I just looked at the new released emails, and two things leapt out at me:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. The documents offered up do not have full email headers included. For those who understand such things, email headers are a rich source of information. I do not think that a lack of full email headers in these documents is an mistake.

2. From their format, as supplied, especially as regards how file attachments are shown on them, I would expect that their email server infrastructure is based upon Microsoft Exchange(version unknown). Now, this possibility, taken with the recent CREW information that 5 million emails are missing, tells me something:

5 million emails are missing, out of how many emails? That is hard to divine, but I can say this: this is a very high volume email infrastructure, one that surely has a ton of security. In an Exchange environment like that, you are going to have Exchange bridgehead servers, connectors, routing servers, active directory servers, firewalls, clustering, a number of email stores, IIS servers, service-dedicated servers, ISA servers, SAN storage and a lot more. Plus Blackberry servers. And, most importantly, a dedicated sub-infrastructure of servers for just backups and archiving.

For all these emails to be scrubbed completely is No Small Taters. Either this was the single worst configured and administered Exchange infrastructure in the history of mankind, or one or more people with a very detailed knowledge of Exchange came in, mapped the topology and proceeded to sanitize the system.

There is a third possibility: That the White House and the RNC have decided to stonewall and ignore subpoenas.

Any way you slice and dice it, this is big and it points to organized criminal effort. I also cannot think of any geek who would willingly sign onto duty like this and place themselves in a position of such jeopardy. Especially one with the high level of technical expertise needed to do all of this.

Which leads to a fourth possibility: Could this system have been intentionally set to wipe out, lose, obfuscate and obscure. That is not unlikely.

Were I advising Leahy or Waxman, I would find out where those servers are and put seals on them post haste.


On Edit: I just got off the phone with Waxman's office. I had a phone kid on. I could hear him glazing over. This is tough stuff for a neophyte to digest. I sure wish I could talk to someone less hammered by time and circumstances.

[soothsayer]

1. I'm thinking door number three. They're just stonewalling as ALWAYS.

[supernova]

5. I'll join you at Door #3 and here's why

They appointed people to key jobs who had no professional competence in that area. It's alsways the loyalty above skill. "Heckava job Brownie" knew zip about disaster relief. Condi is an expert in a dead empire in whose langugage she is less than a first grader. Gonzo couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag, much less deal with the Supreme Court.

So it beggars my belif that they hired IT people who knew anything about e-mail systems.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. There is no way...

That an Exchange infrastructure of this apparent magnitude could have been designed and setup by anyone with less than Expert credentials and Experience. No way.

[Hepburn]

14. I have to agree on this statement totally.

Just curious on this, I contacted a pal of mine who has a degree in computer engineering and worked for the DOD on security. He said to me just about what you posted.

IMO, this is NOT some fluke ~~ it is intentional and knowing conduct and a coverup of the first magnitude.

Like I said in another post on this thread ~~ Folks, we have a mega smoking gun.

[supernova]

25. I don't doubt what you are saying

I believe you when you say this stuff has had the headers stripped.

It's just that I don't belive, for a minute, they've thought about the whole picture.

[Hepburn]

32. I think they missed the over all picture because....

...they NEVER even ever imagined that suddenly the Dems would be in control of Congress. That was NOT within their radar in any form and because of this, they NEVER ever thought anyone would dig into this BS and what they had been doing for six freaking years.

IMO, they are going down. I can smell it, taste it and feel it. There is blood in the water with this. Maybe not a lot right now ~~ but with the way Waxman, Leahy and Conyers cut, this bleeding is gonna increase.

JMHO

[supernova]

37. You got that right

they NEVER even ever imagined that suddenly the Dems would be in control of Congress. That was NOT within their radar in any form and because of this, they NEVER ever thought anyone would dig into this BS and what they had been doing for six freaking years.

They got sloppy because they were so focused on the "permanent repuke majority" they wanted to build. Guess we wrecked that, huh? :D

[Hepburn]

41. Yep.....

....last Nov mid-terms totally upset that apple cart!

[NovaNardis]

45. It would make sense...

Why else would Rove be so sure that the Republicans would hold on to Congress when everyone else knew that wouldn't happen?

They had been operating for years under the assumption that weak-on-security Democrats could never win. It never occurred to Republicans that Democrats stood more with the people on the issues, including security. There was no room in the right-wing brain to consider a Dem victory in '06. They figured they'd be like Clinton in '98.

