Loitering is rarely illegal and anti-loitering statutes have been ruled unconstitutional.

Unless you are loitering with the clear intent to commit a crime you are pretty much free to hang out on any street, as Souter said, "...just to watch cars go by."

The Archivist of the United States testified yesterday that the IRS did not follow the law as it relates to the Federal Records Act.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/us-archivist-tells-oversight-committee-the-irs-did-not-follo

Is not following the law the same as breaking it?

Everyone else appears ready to accept that those emails were official records requiring preservation.

Demonstrate or provide your own citation.

I never cited malice and I don't care what reason the emails are missing. An email is more likely than not an official record. You certainly can't prove what you're attempting to state; how do you know official records aren't amongst the missing emails?

The IRS is required by law to preserve their official records. The law doesn't say, "Well, only if you're competent, or it's convenient, or you have the budget for it."

The IRS has certified that they retain their official records.

Unless you can demonstrate that there are no official records in the missing emails then, yes, the IRS has failed to preserve their records as required by law.

You may want to argue that it was incompetence that caused them to violate the law. Others may want to argue that it was malice. What is not arguable is that the IRS and its employee, Lois Lerner, failed to adhere to the requirements of the Federal Records Act.

Poor Ms. Woods tried to argue that it was an "accident" that 18 minutes of tapes were erased. This is the reason the Federal Records Act and its associated certifications exist.

Perhaps you would like to argue that it's mere coincidence combined with incompetence that caused similar disk crashes and email destruction to occur to six other employees closely associated with this issue.

At some point one has to look at the bigger picture. Through negligence, malfeasance, incompetence or evil conspiracy, important evidence related to an abuse by the IRS against citizens of the United States is missing. The more evidence that goes missing and the more sources of evidence that disappear the more like a conspiracy it looks than mere incompetence.

You are free to draw your own conclusion related to the facts but this particular thread started because you seemed to be find it incredulous that the IRS had a policy of printing their emails for preservation. Now that that belief has been shattered you still cling to some hope that even though official records were destroyed, by whatever means, continued investigation is just a GOP stunt.

Again, I've already shown you documentation from the government indicating that the IRS email system is not a recordkeeping system according to the Federal Records Act and its associated regulations.

I've also shown you the letter from the Department of the Treasury indicating that Lois Lerner was required to print any email that is an official record; which are almost all emails that are work related.

You can continue to attempt to obfuscate the issue but the facts remain: Lois Lerner and a bunch of other people associated with this issue failed to preserve official records as required by IRS policy and federal law. The IRS failed to preserve records even though they certified their systems would preserve those records.

Stop trying to project your corporate IT mentality onto systems managed by federal agencies. Watergate and 18 missing minutes helped shape the requirements found in the federal records act for good reason.

These emails were official records. Being official records they had to be maintained in an official recordkeeping system. The IRS email system is not an electronic recordkeeping system, by definition. Lois Lerner's hard drive was not an electronic recordkeeping system, by definition. The IRS official recordkeeping system for email is, by evidence of the letter I've already cited, hard copy print outs of the email.

Are you purposefully being obtuse?

Here is the full definition of a Federal record from the Federal Records Act:

"...all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the U.S. Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of the data in them." (44 U.S.C. 3301, Definition of Records)

Any email that went to the White House concerning the business of the IRS is, by definition, an official record requiring preservation.

Any email that constituted a decision making process, procedures or operations is, by definition, an official record requiring preservation.

Perhaps you would care to actually identify a class of emails that pertain to auditing, evaluation of applications for tax-exempt status, procedures to follow when processing such applications or emails that discuss IRS business between the White House and the IRS that would not be official records. Until you can accurately define such a class of emails then it is safe to say that the emails were official records requiring preservation.

As I showed you in the letter from the Department of the Treasury, Lois Lerner was required to physically print those emails and store them. The IRS's failure to properly preserve those records was a violation of law. Lois Lerner's failure to preserve those records was, at least, a violation of IRS policy.

The FDA regulates "drugs" under the very thorough Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Drugs, food and cosmetics that come under the jurisdiction of the act are quite well defined, as well as what and how the FDA is to regulate them. The statute doesn't say, "The FDA should regulate drugs." The statute defines what is a drug, what conditions a drug must meet in order to be regulated and how it is to be regulated. What causes any particular drug to be regulated is that it meets the definition and conditions that Congress established.

A good example is the definition of catfish, found within the act, "the term 'catfish' may only be considered to be a common or usual name (or part therof) for fish classified within the family Ictaluridae;..." No other fish can be regulated as a catfish.

