Congress or the Courts force them to stop. This is the underlying premise of Addington’s comment that they will push and push and push until some larger force makes them stop. I doubt that Payton is incompetent. I think she is doing exactly what the WH wants her to do in asserting their authority through non-cooperation.
This is not about to happen and it should be obvious by now phred.
I respectfully disagree Pete. Granted Pelosi is showing no signs of impeachment, but the courts may yet step up to the plate. We’ll have to see. In the meantime, it is worth repeating that this is not about incompetence, this is a concerted effort on the part of the administration. If we cannot get that concept through the thick heads of our elected members of Congress then our democracy will be in serious trouble in the long run. So, I’ll keep repeating myself. It may be obvious to some of us. It is clearly not obvious to the people in a position to do something about it.
phred said: …it is worth repeating that this is not about incompetence, this is a concerted effort on the part of the administration.
Agree completely; they continue to spin criminal activity as ‘incompetence’ — and why wouldn’t they? It’s consistently worked to their advantage and allowed them to buy time, and it’s a perfect camofluage for at least two reasons:
** First, it’s good defensive cover for the WH. Whenever anyone calls these acts criminal, the WH can launch into Crybaby Mode, claiming that people are being ‘mean’ or ‘unfair’ or ‘unreasonable’ – after all, “everyone” has screwed up email, so why judge them harshly, despite the fact that their ‘incompetence’ may result in breaches to national security? They’ve set this up perfectly to play out a charade in which they act innocent, ill-used, and unfairly criticized. It’s become highly ritualized.
In that ritual, anyone calling ‘bullshit’ is tainted as ‘unreasonable’ because the WH **may** have made a mistake, and therefore they *must always* are given the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Failing to give them the doubt (despite FISA, torture, Iraq, Katrina, etc, etc) is claimed to be ‘unfair’. They’re always the victim — whether they made a mistake,
– or whether they were accused of making a mistake,
– or whether they intentionally destroyed evidence but want everyone to believe it was only a ‘mistake’.
No matter the scenario, the WH claims to be the victim of ‘unfair’ criticism.
** Second, the WH continues to control the timing of information, PARTLY by exploiting the false idea that the route between one computer and other is too complicated for the pea brains of voters to comprehend.
Who goes on teevee to explain political conflict? The invitees are limited to: media personalities, political consultants, electeds, lobbyists, or attorneys. You never see the (teevee) media bring on a guest who can simply, clearly explain **why** the BushCo claims of ‘incompetence’ over ‘missing’ emails are not technically credible.
The WH recognizes that the MSM has a weak spot when it comes to explaining technical issues. So the WH exploits that weakness by inventing a meme that parallels the ‘oh, it’s all just soooo complicated, nobody can really understand how those emails get from one machine to another, and BTW, who can keep track of them all?’ line of crappola.
And while the MSM fails to do a decent job of exposing the technical issues that would explain the suspicious destruction of hard drives, the WH continues to control the release of information. (Bizarre!!)
If simple incompetence were at the root of what we’re seeing, then Rove, Miers, Bolton, and others would have testified before now. The fact that the WH dawdles on releasing info, while their employees refuse to testify in court, is an entirely different sort of eloquence.
Maybe I’m missing something really simple here. Maybe not. Please help.
The goverment’s filings repeatedly invoke “EOP FRA components.” I have not seen the government, nor CREW, nor the NS Archive use this terminology before.
Am I to read that both the Government’s filing as well as the Payton declaration is only addressing EOP components that fall under the Federal Records Act?
The FRA is distinct and very different from the PRA. And aside from disqualifying OVP from the investigation (and a mention of the PRA twice in that regard) – no where else does PRA or “Presidential Records Act” appear.
Am I missing something here? Are they playing word games?
I hope the resident Legal Eagles chime in here, but from a layperson’s perspective, I’m guessing that the lawsuit could only be filed via claims against violation of the FRA.
It may be that the PRA offers no such standing for suit to a party like either CREW or the National Security Archive.
Now with the FRA, how is it exactly that the OVP is not part of the EOP? I know how Deadeye makes this argument, but what say the Judiciary?
Without saying, I’m assuming that most are familiar with the differences between Presidential Records and Federal Records.
In the most general terms, messages that would be transmitted on WHO.EOP.GOV or OVP.EOP.GOV would be Presidential Records.
Federal Records are more the domain of the Agencies.