[DCKit]

64. They thought they had "the math", remember?

They were so sure their various connections and control of the electoral process were going to hand them the election, they hardly even tried to help their own candidates. By the time it got tight, it was too late.

[loudsue]

63. Enjoy it while you can: They fully intend to STEAL 2008, and if

something isn't done about the voting machines, there will be no more blood in the water, except for Dem blood.

Going after Dems is the reason they've stacked the Justice Dept. the way they have, and to get the Justice Dept. prosecutors away from republican criminals.

They've successfully put Justice Dept. operatives in swing states that Rove told them about, and they're going to screw up the next election at every turn, if something isn't done

NOW!!!

:kick:

[frogcycle]

72. nobody expected the levees to be breached

nobody expected al queda to attack using airplanes
nobody expected the dems to win in '06
.
.
.

nobody expected impeachment to succeed...

[LynzM]

74. I think they've always been sloppy when it comes to computer.

Remember "the tubes"? I'm continually amazed by what people at work don't know about computers, and given the Repubs' skills with everything else (Bush especially), I'd be amazed if they've got a 3rd-grader's computer knowledge, either.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

34. Perhaps not...

But they may think they have. That is why understanding a high-traffic, high-performance Exchange infrastructure is so damn important.

[supernova]

36. Exactly

I guess what I'm saying is, here's a group of people who so far, have demonstrated a very strong myopia dealing with whatever is exactly before them. What matters to them. They don't think in terms of ancillary components of things .

It's the vision thing, which is what we're good at. :evilgrin:

[tblue37]

91. 181/2 minutes.

That deliberate destruction of evidence became evidence of a crime.

[file83]

10. I'll second that. n/t

[cyberpj]

2. K&R - Get this to top of front page for possible LEAHY or WAXMAN ATTN. nt

[tridim]

3. The fourth possibility is probably the right one

They set up these accounts specifically to hide correspondence they wanted to keep secret (which is pretty much everything with these criminals). Unfortunately for them it's illegal, and they got caught.

[aquart]

7. But they didn't expect to lose Congress.

They were sure the fix was in.

[Hepburn]

15. Bingo!

They NEVER expected to be the minority party in Congress. Their worst nightmare? Leahy, Conyers and Waxman as committee chairpersons.

With criminals who have experienced a long run of success in their criminal operations, IMO, what gets them everytime is arrogance. And, boy, with BushCo ~~ they are the definition of arrogance!

[tridim]

27. Remember how Bush tried to play nice with Pelosi right after the elections?

That lasted what, about 2 days? Lots of us here predicted that's exactly what would happen.

Two months later BushCo is claiming almost daily that the Dems are terrorists. :eyes:

[Raksha]

80. HUBRIS...dependably bringing down tyrants for thousands of years,

and working just as well now as it ever did.

Remember their "Zen-like calm" before the November election? Everyone talked about it. They really thought they had it all locked up. They thought they knew precisely how many votes to steal to keep their majority, while still not being TOO obvious about it. Turns out they were wrong. They really believed that public opinion is irrelevant (see the Andrew Roberts threads), and that you CAN fool all the people all the time if you control the media. Turns out people aren't that stupid after all, and they were losing more support every day. And the whole time they believed either that public opinion doesn't matter or that they had it under their control forever.

HUBRIS...it gets 'em every single time!

[jean]

93. great slogan for a bumpersicker, Raksha!

[Hekate]

57. And that's why it's so incredibly important to keep Joe Lieberman happy, folks.

Our "majority" in the Senate hangs by a thread -- and our country's very soul as a viable democracy does as well.

Hekate

[L. Coyote]

84. Sen. Lieberman won't join this mafia. If anything, expect Repugs to jump ship.

The general public is starting to get the picture, and that's when the Repugs will turn on the bad apples in their barrel.

Some moderates may just want change parties to keep their jobs. As Dems, who should we start thinking about swaying. Any real candidates to switch parties?

[PassingFair]

94. That's been debunked here many times.

The parameters for majority have been set.
Lieberman can *uck OFF!

We don't need him for committee head status to
be locked in.

[Hepburn]

4. K&R

I am NOT computer sophistocated in the least ~~ but I do understand (at least I think so) that some type of intentional conduct has to take place to strip out email headers. IMO, if I am right on what I understand about this ~~ this is a smoking gun.

