After all the fuss, turns out Hillary's servers did a better job preserving emails

[pnwmom]

than the State Department's servers did.

Unlike your computer or mine, the government's servers apparently "had no way" of automatically retaining old emails. Hillary's server did, so when the Obama administration requested them, she printed them out.

But the 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.

And it's not just the State Department. This is true all over the government.

The Department of Health and Human Services began automatically archiving and saving the emails of all senior officials and political appointees only in December, said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for the department.

“It really is chaos across the government in terms of what agencies do, what individuals do, and people understand that they can decide what they save and what they don’t,” said Patrice McDermott, the director of the transparency watchdog group OpenTheGovernment.org. “If you leave it up to the agency, some are going to behave properly and take it seriously, and some are going to see it as carte blanche to whitewash the record.”

In 2012, Obama ordered the agencies to fix the situation by 2016, but many agencies still don't automatically back them up. Instead, they're relying on individuals to print emails out and store them in physical files.

An Obama administration directive in 2012 mandates that agencies must devise a system for retaining and preserving email records electronically by the end of 2016, but many agencies’ current practice is to save emails by printing them out and storing them in files.

But the NYTimes manages, as usual, to give the story an anti-Hillary spin:

Emails Hillary Clinton Said Were Kept Could Be Lost

And the article contains contradictions that Hillary detractors will certainly try to use against her, like this doozy:

There is also no consistent system throughout the federal agencies for determining which emails should be saved. The White House has strict requirements dating back two decades that no emails be discarded, but federal agencies are in charge of setting their own policies for determining which emails constitute government records worthy of preservation and which ones may be deleted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/us/some-emails-sent-by-clinton-could-be-lost.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Now we can guess why Obama didn't care when he noticed Hillary (and her top aides) were sending emails from her personal account. It worked better than the antiquated .gov accounts that existed when she arrived. Or exist today -- in agencies throughout the government.

The problem was much bigger than the State Department and it still hasn't been fixed today. Why? Because Congress hasn't been willing to appropriate the money to overhaul the patched together rinky-dink computer network.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. anyone who runs a mail server

can very easily archive mail for long term storage and retrieval... there's no real mystery to it. so, when someone tells you they don't have emails to turn over, my guess is they were deleted.

OnEdit : or they were woefully incompetent

sP

[pnwmom]

5. Did you read the article? It says the system couldn't automatically preserve

emails. The only way to do it was by making a decision, for each of your several hundred emails a day, as to which needed to be sent to a separate server or printed out on paper.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

18. then something was wrong...

every even REMOTELY modern mail server CAN archive mail. the point i was making is that it is likely that someone is lying or is incompetent. the system IS capable of archiving email. i guarantee it.

sP

[pnwmom]

34. The .gov system wasn't remotely modern. Congress wouldn't appropriate

the money for the needed overhaul.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

42. It was plenty modern enough to archive email...

it has been an option since the late 80's. and yes... i have. for you to suggest otherwise shows your ignorance about the evolution email systems. they simply didn't do it for reasons we will never know.

sP

[pnwmom]

45. You should be talking about the ignorance of the media then because

the NYTimes and others are reporting this.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

49. they are reporting what the State Dept said...

not what they have bothered to seek out themselves.

sP

[pnwmom]

50. So you think this part of the article is false?

An Obama administration directive in 2012 mandates that agencies must devise a system for retaining and preserving email records electronically by the end of 2016, but many agencies’ current practice is to save emails by printing them out and storing them in files.

The Department of Health and Human Services began automatically archiving and saving the emails of all senior officials and political appointees only in December, said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for the department.

The State Department is lying, DHHS is lying, and the reporter is lying about the Obama administration directive?

I think it's much more likely that you are simply misinformed.

[Thinkingabout]

53. Maybe did not read the post or just chose it ignore what it said, huh

Hang in there, some needs help.

[belcffub]

55. I'm not sure who's lying

but a quick search says they were running Lotus Notes... the software I mentioned I worked on... back when I worked there we had a custom version for the federal Government... I worked on the SMTP MTA (this handles inbound and outbound message routing) and on the software that did journalling of all email the went into and out of the system... I had no security clearance we gave our code to another group who did

So if that is what they were using there was nothing to buy... they already had it... by 2009 versions going back almost 10 years had it... there is little chance they were using a version older then that... the security holes that are discovered in all software after that amount of time would have meant they upgraded...

to enable journalling of all messages was a simple config... go into a config doc and enable it... give it a location to store the journal (encrypted by default) and you were all set...