This memo from the Clinton era distinguishes between “Presidential Records” and “Federal Records”, quoting:
versus Federal Records defined (the memo notes a different memo from D Watkins and B Overton not included in CREWs scan, but which read, heh…)
Now we know that Cheney and OVP could have nothing to do with “Federal Records” since he considers himself and his office “not an Agency.”
But back to the original point, Government and Payton are talking Federal Records…. But Federal Records are not the ones that are missing… Presidential Records are missing.
That’s not entirely correct. The subject of the lawsuit are the “Federal Records” that are missing. That includes OMB, CEQ, and other components within the OA.
There are indeed “Presidential Records” missing, but they are not the subject of this lawsuit.
Thanks for the clarification.
So we’re not even “on the trail” of e-mail sent (or lost) by anyone within WHO (White House Office) nor OVP since, by definition, they do not create Federal Records – they create only Presidential Records.
We might be able to establish what OA does with its records (since theoretically they could create Federal Records) and then draw a construct on what might have happened in WHO, but, again, we’re not even talking about e-mail from Rove and the WH staff. We’re talking about email from career staff in OA, etc.
…and the requisite hard drives that might have contained “Federal Records.”
Also no commentary contained in the Govt or Payton declaration on hard drives that might have contained Presidential Records at one time since that’s not the subject of the case, right? We’re not one step closer to understanding what happened those drives, right?
Well, since they are all intermingled, figuring out the answer for the “Federal Records” would answer the questions about “Presidential Records”. It’s up to Waxman to track down the answers for the “Presidential Records”.
Thank you.
So, final question. Here’s Payton:
So here we’re only talking about “computer workstations used by EOP Federal Records Act (FRA) component employees” and we learn that hard drives formerly assigned to FRA component employees are destroyed.
However, no mention of PRA component employees hard drives. For all we know, the PRA component employees hard drives could be sitting on a shelf behind Ms. Payton’s desk.
And, as far as I’m concerned, the whole spat, natch, the whole issue, is over preservation of the Pres. records.
Now that everyone’s chewed on this, I’ll comment on the part of the post *I* know something about: the music. What a surprise to find this song here! I was just playing this record the other day… the first two J. Geils albums were the best, and my impression is that a lot of the country missed them. Such a shame, especially when the songs the whole country did hear, once the band went commercial, were ones like “Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold” (yeech) — you’d have no idea from that stuff what a great, great band they were.
This tribute band’s a hoot, too — the singer’s definitely got a lot of the Wolf-isms down, and the harp player makes a valiant effort to play Magic Dick’s lines note for note — gotta give him credit for trying. And I might be imagining things, but there were moments during the “jam” that I think I recognized from the live version of this that came out on Full House (I never owned that one and haven’t heard it in over 30 years)…
Anyway, bmaz, thanks for the apology. I’m a Californian but as a native of Massachusetts I did wonder a bit about the trash-talking thing. I told myself it was just a sports thing (also not my area), but the acknowledgment was nice. OK, I’ll go back to lurking now…
Hey; welcome and feel free to join in the fun here anytime. I first got Full House on an 8 track tape probably in 1973 or so, and have been way into J. Geils ever since. I still think that Full House, along with Get Yer Ya Yas out by the Stones, may be the two best live albums ever. As to the Trash Talk, heh, yeah we get after each other pretty good sometimes, but it is among friends and in good fun.
You had it on 8-track?? Oowee, baby. Must’ve been in your car… this is great driving music. What a trip 8-tracks were back then, giving you the power over the music you heard in the car. When I got my new car two years ago I got the feature that allows you to control your iPod along with the rest of the sound system, and then I set to recording a whole lot of LPs I’d basically ignored for decades because they were inconvenient to play. I was amazed at how much excellent music I had just wasting away on the shelf… and that’s when I rediscovered my J. Geils records. Now when I hit the road, I can plug in the iPod and have my record collection right there. Imagine me in my MINI, flying down the road with Peter Wolf rapping, “You’re so sweet, you’re so fine — lovin’ you is a waste of my time” … for a while I can pretend all is well with the world.
thought off the wall:
Could the judge cite Peyton for contempt in not producing the EOP emails and throw her in jail until they are produced?
Should have finished reading your comment, Pete. Maybe someday Patrick Fitzgerald will be called to testify before congress by someone curious about the same issues? I hope this whole sorry administration won’t be forgotten by the 111th congress.
IANAL, but I’m going to take a stab at FRA vs PRA thingees.
