Sure, thats exactly what happened, the IT guy screwed up and tried to fix it and accidently deleted something. Because you know, he was an IT guy and I am sure wasn't following the news and had no idea the implication of doing so.
According to Politifacts timeline a subpeona was issued on March 4th. Then, around March 24th they were deleted. So, there may be no evidence that she or her team asked for them to be deleted - but they had 20 days to ask for them all to be retained and to tell him to NOT delete the emails.
At a minimum its grossly incompetent. If a company tried to pull that in a court of law they would be screwed.. 'Oh I am sorry your honor, I forgot to tell IT to not delete all the records you ask for, and so they did it anyway'. Whether she asked or not its an example of a disregard for the law, she obviously made the decision that she would take less political heat deleting them than releasing them, if you think otherwise then you are kidding yourself.
Citation please? Any evidence that "people were predicting the death of the oil industry" in the 1950 or 1960s? You wouldn't just be making this up, right?
Well that was hard to find... Peak Oil
The idea that the rate of oil production would peak and irreversibly decline is an old one. In 1919, David White, chief geologist of the United States Geological Survey, wrote of US petroleum: "... the peak of production will soon be passed, possibly within 3 years."
Maybe we should take all the oil subsidies & give them to the solar/wind/geo folks.
That would be nice, except there aren't any oil subsidies http://www.washingtontimes.com...
In summary, every time you hear someone talk about oil subsidies, they are likely talking about tax deductions taken by the oil and gas companies. There aren't specific oil company tax deduction though, they are just using the same deductions that all industrial companies from GM to Apple use.
Eric is confusing two issues, probably purposefully.
The issue of illegal (at least against US citizens) mass surveillance by the NSA and the like is one problem - but as others have pointed out, its something that should be assumed to always be happening, and doesn't have any real impact on the internet. People make a fuss about it, particularly in the US, but I think most people assumed it was happening anyway and it hasn't really changed the way that people, businesses or governments operate. Just look at the recent Silk Road story as an example
The issue that has everyone jittery is the close cooperation that has been shown between the US Government and US based companies, and from a legal perspective the stance that the US government is taking on data stored by US companies, outside the US, for a non-US entity. This has a huge effect on Google's business in particular, not as an adverting company - I would be surprised if they are loosing a significant amount of their consumer business - but rather their growing enterprise / cloud business. No one outside the US will want to switch to Gmail if their email can be read, without their knowledge, by the US Government issuing a National Security Letter, or even just by any local judge issuing a subpoena.
This is what they are talking about when they say you have to start a data center in Germany just to serve customers there. Its not the NSA hacking your system, or even snooping on the wire people are worried about. Its the legal and risk issue that the US government can seize your data, without any notification, and you have no legal recourse to prevent it happening.
Its a great opportunity for companies in Europe, but if your a US headquartered company, as Google is, its going to break *your* small part of the internet
WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL: Firings will continue until morale improves.