[ProdigalJunkMail]

65. yes, the person who works in the IT industry

who spends all day every day designing enterprise SAN's is lying to you. the person who has been doing this for nearly 30 years doesn't know what he is talking about.

the quote above is about a directive that was to go into effect late next year... and has nothing to do with the fact that at any point in the last 20 years they could have begun archiving emails.

i am sorry you don't know what you're talking about...

sP

[belcffub]

29. for over a decade now

all major email server platforms have supported journaling.... basically archiving all inbound and outbound messages... the features were added around 2001-2003 to address regulations being added to financial institutions... beyond that there were many third party smtp pass through devices that did this before the major vendors added the functionality...

My background in email comes from working @ Lotus development on one of the early SMTP MTAs in the late 90's and supporting an email system used by a large university after that... (BTW don't complain to me if you didn't like notes - I have heard it all already)

The federal Government was a big client of Lotus at the time and we have a special version with extra security made just for them... Before journaling became a core feature we demo'd adding the functionality to the MTA around 1999. That feature only journaled messages going into and out of the system... not messages that stayed in the system. Later on that functionality was added to core...

There would have been no excuse to not have this going by 2009...

[pnwmom]

33. No excuse -- but they didn't. Congress wouldn't appropriate the money

to update the system.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

43. they didn't NEED to update the systems

the systems they had in place have been able to archive email (even in secure formats) since the 80's (securely on all servers was an option by the mid 90's at the latest).

sP

[pnwmom]

44. That doesn't mean the government ever forked over the money to buy those systems. n/t

[ProdigalJunkMail]

48. now you're suggesting they DIDN'T have email?

face it. they had email. it was and is capable of archival. i don't know why you don't understand that. there was nothing to buy. the email system was capable out of the box.

sP

[pnwmom]

51. You are suggesting that Obama's State Department is lying and that

Health and Human Services is lying and that there was no point to Obama's 2012 directive to agencies to develop procedures so that they could archive records by 2016 (either that, or you're saying that there was no such directive.)

Right.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

57. I'll suggest that whoever is saying that is incompetent and doesn't know what they're talking about.

If you want to call that 'lying', that's up to you. But these other posters are correct. The capability was always there, whether or not the non-IT people knew about it, or the IT people never bothered to set it up. There was nothing extra to 'buy'. You don't even need anything special in terms of software, if you've got an IT person who actually understands how computers work.

[MADem]

52. OR the storage space!!!!!

As someone with experience with government computer systems, as a user, I can tell you that the things were horribly underfunded.

[belcffub]

58. storage is cheap

and has been for a long time...

journalling disks do not need to be high end or fast... the journals also do not need to live on disk forever... they were using lotus notes... I worked on this software at Lotus in the 90's... the way it worked was that you only needed enough storage for one days of messages... each night when your backups ran the journals that were backup were marked as such and then they were overwritten...

After leaving Lotus I worked for a large university system... we had around 50k users... the daily journals were under 10g at most... we had disk for up to 100g but never needed 90% of it...

disk is cheap and this software was well vetted on this platform for a long time before 2009...

now the user interface of the client I take no responsibility for... it still gives me nightmares... but the backend was solid...

[MADem]

59. Don't count on the government to think so. And you assume their systems are from this century. nt

[belcffub]

62. I just did a quick google search

for what the state department used for email... I found several pages referencing Lotus notes... that I what I based my reply on...

but really any system that has existed since the early 90's could be scripted to journal in messages going into and out of the system... it was the journalling of internal messages in a format that could be used in legal proceedings that was added around 2001ish...

[MADem]

63. If State hasn't done it, it's because they don't have the cash or the talent.

And talent costs money.

All appropriations for equipment and personnel begin in the House, which has been controlled by the GOP for some time, now.

[pnwmom]

60. The government is cheaper. n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

56. I could do that on a 40 year old system.

The ability to archive emails, or any other files, has been around as long as the operating system has. One of the most basic functions of a computer is scheduling tasks, and another is copying files. It takes about 5 minutes on any unix-flavour of machine to write a script to archive anything on the machine and place that script in the appropriate system scheduler cron folder so that it is executed with every selected time interval. I don't do much with windows, but I doubt it would take a competent windows person all that much longer to do the same sort of thing on a windows system.

If the article tells you 'they couldn't', what it really means is A) the author doesn't know what he's talking about, and B) the people in charge of the servers are incompetent. I am constantly amazed by the lack of technical know-how on display by all the people who want to tell you what is and is not possible to do with emails. It was 'possible' all along. Apparently nobody ever bothered to take 5 minutes to set it up is all.

