Again, you fail to answer the question: Where does it say that email is to be saved more than six months? All you have is that a government agency must retain records. However if you actually read the statutes it clearly says in 3105 (1):
that records in the custody of the agency are not to be alienated or destroyed except in accordance with sections 3301-3314 of this title, and
If you follow then to Chapter 33.
3308. Disposal of similar records where prior disposal was authorized
When it appears to the Archivist that an agency has in its custody, or is accumulating, records of the same form or character as those of the same agency previously authorized to be disposed of, he may empower the head of the agency to dispose of the records, after they have been in existence a specified period of time, in accordance with regulations promulgated under section 3302 of this title and without listing or scheduling them.
If the IRS has a 6 month retention policy, then it clearly falls under the guidelines set by Chapters 31 and 33 that after a certain time period that they can be disposed.
That's a nice story but it does not explain why only e-mail to external people were lost and internal e-mail messages could be retrieved
They weren't. The Fox story fails to mention that the IRS has recovered 24,000 emails from 83 individuals from their local HDs. The Politico story mentions it. This is why I'm distrustful of Fox News.
Had it played out as you explained then all e-mail from some date in the past, where the e-mail had exceeded quotas, would have been lost.
Again the Politico story specifically mentions that the IRS only keeps 6 months on their servers. After that individuals can keep them longer but it is not an agency mandate.
What smells the worst about this is that we are hearing about this just now.
You are only hearing about it now because the IRS keeps getting more and more requests for information. The last subpoena requested all of Lerner's old media including old HDs. I don't know about you but my company would take some time locating that information if I had a HD replaced. And then researching what happened to that HD 3 years ago.
Generally you would take an image of the drive and put it on tape for archival purposes before destroying it...
And if the HD is not functioning, how do you image it? I'm not an expert on HDs but if the HD fails to work, I don't have a lot of tools to fix this. Data Recovery companies have many tools and procedures to try to recover the data. Some things to try is replacing different parts like the board, head, etc. I do not see a lowly IT tech having these tools.
Only a moron would believe that there are no records of those emails. The mailbox database would be replicated(to 16 different locations if my tax rate is accurate). If their admins are not complete morons those servers are backed up nightly(or even more frequently) to tape and spinning rust. The tape is then archived offsite for later use
This was covered. IRS keeps emails and their backups for 6 months only. The emails wanted go back 3 years.
Therefore subpoena every email from anyone in the government to Lois Lerner, and every email from her to every government official. This should allow cross referencing of all of the emails and you could easily rebuild the emails from those chains. even if someone didn't get the email from her it would be referenced in an email that was forwarded to someone else.
This was done. The IRS retrieved 24,000 emails from 83 individuals on their local HDs. There are of course emails that will be missing. Her mails off her HD in this case.
You seem to be postulating a lot of "if"s on a lowly IT tech who replaced a HD. Possibilities:
1) IT tech gets a ticket that said "Computer not working." It was diagnosed to be a failing HD. After trying to recover the data and failing, the HD was replaced. Old HD was recycled/destroyed. This does not violate any data retention policies as no data was likely to be recovered.
2) IT tech colluded with Lerner to destroy a HD that had damaging emails 2 years before a scandal erupted.
3) Lerner with great technical expertise manages to fake out a IT Tech in thinking a HD was bad and making it impossible to recover.
I would think Occam's razor favors #1.
General Correspondence Files - Correspondence ( not covered elsewhere in the Schedule) with the National Office, regional offices, district offices, or subordinate offices concerning program activities involving policy, procedures, decisions, etc, not made a part of a specific case
This only applies to general policies not individual cases.
As an IRS official, she was obligated to record all E-mails related to tax decisions; whether there was a pending investigation or scandal is irrelevant.
She did. It was on her HD. She was bad at backups but so is most of the computer using world.
Government officials are required to transfer any relevant E-mails to permanent record keeping systems; what the server E-mail retention policy is is irrelevant. Here is an explanation for the EPA (but the same rules apply to all agencies):
I don't see this anywhere as a regulation that applies to the IRS. Each individual agency can set their rules in addition to data retention policy. The EPA seems to do things differently than the IRS.
Furthermore, Obama make a campaign pledge of openness and transparency that he clearly has grossly violated (of course, it's only one of many things he has lied about).
Oh, here we go: If you want to blame Obama for everything that has gone wrong, you can go ahead. But that's your bias. Has Obama done enough? Has he been open enough? I would say no. But this particular scandal may not have had anything to do with him.
To pretend that what happened here is OK is blind and stupid partisanship on your part.
To pretend that Obama had anything to do with this without any proof is partisanship on your part. It's the same thing as the VA scandal: The VA has been screwed up for decades. Suddenly it's all Obama's fault that someone uncovered how screwed up there were? Who's talking partisan here?
No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck.