Most Official Emails Were Not Auto-Archived Until February (2015), Says State Department Official

[morningfog]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Friday it was unable to automatically archive the emails of most of its senior officials until last month, which could mean potential problems for historical record-keeping amid criticism of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's use of a private email server while in office.

On the same day the department announced that it was temporarily shutting down parts of its unclassified Internet-linked systems, including email, to harden security in the wake of several hacking attacks, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that only Secretary of State John Kerry's emails had been automatically retained before February of this year. Kerry's emails have been automatically stored since he took the job in February 2013, she said.

Psaki suggested the inability to automatically retain the emails of all but its most senior official before last month was because the department lacked the technical capability to capture them unless individual employees took action on their own. She said she could not be more specific but that the department hoped to be able to automatically archive all employees' emails by the end of this year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/clinton-emails-state-not-_n_6868054.html

[madville]

1. So almost none of the emails she sent to state.gov addresses

were saved? That certainly blows a big hole in her explanation that they were being archived on the State Departments end.

I doubt she knew they weren't being saved, she's probably just not aware of how the systems actually work.

My main wonder is how did her people prepare her remarks the other day probably knowing that this was the case all along? Not really her fault though, she has to go with what her aides and advisers tell her.

[still_one]

4. and most people aren't, it is assumed that their system personal are handling such things

Last edited Sat Mar 14, 2015, 09:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Backups in every corporate environment are handled by a specific department

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

54. What kills me is that they 'lacked the ability' all this time.

It took me all of 10 minutes to write, install and test a cron job script to do backups on our machines at work and push them to a backup server a decade or so ago. Every time more information dribbles out about State Dept IT, I wonder more and more what kind of mickey mouse IT people they've got.

[still_one]

59. I suspect it just isn't the state department either.

[pnwmom]

68. It's not just the State Department. According to the NYTimes article,

it's the same situation at HHS and numerous other agencies across the government.

[morningfog]

5. She spoke with great certainty on this point, though.

She couldn't have known or thought they were being saved at the time she was sending them. This is all after the fact, cover you ass speak. And she got it wrong. If her advisers and herself are that poorly prepared for this, they are not ready for a presidential campaign. Or worse.

[pnwmom]

69. Why do you say she couldn't have known? Everybody here has been assuming

of course they were being preserved. Maybe she made the same false assumption.

[morningfog]

71. Well, she couldn't have known because it isn't true.

You can't know something that never was.

Nor could she claim ignorance and rely on a false assumption. She lacks any credibility on assuming her department was doing something it wasn't. Worse, when these changes, auto-archiving, were implemented, former sec's of state were consulted. She knew, prior to her presser, that they had not been auto-archived at the time she sent them.

[delrem]

12. "I doubt she knew they weren't being saved,

she's probably just not aware of how the systems actually worked."

Yup, HRC and other gov't officials both Dem and Rep no matter how high up the food chain shouldn't be expected to use professionals well versed in the law and technical infrastructure to do the day to day gruntwork. Like any Rep or Dem politician or apparatchik can claim about themselves, HRC was "a luddite" and should be excused for that reason alone.

After all, this is 2015. Not the olden times of watergate and 18 minutes of fame.

I'm so happy that so many contributors to DU are clear on these excuses, which of course go both ways and apply of all parties. Including the Republican party. After all, who the hell can distinguish between tweedledum and tweedledee? Not me, that's for sure.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

55. I'm no fan of HRC, but I'd actually agree with that part.

Back-ups are dead simple to automate and routine for any organization, and many private individuals. While I might complain about her choosing to set up her own personal system, rather than having her IT guys fix State's if it was such a mess, even I wouldn't have expected they had 'lacked the technical ability' to perform routine backups. I would have just assumed they were doing it, and I expect she did too. Most off the shelf systems simply have a GUI interface to set it up, and anyone doing a custom set-up could write a quickie cron job type script in a few minutes. It's so basic that it's shocking that they didn't do it til 2015.

[pnwmom]

15. It blows a hole in the idea that she was the exception instead of the rule. n/t

[KMOD]

18. No.

The .gov emails were saved. Messages from private emails were left up to the individual to save.

Man I wish hdr22 could join here to answer these questions.

[morningfog]

21. The .gov emails were not saved. Not until last month.

[KMOD]

23. Yes, they were.

Her emails contained cc's of various aides with .gov email addresses.

What she turned over to the State Department are redundant emails.