[aquart]

6. k&r

[AndyA]

8. Considering how inept every person in this misadministration seems to be,

I would be surprised if they were able to purge all traces of these messages. As the OP indicated, there is likely more than one mode of storage of these messages, and it would take a certain level of expertise to ensure that they are 100% gone.

Karl Rove may be smart, but how computer savvy is he?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

11. He is savvy enough...

That he could hire people who could do this.

Another thought is that there are a lot of black-hat hackers presently in jail. Might want to cut a deal, you know?

[loudsue]

65. Actually, Karl Rove is a computer whiz kid....

from what I understand, he knows one helluva lot about them.

He's prolly not the one that did the fix on the computers to lose his e-mails, but you can bet on it, he'd be able to effectively interview the guy that did.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Old and In the Way]

12. I'd get the server administrations up in front of Congress to testify.

Put them under oath and explain to them the seriousness of the crime that's been committed. Ask them a few questions-

(1) Explain how 5MM e-mails get wiped.
(2) Explain the system's back-up capabilities
(3) Was this your idea to obstruct justice by deleting e-mails or was this requested by someone else.
(4) If someone else, who?

[Wednesdays]

52. Oh, but they'll give the usual Republican testimony...

"Uh...I don't remember...I don't recall...I wasn't involved...I wasn't there..." 122 times.
:eyes:

[loudsue]

66. They'd plead the 5th, prolly even before they showed up, like Monica Goodling did.

They are a bunch of sociopathic criminals. They have no conscience about breaking the law.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Auntie Bush]

110. You forgot their favorite. It was Clinton's fault!

He fixed the computers when he left office.

[EVDebs]

13. Ptech access to WH, DOJ, DOD etc computer systems...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=638728&mesg_id=646519

The CIA's connection to Ptech (or a 'rogue' element of the CIA ?) leads to a CIA/GOP $ connection that may have been in existence from Nixon's days when the Turkish heroin crop was 'bought off' so that the Golden Triangle (and covert ops $ + skim) could be set up during the Vietnam war days.

Has the CIA and GOP been setting up a 'special relationship' ? Go back to All The President's Men. A footnote re 'Chilean investors' who are never id'ed seems to me to be about CIA/anti-Allende $ coming back into the US via a Mexican bank for Nixon's campaign.

Where this all leads is to the Octopus that Danny Casolaro and Gary Webb touched upon. The 'skim' for both CIA and GOP uses ... that's the Motherload of all scandals.

Dollars of terror by Rachel Ehrenfeld tells more about Ptech. Google it up (warning, conservative weblink but the info is devastating to the GOP. Talk about hoist on their own petard !).

[starroute]

35. This is extremely important but it may get overlooked here

"Follow the emails" is a great first step -- but in the end, it always comes down to "follow the money." (A phrase which, if memory serves me, was originally meant to point to that anti-Allende/Mexican/Nixon money trail you mention.)

As all the GOP scandals converge into the Great Bush Apocalypse, it becomes apparent once again that the master key to everything else is the money trail -- where they got it, how they moved it around and laundered it, and finally where they spent it. (On stealing elections, mainly.)

The Abramoff scandal has been played as if it was just a matter of a few slimeballs enriching themselves, but in fact it was far more about acquiring large sums of money from untraceable sources (Indian casinos, Russian oligarchs), laundering them through people like Grover Norquist (who's an expert at the game, as is Ralph Reed), and then funneling them into Republican campaigns.

The Cunningham-Wilkes scandal, in contrast, involved defense appropriations money being laundered through "meaningless" projects like scanning hundred year old Panama Canal documents. (Though there may have been some genuine data mining activities hidden under the surface of that one as well.) But the end result was the same.

Ditto for the money "lost" in Iraq.

And that's not even getting into the global underworld of drugs, arms, and money-laundering. BCCI may have gone away, but the functions it served still exist. Sibel Edmonds could tell us about that one, if they'd let her.

The ultimate dirty secret is that with sufficiently large sums of money, you can buy anything. You can purchase small countries outright and, with a bit more trouble, obtain a controlling interest in any nation on earth. In the end, the US is as available as any two-bit whore, and that may be the unpalatable truth we're all trying desperately not to acknowledge.

The penultimate dirty secret is probably that the godfather of all modern money-laundering operations was Allen Dulles, who was one of the inventors of the racket when he was helping move Nazi money around in the 30's. He taught the trade to the CIA, and from there it spread to the drugs-and-arms merchants who existed under CIA patronage from the 40's to the 70's and then went rogue in the 80's. The same tricks were passed to the Young Republicans and YAFers who were flocking to right-wing CIA front organizations in the 70's and 80's. (That's where people like Abramoff and Norquist picked them up.)