If one were to assume for the sake of argument that certainly the NARA is an “agency” as defined by the FRA, and further that the OA is also an “agency” as defined by the FRA, then one could bring a lawsuit against both the NARA and OA that they are missing “records” that they are custodians of.
The OA is a “custodian” of the EOP’s emails, regardless of whether the topics of those emails are Federal or Presidential records.
In fact, one could argue that it is unknown whether the topics of the missing emails were communications with other Federal agencies (definitely covered under FRA) or whether they were Presidential communications because said records/emails are missing, so we don’t know what topics were covered.
If one viewed the lawsuit in this way, it would seem to be a “backdoor” or a “bootstrap” way of validly sueing for redress under FRA (and btw, the PRA apparently offers no such mechanism for redress).
The defendants cannot argue that the missing emails were only PRA communications because of the very fact that the topics of the missing emails are unknown.
In any event, as “custodians” of these missing records, and as “agencies” under FRA, both the NARA and OA are legally liable for their care and custody.
Kinda of neat way that CREW and NS Archives found to worm their way into the EOP’s doings. And it seems that the Judge is buying their arguments thusfar.
“Camel’s nose” they call it, I think.
Wasn’t the WH earlier trying to argue that OA was not an Agency, or was that just for FOIA purposes?
Methinks you are correct.
All in all, bmaz’s references to Abbott and Costello are more and more apropos. Who’s on first, indeed!
Pete, I collect videos/Youtubes of Issa in all of his splendor on the House Oversight Committee because I am volunteer coordinator for Robert Hamilton, who is running against him. I still don’t have the Plame Wilson hearing though, so if you know how to find it, please let me know. I heard Issa call Valerie a liar, the jack of asses.
There is a firepup/wheelio helping me put together a top notch Worst of the Worst Issa YouTube that we can get the word out about before the election. If you see any appropriate hearings, please note the date and time. We’ll order the CD’s from CSPAN, and put together a really professional piece. (Think Robert Greenwald would help?) Thanks.
Loo Hoo, Here’s a list of Plame related videos from CSPAN. I think you want the first one listed.
http://12.170.145.161/search/b…..Text=Plame
Thanks so much! Bookmarked.
See if any of these help:
Plame Hearing Videos
Hearing Videos II
PlamePart I
Plame Testifies
Great wealth, thanks, Pete!
Frankly, I believe that deep in our hearts we all suspect that that horse
(emails, drives, etc.) has long bolted the barn, and jumped the fence.
Like the lithe black sloop, she has slipped the watch and headed to sea on the black, stormy night. -To wax a little poetic like bmaz.
Still of course there is always hope for righting the wrong like in that Confederate Railroad song that we all sang to a young crewman once.
“Long gone.
…
He was long gone…long, long gone
skipping like a stone,
he packed up his heart and he was long gone
Nine months later on a tv show,
He saw a teary little woman that he used to know,
saying, “Lord, yes, Oprah, he left me back in Abilene”
Then she flashed his picture for the world to see,
Said, “If anybody knows this lousy SOB,
Tell him Junior’s hungry,
there ain’t nothing in this world for free!”
I know and I have high hopes that you can unseat Issa. Prick of the Century Award on that Committee is a close race, but I think Davis wins.
I will look and try to find the video if you still don’t have it after checking kspena’s link above. Let us know.
This stuff is crazy enough for judges to issue adverse inference instructions to juries about the contents of the “lost” emails. That happens all the time in corporate trials these days when companies pull similar stunts. Better watch out, Bushies.
The ultimate mobster “high”: laugh about your crimes in front of a judge and tell him to go Cheney himself, then entertain the boys at the prosecutor’s barbecue, bringing all the liquor. Al Capone’s mistake was doing his thing in Chicago, instead of Washington, DC. If he had, he’d have a library and “policy center” in Texas named after him by now.
ot: for bmaz and the lawyers if you got a moment.
so, sarah jane olson gets sentenced for her sla crimes, serves her time, gets released early for good behavior, is given permission to serve her parole in minnesota, is about to board the plane home when she is re-arrested and told there was a “clerical” error and she’s going back to prison for another year.
how common are these “clerical” errors? seems like her sentence and parole were being processed like any other prisoner until it – wasn’t.
http://www.latimes.com/news/lo…..ory?page=1
They are rarer then Hen’s teeth. I haven’t read any news yet. I’m sorry to hear that if it’s true. It’s inexcusable, and extremely rare.
