Journal pudge's Journal: Idiots and Government E-mail 9
So the White House had been using external e-mail servers and accounts for nongovernmental business.
The story there claims that they were used for official business, but no quote is provided from anyone actually claiming that, so I do not believe it.
The story also gets one major fact majorly wrong, by saying something that is a literal impossibility:
Under President Clinton, White House aides used separate equipment for political spadework but did not have separate accounts.
They could have been using some separate equipment, but it still had to go through the same server hardware if it is the same accounts, and those accounts would have been government servers, which would violate the law when those "same accounts" are used for nongovernment business. So the Bush administration set up separate accounts to comply with the law.
This is normal. I communicate regularly with my Republican state and county officials and their aides on two separate accounts, their official government accounts for government business, and their personal accounts for political or personal business. Just this week I sent out a request for legislation to my state officials' government accounts, and a Precinct Committee Officer appointment form to a government aide on his personal account.
However, it appears if some official government business was conducted on these "personal" accounts, it was illegal. The question was whether this happened, and whether this business qualifies under the relevant law. And I've seen no evidence of this, except the summary of a reporter who obviously doesn't quite understand what she is talking about. (I am open to actual evidence being provided.)
And then there is the issue of losing the email. I lose email all the time. Yes, it is possible for me to find it somewhere if absolutely necessary, by looking at my own backups, my server backups, router logs, etc. But it is still not wrong to say they are lost, as I often do. But that doesn't stop some wild-eyed crazyass Bush-hater from claiming that because nothing is every truly lost on teh internets, the White House is therefore lying. Yes, we are not stupid, we know that it is theoretically possible to find things that have been deleted, and the story even said that they are trying to recover the lost mail. But if you don't have it in hand, and you are not sure where to find it, it's lost. This is called English, people.
This is called English, people. (Score:1)
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The Bush administration's terrible luck (Score:2)
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It's the Curse of the haunted White House. Oooooh, spooky!
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CREW report (Score:2)
Might be something in here, I haven't read it yet.
CREW RELEASES NEW REPORT -- WITHOUT A TRACE: THE MISSING WHITE HOUSE EMAILS AND THE VIOLATIONS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT [citizensforethics.org]
12 Apr 2007 // Washington, DC -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today has released a report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act, detailing the legal issues behind the story of the White House e-mail scandal.
In a startling new revelation, C
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Might be something in here, I haven't read it yet.
Its sensationalizing tone, reliance on anonymous sources, and blatant misstatements make me not care.
In a startling new revelation, CREW has also learned through two confidential sources that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over five million emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005.
Prove it and I'll care.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said today, "It's clear that the White House has been willfully violating the law
No such thing is clear based on the actual evidence provided. Not only is there no evidence provided that they violated the law willfully, but the evidence provided they violated the law at all is sketchy.
In the wake of the scandals surrounding Jack Abramoff and the fired U.S. Attorneys, emails were released showing that top White House staffers routinely used Republican National Committee (RNC) email accounts to conduct official business. For example, J. Scott Jennings, White House Deputy Political Director, used an RNC account to communicate with the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales regarding the appointments of new U.S. Attorneys. Similarly, Susan Ralston, a former aide to Karl Rove, used RNC email accounts to communicate with Abramoff about appointments to the Department of the Interior.
This is an example of the devil being in the details. Precisely what does "performance of [the president's] constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties" me
off-topic question (Score:1)
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