And I have no doubt at all that Dulles also entrusted his knowledge in the highest degree to his good family friends, Prescott Bush and descendants.

Put those three sets of Dulles clones together, and you have the current situation in a nutshell -- who's screwing us over, and why, and to what effect.

[EVDebs]

54. Read Renata Adler's '76 Atlantic Monthly article

The Search For The Real Nixon Scandal (also a chapter in her book Canaries In The Mineshaft).

It documents the Wright Patman House Banking Committee's attempt to 'follow the money' which inevitably was sidetracked and shutdown; but Renata got the gist of what was really going on as did Alfred McCoy, whose Politics of Heroin's new subtitle (CIA complicity in the global drug trade) and Tim Weiner (Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget) and the deceased 'Octopus' journalists Danny Casolaro and Gary Webb also.

It's time to shut down the dirty money machine and resusitate Democracy (capital D) in America again. Let's all breathe free !

[loudsue]

67. That was one kick-ass post, Starroute!

:applause: You tied it all together, put a bow on it, and NAILED IT!!

One of the best posts ever.

:kick::kick::kick:

[EVDebs]

78. Dude, Monica Goodling's attny John Dowd is an expert on...ta da...

moneylaundering :)

""Written Works

"U.S. Laundering, Forfeiture Laws Now Reach All Points on Globe," September 2002

"When Agents Serve Search Warrant, Businesses Must Know Rules of Game (Part 2 of 2),," Money Laundering Alert, June 2001

"When Laundering Charges Surface, Battles Commence on Many Fronts (Part 1 of 2)," Money Laundering Alert, May 2001 ""


http://www.akingump.com/attorney.cfm?attorney_id=58

Also check his litigation record (left hand side) at

http://pview.findlaw.com/view/2063863_1?channel=LP

if you want to.

[Raksha]

81. Great post...deserves its own thread. A keeper. n/t

[exlrrp]

95. "Follow The Money"-- A Deep Throat Quote

Comes from Watergate.
I'm amazed you didn't cite that too, followuing the money is what brought it all down. (the Watergate burglars were paid from RNC funds--McCord was blackmailing Nixon)

[EVDebs]

96. Again, the original source of that money wasn't traced back into Chile

or who the 'Chilean investors' actually were. Logic tells us it has to be destabilization $ from the CIA coming back as a gift to the GOP's candidate. This is the scheme Renata Adler describes in her book Canaries In The Mineshaft (the part about 'Searching For The Real Nixon Scandal', also published in Atlantic Monthly Dec. '76. The money NEVER gets traced back to the source.

BTW, it wouldn't surprise me to see money coming in from overseas, say, the Channel Islands off coast of France, and put into LLCs with that money distributed to Congresspeople as real estate deals, say, in lot splits or loans on property. All just speculation but possible to do and under the radar. The money feeds the Octopus.

And this follows the dictum, 'good money follows bad'. The problem nowadays is that the shear volume of bad money is crowding out the legit good money !

[donkeyotay]

102. Deserves its own thread

All this needs to get discussed in public - and in Washington. We are being harmed by what is being (and has been) done in the name of national security.

[jgorenfeld]

117. Gary Jarmin & Response Dynamics

Dear Starroute:

I'm writing a book on Reverend Moon and was hoping to get in touch with you about your amazing 2004 map of Gary Jarmin / Response Dynamics / Republican connections. Can you message me?

John

[LiberalFighter]

16. Who was the damn idiot that didn't feed the documents correctly for scanning?

[dalloway]

17. man, get this recommended so people can get this to

Waxman's attention pronto!

[LiberalFighter]

18. I question whether document EOUSA127-150.pdf

was originally created 2/12/2007.

Why would they have reasons to back up their appointments using comparison to Clinton? Unless, they figured it would make them look good with the current heat.

[LiberalFighter]

19. Document OAG12-22-NEW-.pdf

Parts are redacted. But some of it is readable especially first 3 or 4 pages.

[FogerRox]

20. REC'ed, sup Joisey?

[SusanaMontana41]

21. K&R

excellent analysis.

[Le Taz Hot]

22. K & R

In the hopes that it won't fall off the front page by yet another Imus thread.

[Jane Austin]

23. Tandalayo: Try contacting the Judiciary Committee staff, particularly

the Majority Chief of Staff.