The term "drug" means (A) articles recognized in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, or official National Formulary, or any supplement to any of them; and (B) articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals; and (C) articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals; and (D) articles intended for use as a component of any article specified in clause (A), (B), or (C).

Furthermore the act goes on to state that the drugs have to be involved in interstate commerce.

So, while the statute doesn't list every drug that is regulated by the FDA, the statute gives a very clear definition of what a drug is and gives authority to the FDA to regulate it. But, what can be regulated is also very well defined. The statute lays out very specific prohibited acts that the FDA is supposed to regulate; these acts include: adulteration or misbranding, receipt of adulterated or misbranded drugs, false guarantees of what the drug does, forging, counterfeiting and a host of other items.

Even though the act doesn't list all approved drugs it does identify what list is to be recognized by the FDA, e.g. United States Pharmacopoeia.

The act was originally passed in the late 1940s and has been amended many times. Without the act the FDA wouldn't be permitted to regulate food, drugs or cosmetics. If the item doesn't fit the definition of a food, drug or cosmetic as outlined in the act then the FDA isn't permitted to regulate it. If the action isn't prohibited by the act then the FDA isn't permitted to regulate the action.

I would never argue that "drugs" as defined under statute is too broad and not specific enough because the act gives the lists from which "drugs" is to be taken. Why do you think the FDA is unable to regulate the late-night snake-oil infomercials? Could it be because those items don't meet the definition of drugs as laid out by the act? Or is it because the actions aren't prohibited? I think a layman watching the commercials would think that drugs were being advertised and they would be wrong.

Actually, it is Congress' obligation to be extremely specific in the laws they write. The nondelegation doctrine is an important concept in American jurisprudence.

J.W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States helped establish the rules under which power can be delegated, essentially stating that Congress has to establish an "intelligible standard" for the executive or legislative branch.

Congress can't simply tell the executive branch, "Hey, you guys control pollution so we can have a clear sky." Congress has to establish an intelligible standard upon which an administrative agency can build regulations AND Congress has to grant the power to the agency to establish those rules. Typical statutes might read, "...xxx agency is empowered to institute regulations in support of this statute."

The function of the executive agency was not to create rules but, rather, to faithfully enforce the laws of the United States. The fact that Congress has found numerous ways in order to delegate its power to the executive agency doesn't change the fundamental design of the system. This delegation of power is what's lead everyone to believe the executive branch holds more power than it really does.

The most unfortunate thing about Congress' abdication of power to the executive branch using so many specific delegations is that we've created a situation in aggregate where the executive has an almost blanket delegation of Congressional power; a delegation that would be unconstitutional if granted via a single Congressional action.

Just to be more specific on what the IRS does, you can follow this link to see a letter from Leonard Oursler, the national director for legislative affairs for the Department of the Treasury, to the chairman and ranking member of the finance committee.

In the letter, Mr. Oursler indicates that it was Lois Lerner's responsibility to preserve the emails as an official government record, "...the email must be printed and placed in the appropriate file by the employee."

The issue here is that emails related to operations, decision making and a host of other subjects are official government records that must be preserved. These preservation requirements fall well outside standard IT-style email retention policies.

IRM (IRS Manual) 1.15.6 Managing Electronic Records Found here
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1.15.6.6
Standards for Managing Electronic Mail Records ...
3. IRS offices will not store the official recordkeeping copy of e-mail messages that are federal records ONLY on the electronic mail system, unless the system has all of the features of an electronic recordkeeping system, some of which are specified in paragraph 2 above. If the electronic mail system is not designed to be a recordkeeping system, ask an E-Mail/System Administrator to instruct you on how to copy the information from the electronic mail system to a recordkeeping system or produce a hard copy[emphasis mine] for recordkeeping purposes.

4. IRS offices that maintain their e-mail records electronically will move or copy them to a separate electronic recordkeeping system unless their system has the features specified in IRM 1.15.6.6.2 above. Backup tapes are not to be used for recordkeeping purposes.[emphasis mine] ...

6. Offices that maintain paper files as their recordkeeping systems will print their e-mail records[emphasis mine] and the related transmission and receipt data. ...

Exhibit 1.15.6-1
Common Questions about E-Mail

Are there special requirements for retaining e-mail messages as records
The basic requirements applicable to all records apply to e-mail records as well. If they are not in an approved electronic recordkeeping system, then the e-mail messages identified as records must be printed out and placed in the appropriate record system[emphasis mine]. However, there are some specific elements for records sent or received through e-mail which also must be captured in addition to the message to satisfy recordkeeping requirements. You should ensure that...