[morningfog]

30. Read the article. Dot gov emails were not retained automatically until last month.

What she turned over was what she claims to be all the business emails from her mixed account. Since the .gov emails were not automatically saved prior to Feb. 2015, her production to State is not necessarily redundant or even complete.

[KMOD]

34. No. .gov of "senior officials" were not retained automatically until last month.

Senior officials, not regular aides and employees.

In other words, until John Kerry.

Before that, the Secretary of State, (Clinton, Rice, Powell), were not even asked about emails. When Obama signed an act to update the record keeping, including emails, Hillary Clinton obliged.

[morningfog]

38. You have it ass backwards. They started with automatically retaining the Secretary's when Kerry

came in. They only last month worked down to include most senior officials. The aides and employees, apparently, still aren't retained automatically.

[KMOD]

41. No. Everyone Hillary Clinton, etc. received, or sent an email to

with a dot. gov email addy was retained.

Unless she went rogue and sent or received an email on her own with no cc's, it was retained. That's why this whole thing is silly.

[morningfog]

60. You still have it wrong:

"[T]he State Department disclosed on Friday that until last month it had no way of routinely preserving senior officials’ emails. Instead, the department relied on individual employees to decide if certain emails should be considered public records, and if so, to move them onto a special record-keeping sever, or print them out and manually file them for preservation.

This patchwork system, reflecting a broader confusion and slowness throughout the government as federal agencies struggle to catch up with the digital age, raises the possibility that some emails from Mrs. Clinton to other State Department officials may have been lost altogether.

* * *

In February, the State Department began using a system that automatically keeps the emails of the department’s highest ranking officials — like the deputy secretary of state, and under and assistant secretaries. Secretary of State John Kerry’s emails have been automatically retained since around the time he took office in 2013."


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/us/some-emails-sent-by-clinton-could-be-lost.html?_r=0

[KMOD]

63. No, once again, John Kerry is the first Sec of State to use a .gov account.

That's why his eamils are automatically retained.

If HRC emailed anyone on a .gov account, it is captured on the .gov server. All emails she printed and gave to the State Department, assuming they were to others with .gov accounts, are already on the server and they will be redundant.

[morningfog]

66. You are not reading accurately, or you are just not reading.

The quote is clear. You can't just ignore facts when it doesn't support your position. I mean, you can, but it looks a little silly.

[KMOD]

72. What is confusing you?

I'm am reading it just fine. I'm not sure what you are getting at here?

[99Forever]

73. Just keep digging!

Wow.

[KMOD]

75. What?

[99Forever]

79. If I gotta tell ya....

[KMOD]

80. You are not making any sense, at least to me, at all.

I've been very polite in this conversation, but I can't add to, it if I can't comprehend your concern, that's all.

You feel that I'm missing something, yet you can't point out what it is I'm missing. I'm telling you, my opinion, on why I feel this is being misinterpreted and misunderstood.

[99Forever]

81. Sir...

... you have it so entirely backwards, I seriously thought it was in jest.

[KMOD]

82. First, I'm a woman.

Second, if you want to throw out useless one line sentences, then clearly we can't have a conversation.


However, if you explain your reason, perhaps we can clear this up.

[99Forever]

83. Woman, man, or something else.

I don't recall ever having seen someone as willfully ignorant or blind to basic reality as you. OMG.

[KMOD]

84. lol

You can lead a horse to water....

[99Forever]

85. But you can't make them comprehend or think.

Clearly.

[KMOD]

86. Exactly.

Thank you for making that clear.

Oh wait, before you type another post, I want to say,

I know your are, but what am I?

and

I'm rubber, you're glue,

Oh,

and sticks and stone may break me,

LMAO

[morningfog]

74. The only thing confusing me is your willful ignorance. I don't get it.

You claim that all State .gov emails were archived, except for senior officials, at the time Hillary was SoS. That is not true.

It was not until Sec. Kerry's first day that the any State .gov emails were auto-archived. It was not until last month, Feb. 2015, that most senior officials at State's .gov emails were auto-archived. Low level employees are still not auto-archived even today, so it seems.

Hillary claimed that all emails to or from .gov were preserved. That, simply, is not true.

Read the NYT article posted above if you are still having trouble. I even bolded the important parts for you, should only take a second. Good luck!

[KMOD]

76. Oh my goodness,

The State Department can archive whatever they choose.

Hillary's claims are true. Her emails, again, the one's sent to .gov email addresses are preserved.