[pnwmom]

61. Are we talking about the same thing?

It is possible for them to archive things on the system, but it doesn't happen automatically. The choice has to be made to either send it to a special server designated for archiving, or to print it out on paper to preserve it -- according to sources in multiple parts of the government.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

64. Let me say it again.

A) it is possible. B) It takes a competent IT person a very short period of time to make it happen, without buying any extra software. C) Yes, that same competent IT person can set it up to, again, automatically send it to that special server. And D) it can be done on out of the box systems that are decades old.

The fact that nobody ever DID do it doesn't mean 'it's not possible'. It means nobody competent was ever asked to 'make it happen'.

[BlueCaliDem]

2. This is such a non-issue and should be shot down on this Democratic Party supporting site.

Instead, we get the usual suspects - and a few newbies - bringing this up to gin up distrust for Hillary Clinton, helping the GOP undermine her credibility and spearheading their feverish attempts to frame her before she even announces. With DUers like those, who needs Republicans?

[leveymg]

4. Okay. Shoot the guy who tells you the train's coming when you're stuck on the tracks.

That'll work out just perfectly.

[BlueCaliDem]

8. There's NO THERE THERE, leveymg. But nice of you to chime in...as expected. eom

[leveymg]

12. I'm afraid the NYT, AP, and TIME all see something THERE.

If they see something coming around the bend in the tracks, it's going to stay THERE until they're satisfied this is no longer a story. We should be taking steps to find another candidate, whether we want that to be so, or not.

Turn the key. Place gear in Drive. Press accelerator, and too bad that the windshield gets cracked when we drive through the wooden barrier on the other side. We should be finding a a way off the tracks by now.

[pnwmom]

14. Less and less so. The NYTimes has already rewritten the piece

without the anti-Hillary spin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/us/politics/vague-email-rules-let-federal-agencies-decide-when-to-hit-save-or-delete.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Vague Email Rules Let Federal Agencies Decide When to Hit Save or Delete

Members of President Obama’s cabinet have a wide variety of strategies, shortcuts and tricks for handling their email, and until three months ago there was no law setting out precisely what they had to do with it, and when. And while the majority of Obama administration officials use government email to conduct their business, there has never been any legal prohibition against using a personal account.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s disclosure that she exclusively used a private email address while she was secretary of state and later deleted thousands of messages she deemed “personal” opens a big picture window into how vague federal email guidelines have been for the most senior government leaders.

Although the White House has strict requirements dating back two decades that every email must be saved, there is no such requirement for federal agencies. Instead they are in charge of setting their own policies for determining which emails constitute government records worthy of preservation and which ones may be discarded.

SNIP

[leveymg]

25. The law required agency heads preserve and convey to the Archivist. She didn't whilst in office.

Upon leaving office, she did nothing until a couple months ago after a Congressional Committee raised questions about full production of requested documents. At that point, her lawyers imposed an upside-down e-discovery protocol and proceeded to delete 30,000 emails as presumptively "private-personal" on the basis of keyword search without anyone having read the emails before they were deleted.

That was a legally and politically bad series of decisions.

[pnwmom]

38. The law had no time limit. And meanwhile. the .gov servers still don't

automatically preserve emails.

What a farce.

[BlueCaliDem]

17. What pnwmom says. eom

[Dr Hobbitstein]

11. Ben GAWZIIII!!! n/t

[misterhighwasted]

36. Hey nice to see you. My IGNORE LIST is almost complete.

Enjoy yourself, but NOT on my screen.

[Autumn]

7. Go to ATA and ask the admins to stop all posts on this subject if it bothers you.

Or try trash thread by keyword. That's a feature the admins set up so you don't have to about issues that bother you.

[BlueCaliDem]

9. Ah...and there you are, Autumn. I was wondering how long it would take for you to show up

on this thread. You're pretty quick, I've gotta tell ya.

[Autumn]

10. You're pretty quick yourself, I've gotta tell ya.

[BlueCaliDem]

16. There are so precious few positive OPs of Democrats that I'm always excited to post when I find

one in order to post something positive. I surmise you're doing the same thing, only, for the opposite reason. So, once again, not surprised to find you on this thread.

[Autumn]

19. Elizabeth Warren is a Democrat. We have a lot of positives OPs on her in our group.

There are positive threads on Democrats all over DU. Maybe you are just focusing on the threads about Hillary and the email discussions.

[BlueCaliDem]

22. Yeah, and she has a ZERO chance of winning from a Republican.

And you know it. Maybe that's the reason why you support her so diligently? I heard Republican/Conservative Orrin Hatch supports an Elizabeth Warren candidacy, too.

Yes, there are positive threads of other Democrats on DU, but compared to attack OPs of Obama or Hillary that appear to parrot Republican talking points, they're few and far between.

Should an objective observer enter DU these days, they'd be hard-pressed to think that they've entered a Democratic Party supporting site. At least, that's what I've been reading on Liberal sites I frequent.