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There are a bunch of other IRS manuals that discuss printing, filing and retaining records. The issue here is that there is a requirement, formalized by statute and regulation, that all government agencies retain records.

Now about your guarantee; it doesn't say that each and every email has to be printed. It says that if there isn't a suitable electronic recordkeeping system then it has to be printed.

Backup systems are specifically prohibited from playing the role of a recordkeeping system.

Recordkeeping systems are required to maintain all documentation related to the decision making process.

Backup systems are run by the IRS and they can pretty much set their own standards on how to manage their IT organization. Recordkeeping systems standards, on the other hand, are established by law and regulation and managed by the National Archives taking out of the hands of any agency the power to set their own retention periods.

When it comes to email, for example, if the agency does not maintain an adequate recordkeeping system, as defined by the National Archives, then they are required to print each and every email and file them using a very specific protocol.

There is no exception and the IRS is not permitted to invent their own recordkeeping system standards. The IRS has previously certified to Congress and the National Archives that they have appropriate recordkeeping systems. It is up to the National Archives to determine the retention period for documents, electronic and paper, that are retained for recordkeeping purposes.

The fact that emails involved in a decision making process are lost indicates that the IRS does not have an appropriate recordkeeping system. This, by itself, is a violation of federal law.

Correct, these were not tax records, they were emails.

Federal law, general federal agency regulations and IRS specific regulations required these emails be kept for a much longer period of time in a formal recordkeeping system. The IRS, if they truly "lost" these emails, could only do so if their previous certifications claiming to follow the required recordkeeping regulations were untrue.

Where does the 6 months of emails come from? If that's true then the IRS is in violation of many federal laws as well as their own records retention regulations.

From the IRS Standards for Managing Electronic Mail Records:

"IRS offices will not store the official recordkeeping copy of e-mail messages that are federal records ONLY on the electronic mail system, unless the system has all of the features of an electronic recordkeeping system, some of which are specified in paragraph 2 above. If the electronic mail system is not designed to be a recordkeeping system, ask an E-Mail/System Administrator to instruct you on how to copy the information from the electronic mail system to a recordkeeping system or produce a hard copy for recordkeeping purposes."

Other federal regulations require printed and filed copies of electronic records (including emails) unless they are stored in an approved recordkeeping system. All emails related to decision making processes are, by the way, defined as records that must be kept.

This is done now by American Express.

I made some charges on my AMEX card that did not fit my usual pattern. The merchant received a message telling them to call an AMEX phone number for further verification. Almost simultaneously, my cell phone rang with a voice call and I received a text message, both from AMEX. I was able to respond to either one and let the clerk re-scan the credit card to allow it to go through.

I also received a message from AMEX that their iPhone app can handle the authorization extra-step if I chose to install it. During the phone call they even inquired if I was on wifi and wanted to install the app.

I wouldn't argue that government can't do anything right though you probably consider me part of that crowd.

I would argue that the larger the government entity, the less efficiently it can do anything. If there was government ownership of utility infrastructure I would prefer it was done at a local government level where there's some level of accountability to the voters. I firmly believe that federal ownership and management of internet infrastructure would be a disaster.

I've only lived in a couple of places that had actual competition amongst cable TV providers. My experience with government owned infrastructure was no different than that owned by private entities. While we may argue that government should own the last-mile the fact is that whether it's run by a government entity or business the entity has to have a way of covering costs - either through rates or taxes. Again, this comes to size. I'd prefer to deal with a small, local entity than a large, national one.

An issue faced by networking infrastructure providers is that it has, so far, needed to be upgraded on a fairly consistent basis.

The water, electricity and POTS lines have needed maintenance but have, for the most part, been a rather stable infrastructure. Networking infrastructure, on the other hand, has had significant requirements for upgrading over the past 30 years. There will always be a segment of the population that wants the latest and fastest (I'm in that category) and another segment that sees no reason to upgrade (my 83 year old father actually preferred, at one time, when the web page loaded no faster than he could read it). If taxes are required to cover the cost of upgrading infrastructure then you will likely face a large opposition to raising those taxes from people who think the service is "good enough."

Here's a list of 251 publicly owned electric & gas utilities in the U.S. At the bottom of the list are state and federal power agencies.

Everywhere I've lived (approximately 15 cities across five states) the water utility has been owned by a municipality or county. I know there are plenty of others that are privately owned, I just haven't lived there.

The cable and telephone companies that I know used to be owned by municipalities were sold off to private enterprises some time ago though I expect that many still exist.