It is not Hillary's fault that the media cannot understand, or correctly report this story. It is not Hillary's fault that the State Departments IT dept. are inept.

Don't confuse archived with preserved.

Her emails to .gov addresses, are on the server. If they wish to archive them, they can certainly do that.

And although every single Kerry email may go to the archives, someone in archives will remove most of them, since they are not simply worth archiving.

[morningfog]

77. Got it. Everyone is wrong except Hillary.

Cleared that up!

[KMOD]

78. What?

[KMOD]

87. Oh lookie here, you can all put your money where you mouths are.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026366551

Sign up people.

[Telcontar]

88. Iverglas? Is that you?

[KMOD]

89. When will I be loved?

sigh...

[youtube]

[/youtube]

[namastea42]

44. what about the FOIA, wasn't that there all along for extracting records?

Before last month no records were available for FOIA? I don't think that is true, don't know but does not sound right.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

56. The key word up above was 'automatically'.

Apparently until last month, each individual employee had to manually select emails and somehow send them off to be archived. So diligent folks would have all their emails archived quickly, others... not so much.

[madville]

53. You need to catch up on yesterday's news

Last edited Sat Mar 14, 2015, 09:18 AM - Edit history (1)

While Hillary was there the State Department had a manual archival system/policy, it was up to the employee to save and archive each individual email. A recently released audit says a total of 63,000 emails were archived out of over a billion sent/received during that time frame.

The statement that anything she sent to state.gov email addresses is false. This is getting sloppy, every time they make a statement it is proven false within a day or two.

[pnwmom]

67. It also blows a hole in the theory that it would have been better if she had used

the .gov accounts. As it is, using her own server she was able to archive them. We don't know why only Kerry's are being archived now or if that would have happened in 2009 when Hillary started with State.

[LeftyMom]

2. Doesn't the department's technical ineptitude reflect badly on her leadership?

Clearly she was aware it was a problem, and little to no progress was made during her tenure.

[Man from Pickens]

10. Just a preview of what can be expected

Ever fiber of her being is about self-enrichment and self-promotion, and she will do the same thing with the Presidency if she gets it. The actual responsibilities of the position won't even be an afterthought to her.

[pnwmom]

16. Kerry has been the head of the State Department for over two years now.

Why aren't you criticizing his leadership?

[LeftyMom]

27. Apparently they're finally making some rather slow progress.

I'm not especially impressed by the pace based upon what I've gathered of the changes since he took over (that he does use State email is a good sign, but that it only recently started automatic archiving puts them easily a decade behind every corporate option going,) but he's also not running for a higher office based on his experience running State.

I promise if he decides to do so and they still don't have a decent email system I'll bring that up.

I do have another concern I didn't mention upthread: Clinton claims that none of her emails contained classified information. A great deal of widely available information is classified, including which organizations are named as terrorist groups under the AUMF, that the drone program even exists and any number of other things we all know perfectly. Those two examples in particular would have to be mentioned in her email unless she wasn't doing her job at all. Even confirming these facts to somebody else (ie replying to a question about drone use in Yemen or the enemy status of AQAP, for example) would be illegal in an insecure email. Are we to believe that she never mentioned basic facts about the world in her email, or that she violated the law and mishandled classified information? Because those are the only two options there.

[morningfog]

33. You have to parse Hillary's words carefully. She said she did not SEND any classified information.

She did not say that she did not receive any classified information by email. But, your point remains otherwise.

[LeftyMom]

42. It really doesn't matter.

Let's say she gets an email that says

Hey, we thought we were droning an AQAP convoy in Yemen and it turned out to be the groom's family convoying to the bride's village for a wedding. People are pissed. How should we handle it?"

and she responds

Shit. Pay the family, pay their tribal leader, and if that doesn't work we'll figure out who can make an in-person apology. Keep it quiet and no public statement unless the press picks it up.

then she's violating the law by confirming facts anybody who reads the paper knows- that there's a drone program, that it's being used in Yemen, that AQAP is a US target, etc.

And it would be nearly impossible to transact any business necessary to her job otherwise. Which is why they have secure email at State.

Nobody with any technical know-how seems to think her server was even slightly secure. We have to assume that friends and foes alike have all read all of it, and quite likely many were doing so in nearly real time as she was serving.