Two weeks ago, a former mayor of a large city was jerked out of his half way house where they are allowed to work and report back at night because he had gotten early release through one of their drug rehab programs, but in motions for sentencing his multimillion dollar legal team had argued he had no drug history (which is the legal equivalant of trying to get the best sentencing for your client by saying he is what the Boy Scouts call “Brave, Clean and Reverent.”
What happens in the BOP is the drug programs and their medical programs are run by personnel who rarely can work anywhere else. Physicians are often not licensed in the U.S. but of course can work for good ole DOJ, and from foreign countries waiting to take their National Boards or the equivalants for them.
Many prisoners will get bullshit referral letters with fictional histories or get their attornies sometimes to line up referrals to get them into the drug program. That’s what Mr. Campbell did, and he was sailing out early, until the newspapers picked up on the inconsistency. BOP has and will refuse to comment on that situation, but it is rather typical. The only difference is in Campbell’s case he was well known, and joe blow prisoner usually isn’t so faking the drug rehab program works for them.
A date check is done for all BOP prisoners well in advance of their release date, by a mini-bureaucracy within their system that is responsible for double checking and calculating the date, and believe me if anything had been amisss, Mrs. Olson’s husband who is an MD would have been contacting the lawyers as any prisoner will if they think BOP is screwing with them–and screwing with them is extremely common. For the vast majority of these people, danger from other inmates is non-existent. What does loom large is harassment from BOP personnel. BOP is an agency of DOJ–and semi-autonomous. Their leverage with Congress is kind of an unwritten–”Hey do you want people who look like Late Night MSNBC inmates coming to rape your daugher?” and it’s very effective like most any ethos based on fear and ignorance and their is a pandemic of that in the U.S. Congress and federal court system right now.
I have seen BOP try to screw with someone’s dates, and a couple quick calls to DC stopped that on a dime, and I mean within two hours. They were wrong however in that case. BOP often acts very tough, but it’s not hard to find their pressure points. Like all bureaucracies they are frightened of the right things. So is DOJ and AOC, if you know who to call and have your ducks in a row as to certain matters.
thx for the reply. she is definitely back in prison. her lawyer is going to file some sort of appeal. we shall see.
I have seen computational errors causing this kind of issue before, it is rare but not unheard of. You would think that the Parole Board would have the common sense to make sure it had everything double checked and in order on a high profile case that is a lightning rod for the police though. Apparently not. If there was indeed an error as has been alleged, they are on solid ground taking her back into custody and the true computation should be easy to document.
thanks, bmaz.
Here is food for thought on the economic situation, based on today’s NYT, featuring three interesting articles today, link, link2 and Morgenson . Gretchen Morgenson explains one of the side benefits of the Bear Stearns bailout. BSC was a big player in credit default swaps, frequently referred to as one of the “complex instruments” that Wall Street specializes in. She describes them as insurance against bond defaults. If a company has a large position in bonds of a single company, it can go to a BSC and buy a guarantee that the bonds won’t default, hedging against disaster.
Obviously these instruments aren’t complex in the sense that they are hard to understand. They are complex because they are difficult to price. Suppose that I own bonds issued by GE. How worried am I that they will default: which the market translates into “How much would I pay to get a guarantee from, say, BSC or Citibank, that GE won’t fail”. On the other hand, if I own bonds issued by a more opaque firm, like Countrywide or Washington Mutual, how much more would I like a guarantee? How much would I pay, and maybe more important, how much would you charge for such a guarantee?
This is a fascinating and very complex problem to which Wall Street brings its usual solution: we use a “market”. Everyone can bid on such insurance, and the price at which the guy wanting a guarantee and the guy wanting to sell one agree must be the actual price. Presumably all of the sellers and buyers have complicated models to predict the risk of the guarantee. Markets are thought to work if certain conditions are met. One is that every player has equal information, and reasonably equivalent market power (neither is under pressure to buy or sell). Another is that we are dealing in identical instruments, which here means that all guarantee sellers are equal, and have an equal ability to perform if my bonds default.
Oddly, no one actually asked if this application of the concept of a market met the theoretical conditions. If they had, they might have guessed that these markets are a lot like the market in presidential elections: people make their best guess at which candidate will win the election, and maybe it works. That’s a lot of faith for a market with a notional value of $43TN dollars. That’s trillion with a T.
Of course, regulation is a recipe for disaster, according to all of the experts who got us into this mess. But for me, the best part of all three articles is the “Who could have guessed” part. Everyone is hiding behind it, most notably James Dimon, whose firm, JP Morgan Chase, held a whole lot of credit swaps related to ….. wait for it …. Bear Stearns.