They are much more likely to know how to evaluate what you are saying and are the ones who cut through the millions of things and select what to emphasize to Chairman Leahy.

Every committee has a majority and minority staff who do the heavy lifting while the Senators are making TeeVee appearances and raising money for their next campaign.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

29. I sent them a message from the committee site.

One of those form emails. I do so hate those form emails. They are just a goddamned bit bucket. Trust me, I know: I am a webmaster as well ;-)

If anyone can PM me a hot phone number for contact within Waxman's office or House Judiciary, please do. Failing that, if you have a contact within either office, but want to protect them in some manner, send them to this post, or cut, paste and email it to them.

Don't worry: I ain't looking for the non-pareil experience of takling to a congression staffer or congresscritter. Been there, done that, got the tshirt. Big deal. I just want them to understand what it is they are looking at here.

[conscious evolution]

109. Talk to CorpGovActivist

I think he could hook you up.

[Jane Austin]

33. Drat. Please substitute Waxman for Leahy and House for Senate in my comment

above.

Had Leahy on my mind, I guess.

[valerief]

24. Did the RNC get help from Microsoft directly maybe? nt

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

26. Unlikely.

From an MCSE? More likely.

[valerief]

28. Why? Doesn't Microsoft give hefty campaign contributions to the Repub candidates? nt

edited to add
Just checked Opensecrets.org. Looks like Microsoft's contribution percentage varies from election cycle to election cycle.

[starroute]

40. Microsoft has been very tied in to the GOP

In the late 90's, they were using every lobbyist in town to get that antitrust suit against them overturned -- and the Bush administration obliged when it came in. Abramoff was lobbying for Microsoft in his Preston Gates days. Norquist's American's for Tax Reform also had Microsoft as a funder back around 1999.

More recently, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers -- the firm of former RNC chairman Haley Barbour -- has lobbied for Microsoft. So has Bush crony and National Endowment for Democracy head Vin Weber.

The sympathies of many Microsoft employees may lie with the Democrats -- which would affect the totals in Open Secrets -- but when it comes to its corporate interests, Microsoft knows which side its bread is buttered on.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

44. Exactly.

The business of Microsoft is developing, marketing and selling very complex and expensive software. Everything else is ancillary. By getting their foot in the door with the government and creating a large, interconnected Exchange infrastructure, they affect the IT procurement decisions in thousand of non-governmental concerns. And governmental.

[WHAT]

83. If what you and supernova say above, in 5 and 9, is true...

5 So it beggars my belif that they hired IT people who knew anything about e-mail systems. TS

9 There is no way That an Exchange infrastructure of this apparent magnitude could have been designed and setup by anyone with less than Expert credentials and Experience. No way. SN

if they are both true, then maybe (to flip #5 over) the IT hired them? This is the only way I can think of that both things would be true...

I'm no expert, I can't even fix my itunes, I'm just trying to combine both statements. Rove is coming to Seattle tomorrow (just a throw-out thought)

[cascadiance]

79. Maybe they made a "special exchange server" in exchange for Ashcroft's help

at letting them off the legal anti-trust hooks when the Bush administration took over.

I still remember when Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's decision to reverse the earlier decision against Microsoft was "conveniently" and nicely timed to be the Friday before election day, so that Rethugs could "brag" about helping out business over the weekend election stump speeches without having any opportunity for a set of well written responses to that decision for the other side to explain why it was a bad decision.

I'm sure Bill Gates and others at Microsoft probably knew they "owed" Bushco something after that.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

101. Doubtful.

While that makes a good book premise, I just don't see Microsoft getting involved in something so rickey-tick as a rogue email infrastructure.

I do see some individual Microsoft Certified Professionals getting involved, however.

[hootinholler]

30. Dunno about the EOP, but,

The majority of the rest of the government is on slotus bloats. Then again if this is the RNC services, then they could be exchange, but, if their techs were smart they'd be on *nix.

-Hoot

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

31. My expeience and knowledge taught me...

That in a large part of government work, Exchange is the standard. They use *nix for some workstations and a lot of High-Performance clustering(Dell is cleaning up on this space, along with RedHat), but Exchange is the email infrastructure wanted and specified.

If the clients are running Lotus Notes, installing a Notes connector is near trivial.

[hootinholler]

48. Ok,

The DOT and GSA are both notes shops. We still have a lot of SUN boxen here (DOT).