[pnwmom]

36. Now that it's become an issue.

But why do you say make this statement:

A great deal of widely available information is classified, including which organizations are named as terrorist groups under the AUMF, that the drone program even exists and any number of other things we all know perfectly. Those two examples in particular would have to be mentioned in her email unless she wasn't doing her job at all.

Why do you imply that email was her only method of communication "if she was doing her job at all"? She had a number of other ways to transmit classified information and that's what she used. Like Condi Rice and almost all SoS's before them. (Colin Powell did use email.)

I believe she restricted emails to relatively unimportant State Department matters, knowing that they have all the security of postcards and can easily be forwarded to places she might not want them to go.

[LeftyMom]

47. Because in the current culture of security every blessed thing is restricted information.

She did not use the secure State system at all by her own account.

To argue that she didn't discuss anything of consequence in her email- based on no information at all except that it would be politically inconvenient if she did- is special pleading.

[KMOD]

19. all Federal agencies have been lacking with regards to recent technology.

Not just State.

[LeftyMom]

29. State is widely regarded to be bringing up the rear.

And Clinton's excuse for not following even State's minimal policies on data security is that their email was inaccessible while traveling, which means it must lag somewhere behind my mid 90's AOL dial-up account.

[KMOD]

37. Clinton followed all State protocol. Above and beyond.

State has it's own rules and regulations. Are agencies are certainly behind the times, technologically. That's embarrassing. But this whole Sendghazi is nothing but nonsense.

[LeftyMom]

45. That's demonstrably untrue.

You're entitled to an opinion as to the severity of the situation, but not to a convenient set of facts.

[KMOD]

46. Bullshit

My facts are correct and true.

[pnwmom]

70. The NYTimes says HHS still doesn't archive and that numerous other agencies

are in the same situation.

It didn't say that State was widely regarded to be the worst. Where did you read that?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

57. I'm beginning to think we need to start GoFundMe pages, or Kickstarter accounts

for Federal agencies to buy new hardware and software and hire on competent coders, since everybody keeps telling me none of them can or will ever get any money from Congress.

[KMOD]

64. lol at the GoFundMe pages

My husband is an IT security guy, and he cannot believe how inept our government appears to be on these issues.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

65. I'm not even a security guy

but I had to do some to get us up to snuff to take credit cards back when, along with the coding and database work I mostly did, and even I am going WTF every time some new aspect of what's going on is brought to light.

[scscholar]

3. Why are we still talking about this?

We're just giving legs to a story with no legs.

[morningfog]

8. If it had no legs, it would have no legs. This is long from over.

[KMOD]

20. It has no legs, no arms, no body, no nothing.

It's freaking stupid.

[joshcryer]

6. So by having her own email Clinton did good?

Since she clearly saved all the emails she sent to officials.

[morningfog]

7. Lol. So she says.

[joshcryer]

9. I believe her.

[morningfog]

11. Our system of government does not work on trust. It works on transparncy, accountablility

and oversight. If we are left to trust a politician, any politician, we are lost.

[KMOD]

22. Just what do you imagine she sent via email?

[morningfog]

26. I doubt she sent anything scandalous or neferious, but we will never know.

There may be an issue with whether her system is compliant with record retention laws, which I think matters.

But, the most significant aspect of this story, in my opinion, is that the way she set up her email and the way she produced her emails pursuant to records requests ensure that the story will not be going away. It was an incredible lack of foresight and judgment on her part.

And all it will take is the production of one business related email that she had deleted on her end to cause serious problems with her credibility.

[KMOD]

32. This is so incredibly silly.

She was the Secretary of State. She would not send an email to anyone of importance without a cc. The cc would be a .gov account and would be archived.

I highly doubt she would have communicated with anyone of importance via email, anyway. Phone calls, conferences, that's how the heavy stuff is handled, not via email.

C'mon people, really?

[joshcryer]

51. Heh. That's a lie we tell ourselves.

Transparency is so lacking in our Democracy that it is a joke.

It is absolutely astonishing that they weren't archiving records by default until 2015. Obama really dropped the ball on that one.

The irony is that Clinton, by having her own email server, assured that there would be archives.

[delrem]

13. Hey, I believe all politicians, Rep, Dem, US or other, but what does that get me?

A kick in the stones, that's what it gets me.
But that doesn't stop the fact that I'm a true believer.

[stevenleser]

31. Well, none would have been kept if she used state.gov, right?

You realize your OP completely destroys the idea that using her state.gov email would have ensure the emails were kept and archived, right? Now there is absolutely no harm in the fact that she used her personal email.