And so too Bush’s brother, Cheney’s mother or Paulson’s other as to interests in the Bear?
Heh, but as I just pointed out, we won’t really know. I hope the losers include Carlyle and Halliburton.
Manny thanks for a really lucid and clear summary.
And here is something else to think about. Who is the loser in this deal if Morgenson and the other NYT reporters are right about the credit swap part? Morgenson says the credit guarantee business is infested with speculators.
This business isn’t transparent. No one knows who the counterparties are, but they are screwed. If they were playing with leveraged dollars, they may be royally screwed. But not to worry, because the managers of the hedge funds betting against these companies get paid on paper gains, so they are safe. Investors? Not so much.
Have you ever wondered who invests in hedge funds? Sure, lots of rich people do. But so does Calpers, Yale’s endowment, and you don’t know who else. Like your municipality.
Like your municipality.
Yup.
This is linked to the Big Shitpile in several ways: the value of municipal bonds, the security of municipal bonds, and of course the financing of cities stuck with tracts of foreclosed neighborhoods.
Maybe it should be updated to ‘Really, Incredibly, Monstrously Vast BIG Shitpile.’
I’ve been unable to get logged on or get a new password sent to me the last couple of days. I have one now, but am about to walk out the door, so real quick:
“Audacity of Nope” is stellar.
This is a recurring issue for me on so many different fronts. There has been all kinds of litigation, from wiretaps to outing CIA agents to whistleblower retaliaion to torture … etc. etc. etc. Where the hell are the DOJ notices for those various adverse matters directing preservation? No one ever seems to even ask about them. What kind of lawyers don’t give preservation directions? IANALitigator, but geezlouise, from the time they made “the American Taliban” sign off waiving his torture claims and had a whistleblower issue there with Raddack, shouldn’t there have been preservation notices? Anytime I have worked with a company or with a firm in those kind of adverse circumstances, preservation protocols are set. I’m pretty darn perplexed at not only the lack of notices but the lack of interest it them.
My response to this would go a bit to the long comment I had that got evaporated bc while I was typing it the thread closed for comments (LOL – someone once told a friend, as a comment on my luck, that if I took up goldfish as a hobby, the bowl would inexplicably break).
But IMO a lot of what happened and failed to happen goes to the in-house appointments and limted scope issues. Even so, no one is making Fitzgerald appear and testify or defy subpoeans, as seems to be the fad these days in DOJ, and I think there are several areas where he could legitimately be questioned. Instead, it seems that the only times Congressional committees send him epistles it is for things that he pretty clearly can’t discuss (e.g., the issuance of a report – while technically perhaps it could have been done it was stated from the beginning of his appointment that he understood it to not include a report being issued and, since he’s in house at DOJ, I think that’s probably correct).
Still, from way back when, I thought he should be asked about what steps he took when he found out that records were not being kept and what steps were appropriate for someone in house at DOJ to take when they discovered that the Executive Branch was not complying with the law for Presidential records (I know this case is about Fed Records and that is legitimate too – it’s just when I was yammering about it Presidential were the only ones I mentioned). Did he make a referral? To whom? Did he request preservation notices go out? To whom, what response, etc. etc. etc.
I also really wanted and was hoping for a committee to explore more on the in house and outside special prosec appointments and get Fitzgerald to answer questions relating to whether or not DOJ took a position at any time during his tenure as in house spec pros on whether or not his supervisor had input on his charging decisions (there was some interesting voice in the wilderness argument on that that issue kind of out of the blue in the post trial libby arguments on motions) or, for example, on whether or not the delegations of authority to Margolis had ever been called back in any fashion and how would anyone outside of DOJ have known one way or the other, and if the delegation of authority to him had ever changed or if there had ever been any decisions made by him that were overruled or modified by DOJ persons in a supervisory stance to his investigation (Margolis, possibly McNulty, etc.)
All that should have been asked for purposes of clearing the air on how the investigation was handled and so we would have some record for future inhouse appointments, but it never was. There might not be any big things to be found out if they did pin the tails on the elephants, but someone should do cleanup and on a lot of that, there’s no real ground for him not to provide answers as to the mechanics of what he did or could do – without getting into details of the items which triggered disputes if there were disputes.
Maybe I can get back (and get back on too) later.