-Hoot

[eomer]

86. Dana Perrino said in today's WH briefing that emails may have been lost

when they converted from Lotus Notes to Exchange. Pretty sure she was talking about the internal WH system, not the RNC's systems. She didn't say when that conversion happened but it had to be sometime during the period in question if the theory is that some of the missing emails could be due to it.

[EVDebs]

97. Ptech operates the WH and DOJ systems. Hmmm.

Dollars of Terror
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID...

"Ptech is used primarily to develop enterprise blueprints at the highest level of US government and corporate infrastructure. These blueprints hold every important functional, operational, and technical detail of the enterprise. A secondary use of this powerful tool is to build other smart tools in a short period of time. Ptech’s clients in 2001 included the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, Customs, Air Force, the White House, the FAA, IBM, Sysco, Aetna, and Motorola, to name just a few."

[babylonsister]

38. K/R! Organized criminal effort; I hope Waxman gets to the bottom

of this post-haste! And thank you, T_S! :applause:

[Pawel K]

39. Did the original emails that were released contain the headers?

Is it really 5 million emails that are missing? This is huge.

Also, why do you think it is necessarily exchange that they are running, I think if emails are downloaded using outlook you will get the same thing, no? I personally use exim under linux so I don't have a lot of experiance with exchange, though I have played with it at work where I have windows 2003 SBS installed. So a little more details would be great as if this really was hosted on exchange you might be onto something here as 5,000,000 emails can not possibly disappear on that kind of set up.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

43. Looking at the Emails in the dump...

And bouncing that off the knowledge of what the government uses and what little I know about the hosting company in Knoxville, the one that was supplying hosting to the RNC.

My Kingdom for some email headers.

[POAS]

87. In answer to your subject line

Yes they did have the headers. That is how the use of the GWB43 email address was uncovered.

[Morgana LaFey]

42. CALL THE STAFF AT THE COMMITTEE

not Waxman's office.

ANd don't take "eyes glazed over" for an answer. :evilgrin:

[Rose Siding]

92. Here, here - I've found that staff manning committee phones take more call details

[Sparkly]

46. Tandalayo and anybody else who knows such things: Does this part make sense?

Perino said a White House review showed up to 5 million e-mails to and from as many as 1,700 executive branch employees might have been lost when the administration converted from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook in 2002 and 2003.

Is that plausible?

Also:
The White House disclosed the Republican National Committee in early 2006 took away Rove's ability to delete e-mails sent and received through a party e-mail account.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino had no explanation for why the RNC, the governing arm of President George W. Bush's political party, would stop Rove from deleting e-mails.

Any ideas about that, beyond perhaps the desire to say, "Rove couldn't possibly have deleted anything!"?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070413/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

47. Hardly plausable.

They are not lost, they are on backup tapes somewhere. Moreover, Microsoft and other 3rd-party providers supply robust and reliable tools for migrating email, user accounts and much more. A government contractor with the expertise to do an Exchange deployment of this size should, and probably does have the ability to perform the migration of email and user accounts. So I smell bullshit and its ripe.

As per point 2:

There should still be backups. I really, really doubt that someone gave Rove Domain or Enterprise Administrator permissions to be able to delete everything. It just does not make sense that he would be allowd that level of access. He hasn't got the expertise.

[Sparkly]

49. Thank you.

:hi:

[redacted]

55. Complete, total, and utter BULLshit. Tandalayo nails it again, as usual.

Perino said a White House review showed up to 5 million e-mails to and from as many as 1,700 executive branch employees might have been lost when the administration converted from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook in 2002 and 2003.

As soon as I read that quote, I was thinking exactly the same thing:

BULLSHIT!

She delivered that remark with a straight face? They really expect anybody who knows anything about IT or CS to buy that line? Oh come on.

:rofl:

[Princess Turandot]

89. In my experience (user side not tech)..

when you convert one system to another and need to move existing data from the old to the new, a lot of time is spent reconciling what was in the old system when it was turned to off to what is on the new system to when it goes live. When I worked in public accounting I saw quite a few system conversion catastrophes (usually because of poor planning or rushed implementation), but in all of these cases, the old system data was maintained in the prior format in some backup form if the conversion had not reconciled. I don't see how they could have failed to notice that 5 million records/transactions did not convert.

"Sorry, Senator, the dog ..okay, make that Cerberus the 3 headed hound of hell, ate the Lotus server."