[Autumn]

28. So the liberal site you frequent doesn't want any discussion of a presumed

front runners issues that could impact her eventual decision to run because the media and the GOPers are going after her? They have been after the Clinton's for years. Remember White Water, Bengazi!! and so on? That's just what they do, Hillary should have remembered that but she gave them the ammo. They won't stop with a subpoena on her SOS emails, they want the information on that server. All of it.

[pnwmom]

40. And she hasn't criticized Hillary about this. Seems that she would

IF she were planning to run against her and/or IF she thought Hillary did something seriously wrong.

[Autumn]

41. Neither has Bernie, and they are doing the right thing.

[leveymg]

13. Didn't know about the trash thread by keyword feature - maybe Hill's lawyers thought about

that after reading DU? Just a thought . . .

[misterhighwasted]

35. Ahh There you are. Glad you showed up. IGNORE

Bye.

[pinto]

3. A reminder that there is often more to the story than initially reported.

Important to consider, especially in these days of 24/7 "instant" news.

[pnwmom]

6. And a reminder to read carefully because the spin will point you in the wrong direction. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

15. Even Hillary Clinton said that she shouldn't have done what she did.

There's no defense of it. None. There's no good rationale--the best she could come up with is that she wanted "convenience" so as not to carry two devices...which she apparently does all the time anyway. The whole thing is ludicrous, but it's even funnier to watch Hillfans contort themselves six ways to Sunday trying to: Excuse it (Luddite! Colin Powell! Ken Starr!) , or minimize it (No one cares!), or justify it (Slow .gov system!), or, as in this OP, even try to turn it around to Hillary's favor (See? It's even better than the government system! Hillary is a visionary!!). It's really something to see. There are no ends her fans won't go to, to preserve her Presidential run. Just like Clinton herself.

[RiverLover]

20. +1

Not a proud moment for us.

[lewebley3]

31. Hillary was just being Gracious, She didn't do thing Wrong with the emails

Its is always a good hearted person who takes some responsibility
for a controversy they are in, one always hopes to do better: If she didn't, you would be calling her
arrogant and full of herself. She was just showing she would be the
the bigger person. She said it was convenience, because it was the
truth, because it doesn't satisfy you is meaning less, the truth is often
simply. It is her detractors whom are never satisfied by the obvious truth.


Hillary defense was just fine! Thank- you Very much!!

Treason of 47 Senators, willing to line there pocket with the lives of American
American solders is a serious problem. The GOP plotting are war, we need
their emails, to see what else they are plotting.

See the truth is simply The GOP wants WAR, that is why they sent the letter. that is
why Cotton took the defense contractors money, why Bibi buddies gave
him 1m at the end of his campaign. Simple Truth the GOP can be trusted!!

[LiberalFighter]

37. She didn't say she shouldn't have done it.

"Looking back, it would have been probably smarter to have used two devices but I have absolute confidence that everything that could be in any way connected to work is now in possession of the State Department. I did it for convenience, but now looking back I think it might have been smarter to have two devices from the very beginning."

[frylock]

21. she should set up an IT consultant service

[blm]

23. My answer to GOP candidates screaming for access to ALL emails: Please proceed.

They really are setting themselves up for a whole lotta hurt down the road.

[lewebley3]

27. You are right!!! Walker had and Illegal operation in the Wall of his office (people went to Jail

The investigation is still going on. Feds are investigating to
see if Walker was illegally coordinating with outside groups,
ie the Koch's. They already have arrested people, and are
looking at emails.

[Hekate]

24. KnR The truth is still putting its shoes on and the lie is everywhere

I am disgusted.

[lewebley3]

26. Yes, I agree Hillary did the right thing with the Emails: Snowden broke in to Everything, but hers

The treason of the 47 Senators is more important then the email story!!

This is only story because the NY Times,left are facts so, the story could be
created for their right wing corporation buddies.

We should call for a special prosecute and grand jury and get the traitors emails,
and see if there is more plans of treason. I sure there would a lot sick things in
those emails.

[rgbecker]

30. I don't understand the issue. If congress wants Hillary's emails, just ask the NSA.

Clapper has them all and everyone else's.

[ancianita]

32. More proof that she knows how to govern better than 'deep state' does.

[jwirr]

39. They were designed to protect the email of a President. They should work. But no matter the Rs

are not going to let it go because this leaves a question about what she may have deleted wide open.

By the way if they were designed for Bill when he was president - who owns them - him or the USA government?

[pnwmom]

47. I'll be happy to stop when the media drops this stupid story. n/t

[MADem]

54. Right on. It's complete and utter bullshit. nt