94 – my understanding from back in Oct was that, come mid-Nov of last year there were going to be some accounting rule changes for those kinds of “securities” for which there really was no true market (often things are done as closed deals) and which were tremendously susceptible to companies putting on an inflated values when there was no liquidity or marketablity for the assets.
The result that many feared was that, when required to go to a truer valuation standard, balance sheets for finanicial industry business (banks, brokerages, etc.) would take hard hits. Kind of like years back someone telling me to put together a balance sheet and take “assets” I am not actively trying to sell (like my blind in one eye, unbroken pasture ornament pony) and just put a value on him, one that wouldn’t be checked against any true measure, and I put a $35,000 tag on him (let’s face it, my half blind pony is priceless by any measure, but just saying) then years later, after I have gotten loans or sold stock based on that “worth” (and not just for that one pony, but by then for herds of half blind ponies) having someone come in and say — nonono, those ponies are really only “worth” about $300, if that.
So there were rumblings from back last fall that the accounting change for those kinds of things was going to be a big issue that would make the subprime issue much worse. I have no idea if that is what was a part of the Bear Stearns bond insurance security valuation issue or not, just that there was some discussion that I didn’t follow closely or understand greatly, but that I kept expecting to hear more about in MSM financial coverage (which is usually better than their other news coverage)
The FASB governs accounting rules. IANAAccountant, so what we have here is googling results and my best effort to understand them. The basic rule appears to be FASB 133. The FASB stated its intention to amend the rule in May 2007. The link is to a status page, which says:
The last sentence calls for an independent measure of the value of the hedging instrument, which sounds something like a mark to market approach. In addition, there are requirements for more disclosure about gains and losses on hedge transactions, including reports about the gains and losses on the transactions during each reporting period for unresolved transactions (I think), and a report on the effectiveness of the hedge transaction.
The last one is particularly interesting. I looked at the Goldman Sachs financials, which have a footnote on accounting for derivatives, which includes the following:
Goldman Sachs uses FASB 133 to account for its derivatives. So it looks like they will be providing more information, even though even a reasonably informed reader isn’t likely to understand the disclosure, and it won’t necessarily be consistent between companies.
More interesting is whether you only get to use hedge accounting if you are actually trying to hedge some transaction in your own business. Southwest Airlines has for some time been hedging against the price of jet fuel, and has been able to keep its prices down as a result. So, they could use hedge accounting. Goldman Sachs probably uses some hedges to protect its accounts and manage its own risks. However, to the extent it is speculating in hedges as a counter party or a seller of credit insurance as I described above, it isn’t clear that it can use hedge accounting. In that case, it would be required to use some fair market value for the stuff it is writing.
Query: is this guarantee stuff part of what Atrios calls the big shitpile?
My take on the PST files, is that you ought to take the whole hard drive. Users with some degree of saviness can move, copy, delete or replace their PST files.
Further, the court ought to copy the contents of current and inventoried hard drives from the actual servers .. whether such servers are in the WH or are in custody of the IT vendors. Once you have the contents of the hard drives and the servers, the courts would be able to do a proper inventory, and find out what’s missing and when. You’d also be able to see what files were changed and when, which could prove quite interesting.
Mary, I’m sure I’m going to be EPU’d again and you’re going out again, but if you’re interested, I wrote a reply to you about Khadr and Arar near the end of the last Libby thread.
Another incredibility in Payton’s Declaration. They send hard drives to be destroyed by another agency for Security reasons, and they don’t record which ones? Aw come on.
I do believe that, as the email information is vital to our country, one or more of the principles should be water boarded (though not tortured) so that we may get to the truth of the matter.
OT
A little more underreported history on the primary clusterfuck.
As others have noted…perfect bmaz!
The 15-year-old added to it:
The audacity of nope.
The plurality of hope.
Hope the b-day and weekend have been great. You’re doing great with your postings!
Hope the judge reads blogs…Especially, this one…
I just read bmaz’ linked “declaration” by Payton & you’re right: they (at least according to her) replaced entire workstations on this 3 year schedule.
A couple observations after reading Payton’s statement:
* HD is most critical piece of hardware in this process (upgrading network pcs), regardless of other hardware (entire pc) replaced, and it is more complex than one would think. Micrsoft(MS) has for some years provided tools &/or “best practices” to assist/execute this process, with varying degrees of success (been big problems/challenges for some time). Among issues involved is migrating necessary data from old machine/disk to new. The fore-mentioned MS tools are intended to facilitate this. W/out going into tech minutae, ideally it goes something like this:
– profile of individual machine(s) or “groups” are created which defines what data needs to be saved & moved to new machine.