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

103. In the process of conversion...

Fron Notes to Exchange, the available conversion tools from Microsoft and a raft of 3rd-party providers are both robust and numerous. Conversion tools are included in the Exchange 2003 distribution. You can bet that they work well, because a large part of a business' decision to make the conversion(at a sales price of many 10's of thousands of dollars) hinges on the tools that will effect that conversion, their quality.

Then, let us remember what Hoot has said: A lot of government shops were Notes shops. Microsoft wants that business. Bad. They want to rule that space, because by doing so, the email infrastructure procurement decisions of hundres of agencies and thousands of contractors, consultants and other concerns are affected, to ensure seamless integration with the government systems.

You can bet that software is highly supported to ensure reliability.

[orleans]

50. what post #42 said

ask to talk to a staffer who will understand what you are talking about.

[tomp]

51. could this be a good thing?

if what you say is true about the set-up of this system, then either the e-mails are still there or it will be abundantly clear that they have been intentionally destroyed, no?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

60. Yes.

That is very much what could happen.

[truedelphi]

53. If you want someone more than a phone kid, here's how to flush them out

Call and say that you were talking the other day to one of the IT guys that works for Waxman.
(You can even be more specific - so tht you land the exact sort of computer expert that you think most appropriate.)

You've lost your daily organizer and there fore have lost his phone number and name.

Tell them that this IT person had asked that you return their call.

it might take research on part of the phone kid, but I bet they come up with someone's name for you.

[Hekate]

56. Stonewalling plus intentionally set up. They are not, repeat NOT, incompetent.

Evil, yes. But incompetent? -- only the way a rodeo clown is "incompetent".

Hekate

[GalleryGod]

58. Excellent Post, TS ! Thanks !

[suziedemocrat]

59. My bet is they set it up specifically to be able to "wipe out" data.

They HAD to have thought of the possibility that their emails would be subpoenaed. They probably took steps to "protect" the sensitive ones.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

61. Exchange is not setup to destroy.

Just deleting email stores is not as trivial as one might expect. Exchange was designed for use in a modern legal and ethical corporate or governmental environment, IE: where backups and archiving would just naturally take place. Deleting stores would mean having to recreate stores and that ain't trivial.

[loudsue]

68. I thought all government communications were supposed to be archived!

Isn't that what the law says? So, if Rove was doing government business on ANY computer, doesn't that qualify under the law as something that's supposed to have a record of it?

Man! These guys are just like the Ebola virus...they're deadly and unpleasant as hell!

:kick::kick::kick:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

70. Yurp.

As per The Hatch Act(As in Orrin), all Government communications are supposed to be archived.

Which they did not do on the RNC servers. Which was an end-run around a law. A Repuke-instituted law, to boot.

[frogcycle]

73. the irony I have not heard mentioned

is that if the RNC servers were specifically for (1)political, (2)non-governmental business, necessary due to the Hatch Act because of (1) and not covered by the Presidential Papers Act due to (2), then ANY mention of the USA's puts the lie to the claim that their firings weren't political...

If it was not political, then all records are required by the papers act; there is no grey area. If the records are not available because of having been created on non-archived systems, then somebody broke the law - 5 million times, at least. Plus the conspiracy under which it occurred.

If it was political then Gonzo et al are lying and it is clearly demonstrated that political hacks were tinkering with the very fabric of the justice system to support rigging elections.


In both cases it happened on Bush's watch and he should be removed for sheer incompetance, aside from all the other reasons.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

98. They can say what they will, but...

The prima facie evidence points to a separate email infrastructure designed to circumvent Federal Law, IE: The Hatch Act.

Now, you go do something illegal with a computer, get found out and see what happens. You'll get the legal equivalent of being buried up to your neck in a fire ant anthill. Prosecutors have a simple philosophy: Computer-based criminals obviously also worship Satan and molest children. Or something.

[frogcycle]

114. no, the Hatch act says don't use govt equipt for politics

that id the excuse for the parallel systems, and it would be legal, but for the fact that they then used it to get around the Presidential Papers act, which requires archiving of official govt business documents - THAT is what needs to be shown to nail the bastards. And it is, of course, why 5 million emails are missing. They are missing because it was illegal for them to be there in the first place. Not all are necessarily incriminating, except for their very presence there.

[Triana]

62. It ain't rocket science..

...many/most people understand it - at least on a basic level. People who understand it in detail are not Gods (or Goddesses). It's pretty open stuff - and in the case of MickeySnot Commercial crap and the hairball that is Exchange - it's still pretty well-known by lots of administrators - some of whose heads ought to be in some nice hemp neckties right now tasked 24 x 7 with finding the damn emails - along with some highly paid forsenic data experts.