[morningfog]

35. That has never been my issue.

It isn't the private email (although I think that is stupid and opens itself to problems). It is the mix of personal and business on a private email account. It gives her sole access to the mixed account and first review prior to any production. Had she segregated her accounts, she could have produced the entire business account, even if it were a private account and that would be the end. If she had used a .gov account, and mixed business and personal (which would be stupid and problematic), she could leave all responses to records requests in the hands of State. Here, she mixed the two on a private account on her private servers. There is no transparency and no way whatsoever to ensure compliance with record retention and production laws.

[morningfog]

40. Another point. The .gov emails are still in the State server, even if not automatically retained.

In other words, all .gov account emails are possessed by State and are producable by State. Hillary's are possessed by Hillary and produced only after she screens them.

[TwilightGardener]

14. Odd that they would auto-archive Kerry's emails the day he started, but there was no thought

to collecting and archiving his immediate predecessor's email communications...AT ALL...in any form. Sometime in February of 2013 either the State Dept. or the White House suddenly gave a giant brand-new shit about saving this stuff, and immediately set up archiving on the .gov system that the predecessor never once used, and nobody thought anything strange or amiss about all of this? Or did they know this was a problem and quietly set about correcting it?

[pnwmom]

17. Why didn't they start archiving ALL the emails of the whole department

as the new law (not in effect during Hillary's years) required?

[TwilightGardener]

24. It's extremely inconsistent and strange. Hillary operated under entirely different

rules and concerns than Kerry appears to--it's like he's working in a different agency altogether. And two years ago they had an auto-archive program set up for Kerry's emails, but were technologically incapable of using the same set-up with even a handful of top deputies or staffers? Who is dumb enough to buy this bullshit?

[KMOD]

28. They updated protocol. Big freakin' whoop.

If you honestly believe that sensitive information, conversations, data is being delivered via email, well, I don't know what to tell you.

[TwilightGardener]

39. They updated protocol the day Kerry was sworn in? It suddenly on that day became

an important new policy to preserve the SoS's official emails, but the previous SoS of the same administration--unimportant and never a concern? Not even important enough to make her archive her home-kept stuff before she left State? Not even important enough to start asking for them until almost two years later, when an investigation finally compelled her?

[KMOD]

43. The policy was finally updated to modern times.

That's all there is.

What in the heck to you think Secretary's of State email?

"Dear Vlad, you suck". Seriously?

Appointment reminders, day to day updates, whatever, are probably emailed.

Sensitive stuff? Most likely phone calls, video conferences, face to face meetings, you know real life stuff.

It's crazy that anyone could possibly think that our foreign policy is debated through emails. That's just so silly.

[TwilightGardener]

49. If it's a written record of her daily business, though not necessarily classified or juicy stuff,

why wouldn't that be archived? Let's say she sends an email to an ambassador requesting his presence at a function, or to a staffer wanting a budget question answered. I can see weeding out lunch orders or something very trivial, but obviously the thinking is that cabinet officials need to have this stuff saved.

[KMOD]

52. All that stuff was archived.

But keep your imagination running.

[KMOD]

25. They finally "gave a sh*t" because they updated recommendations due to advances

in communication technology. That's it.

The emails are mundane. The Secretary of State does not conduct sensitive business via email. Geez.

[newthinking]

48. "Archiving" in email lingo, is different from "backing up"

In MS outlook the "archiving" means moving email out of the primary email box and into a special archive box, which keeps the primary email box small and efficient.

That is quite different from backing up the disks that the files themselves are on.

I really doubt the files were not backed up, but rather the archiving functionality was not turned on by default.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

58. I don't think that's the same as 'archiving' in Federal records lingo though.

I think they mean you (or the system) actually send(s) your email off to the people who run the archives.

[JDPriestly]

50. Maybe the NSA has all these e-mails. Has anyone asked whether the NSA

saves the electronic communications of the government when they involve e-mails or communications overseas?

[Rex]

61. Or how about the CIA? They were caught red handed spying on senators.

Who is to say how long that's been going on.

[sendero]

62. it's kind of sad...

..... that our own State Department doesn't have a simple email system comparable to the average company.

If they had one, they could make it mandatory that everyone use it for all official business and end these games once and for all.

We spend gazillions of dollars on bullshit we don't need (weapons systems) but we cannot find the sense to spend the relative pittance on things like this that we do need.