– said “profiles” are “executed” over the network, w/data stored on individual machines (disks) moved to some network storage.
– Following MS’ best practices, networked machines OS install can be tailored for specific needs as required, well beyond specificity most home/small office users are acquainted with. This includes permissions (what files can be accessed, edited, deleted)/limitations to network access as needed/logon priveliges both locally & network/ (un)install software/ecryption policies… all kinds of stuff. Again, an SA w/his salt will get as much of this as possible onto an OS install, tailored for targeted groups.
– As Payton says in her “declaration” as a reason to not produce court requested “forensic” copies, downtime and interrupting continuity of work is a prime consideration.” EG., putting together pre-configured OS installs which minimize or eliminate post-OS install customization saves time for system admins, users etc.
– MS (and 3rd party sofware/companies) provide tools to merge saved data from old machines to to new OS install so that each install is as complete as possible… again, having to come back after initial machine setup and add various programs/data can be disruptive and/or time consuming. The individual software apps, when designed for network (rather than stand alone) use, frequently are equipped by respective software’s vendor w/”tools” that cooperate w/MS’ network install schemes so that their
apps (upgraded or not) can be integrated into each OS install. When (for various reasons) this is impossible/impractical, similarly “network-enabled” apps most often are equipped by their vendor w/tools that make installation over network (rather than having to pop an install CD in each individual machine) as seamless as possible. For example, installing XXX app on (xxx) # of machines in directory (xxx) w/in a given IP range is pretty well standardized practice.
– I’ve seen many, many variations on this process over the years… depending on critical down time (eg: cost from lost work) considerations to complexity of various networked p/c setups. In many cases, MS tools are inadequate for a smooth upgrade. In a lot of such situations, there are various ways to get the job done. For example, tools exist for the purpose of pulling hard drives from both old/new machines, taking them to in house location equipped w/hardware which will mount 10/50/100/??? (as needed) HDs and “replicate” installs, including merging of old w/new data. Good sys admin’s would determine # hrs. required to prepare (XXX) # of machines in a given # of off-time (eg: midnight to 4:am for example), then do the work on determined # of machines while users are sleeping. There’s quite a few different combinations of MS’ tools & variations on this process Sys admins
use to get these things done in fashion that minimizes “inconveniences” and maximizes efficiency of transition. I’ll also mention a similar process is required when only software is being upgraded (eg: newer OS or critical updates, new email/spreadsheet/3rd party vendor software, etc.
etc.): eg. installs are pre-configured as much as possible, installed over nework when possible, and when done properly are pre-planned so that incompatibilities between hardware/existing OS, possible updated file formats (Word 7.x >> XML for example) operate smoothly on first go-around. This process may include processing of data files from format (ex: Word version mentioned) to that required by newer software ver. (or new networked policy for given file format).
I say this to bring attention to contradiction in what Payton’s implying in her declaration, eg: amongst most baseline considerations in a migration like this would be moving email from old >> new machine for each account… eg. continuity of ongoing conversations and such would be one of primary considerations for a qualified SA. This means that her explanation
that hardware upgrade would define beginning/ending of continuity of data… particularly email, doesn’t make any sense logistically: that data should be and would expected to be migrated from old to new machines.
If .PST files were deleted from a given machine during a previous upgrade cycle, they would not be expected to be available. Pertinent point: the availability of court requested “forensic” copies is a function of .PST deletions far more than hardware upgrade cycles.
…
From Payton’s “declaration”:
It’s not clear to me what “copied over” means: eg. “copied over” to new disk/machine, or new (eg: empty) PST file “copied over” old. As mentioned above, I’d fail to understand how/why “old” .PSTs and accompanying mail would not be migrated to new machines. Only scenario I can envision where this would not happen if given workstation had a new user, new job description etc.
Given Payton’s job description, I’m also struck by qualifications in her statement to insulate herself from direct knowledge of “stuff” which she should absolutely not only be intimately familiar with, but also the decision/policy maker. Yet, she describes many such categories of information as passed to her by 3rd party (eg: “so and so tells me that…”). For example,
Regarding “forensic copy”, I’ve used a product since ‘01: R-STUDIO… costs under $200 for networked version, which would produce required “copies” discreetly, executed from the server (eg: no going from machine to machine), and do so reliably. R-STUDIO (there are other very good similar products) has saved both my/customer’s bacon on several occasions, and works flawlessly.
…
Lastly, I find Payton… both in this statement and previous congressional hearings, to sound far more like political operative than skilled tech person in domain of affairs which she’s supposed to be in charge. Many, many times I’ve site in board/meeting rooms where progress reports by
contracted software vendors were delivered in such a manner. The effective use of tech jargon, gobbledy-gooked into nothingness, can and does get used frequently by vendors in failing projects. Such talk is more or less intended to scramblesthe brains of non-tech versed managers who have no clue about the subject at hand.
I know it when I hear it. And that’s all I’ve heard from this woman.
I would hope, should Payton return to congressional hearings, that questioners would get some good tech folks advising them… reviewing her statements we currently have, focusing in on knowable specifics which she obfuscates, and getting these Reps up-to-speed on tech knowledge
required to bamboozle-proof their understanding. This is a very, very doable task. Doing w/sound tech knowledge what WhiteHouse has done w/sound legal knowledge would go a long way to cracking this nut open.
Does the WH have disaster recovery ability? If yes, then they have redundant systems, which means there are backup tapes of the redundant systems – another place to look for .pst files.
Maryo2:
EW blogged the Waxman hearings on this, relevant thread is here:
(shortlink): http://shrinkify.com/28o
Short answer: Payton says they don’t know. I’m a techie for around 20 yrs. & know my trade well: I say she does know. I made my case in above thread, particularly comment # 151.
You can look there if you like & judge for yourself.
As I tried to highlight in looooong comment above, it’s rather clear to me Payton is running interference rather than clarification, much less expediting data recovery.
JDM, I appreciate the citations with review, which reflect my impression after reading the January 15 hearing transcript of Payton’s evasive testimony, watching some of the Payton hearing, reading the McDevitt formal responses to interrogatories, and reading both of Payton’s declarations, the first in mid January and the second submitted to Judge Facciola last Friday March 21, 2008. My impression is she is couching her answers in terms which point to her overseers in the legal department, and the replies are also intended to numb the uninitiated’s minds with technical discussions which always end in misdirection and imprecision. However, there was one item I reviewed from Waxman himself which I discovered I may have mistaken with an analysis online subsequently regarding Paytons’ work performance. It was Waxman who described the transition from Notes to Exchange in his February 26, 2008 report at pp4-5. What he describes occurred prior to Payton’s assuming the CIO post. The migration from Notes to Exchange occurred 2004-2005; Payton became CIO May 2006. The succession at the CIO post involved a gap, January 2005-May 2006 when Director of OA John Straub served as interim CIO; prior to Straub’s temporary covering of the CIO post, the CIO had been Carlos Solari July 2003 – January 2005. The Waxman description includes the impeachment era and Clinton IT management, as well, describing lost emails during the golden age of Notes, before Exchange even existed as an off the shelf product. A lot of corporate Notes afficionados in the business world were resisting the transition to Exchange in the late 90s as well; but there was also a political side to the Waxman description, seemingly, as if there were lost Clinton emails, as well. But that was on the older, less secure platform. Exchange is a business grade product now, and has been since the WH migrated to it definitively. However, what Waxman depicts is a decision, likely during Solari’s term as CIO, to disable the archiving security features Clinton put in place, and to leave the system open to editing by most of the employees in the executive branch, until approximately the time Payton became CIO. I am sure I still have some details jumbled, here; and I agree Payton is obfuscating. Beyond the Notes-Exchange issues are the issues with backups, journals and logs; and several writers have covered those flaws in the Payton CIO policies well. My impression at the hearing was Payton averred there were disaster-catastrophe backups available but she seemed to be temporizing and resisting delving into those for the committee or the court. For the reader who was looking for a hearing transcript, I have the draft transcript MadDog reported, there. I think one of the most interesting documents is the Waxman published 21 pp grid of each white House account which has less than expected email archives for some days, and virtually no emails archives for yet other days, in sum more than 700 days with skimpy or absent emails. The grid seems to point to more than a defective script, and more toward some other mechanism such as nonbackup, deliberate erasure, maybe edits, or nonretrieval. I favor the latter, but where the pst files are the topic, edits and stripping attachments also become likely criteria for guidance during the forensics.
i’m not ever going to understand the techie details of all this .. but i commend you posters here for laying it out very clearly .. my take on it is very simple .. something is rotten .. not in denmark .. but in the white house ..
[snark] you don’t think the bush administraton would lie to us do you ?? [/snark]