That said, WHY WHY WHY are they NOT confiscating and sealing these servers and getting Exchange and forsenic experts ON this before the bastards DoD wipe the damn disks and files?

Heellllllllllloooooooooooo! GOD I get so frustrated with their damn pussyfooting. WHAT are they waiting for?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

100. Two points:

1. They are only as good as the quality of their advice.

2. There is always the element of the poker game in all this.

[TheMadMonk]

115. Unforunately I suspect a good deal of the problem is...

...all the other material sequestered on those systems. Material that the government and opposition party are legitimately not entitled to know. Plus quite a bit they would love to know, but only under circumstances where they could use it.

[yowzayowzayowza]

69. Tharze also the spam control layer.

Software operating over Exchange tasked with controlling spam can automatically quarantine or delete MANY messages. A few errant clicks and a scruple challenged techie could flush lotz and lotz stuff down the spam drain.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

71. Perhaps.

Let the logs reflect that.

[salin]

75. Wow - speechless

I am rarely left speechless.

[Fovea]

76. IMO This is BS, the only valid compliance

is a backup of all files on all servers. Or even better, the actual hard drives.

Not printouts, no paper, just a stack of hard drives.

If those files are really unavailable on the hard drives, then the NSA did it, most likely.

If, by available, we mean what they could extract by all means available to them.

[Patsy Stone]

77. No way, no how

are these completly gone. No way.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

82. The RNC / WH might be hiding something bigger

Such a huge number of "missing" emails may indicate that there is a cleaning operation going on while they are getting the set together. Such a massive operation may mean there is an even bigger crime they are covering up.

[L. Coyote]

85. LEAHY KNEW? E-mails sought by special prosecutor also missing

Is this something Leahy, et.al., knew from the beginning of e-mailgate? "E-mails sought by special prosecutor also missing"
===============
CNN story: http://cnn.worldnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=White+House%3A+Millions+of+e-mails+may+be+missing+-+CNN.com&expire=&urlID=21936597&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2007%2FPOLITICS%2F04%2F13%2Fwhite.house.email%2F&partnerID=2006


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Millions of White House e-mails may be missing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino acknowledged Friday.

"I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million e-mails lost," Perino told reporters.

..............

E-mails sought by special prosecutor also missing

Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, disclosed last year that some White House e-mails in 2003 were not saved as standard procedure dictated.

In a January 23, 2006, letter to the defense team of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald wrote: "We advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."

Robert Luskin, personal attorney for Rove, told CNN Friday that he "has no reason to doubt" Fitzgerald's assertion that some White House e-mail was missing.

MORE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x649088#652069

[POAS]

88. I'm far from an expert

but those missing headers jumped out at me also. Without them investigators have no place to go looking for the completeness or accuracy of what was delivered.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

99. Exactly.

Email headers would be a rich source of germane information and that is what frustrates me: When the content of this document dump was specified, apparently headers were not specified and that really gets on my tits. This is not doctorate-level stuff. Any tyro geek would know that in a situation like this, get the headers and get some header experts looking at them.

Considering my experiences with the vicious beasts, if Conyers, Waxman, Leahy or their committees are using inside-the-beltway "consultants" and "experts", they may want to look outward. Some of those guys ain't all that.

[POAS]

105. I really rather they got them in the original electronic form

so that the actual path through the "internets" could be gleaned. There is a whole lot missing in a printed version!

[KoKo]

107. Reading the PDF files of the Conyers and Waxman letters they did specify

"headers" "metadata" and every kind of technical term one could use about email identifiers in their request. They were very thorough...
I'll see if I can find a link to the PDF's of both.

[KoKo]

108. Here's link for Conyers letter specifying the data he wanted included with emails.

Page 2 of the letter.

http://judiciary.house.gov/Media/PDFS/AGSubpoena070410.pdf

[durtee librul]

112. Just read the Conyers letter

and I must say, they KNOW EXACTLY what they are looking for.

Sad to say, I think that as there are no pictures or connect the dots for lil Al to follow, he probably went cross eyed after the first page and had to have Harriet Miers 'translate' for him.....which with HER credentials explains why we don't have anything.

This week should be interesting to see how much 'he' remembers like his pal Sampson.

[enough]

90. I don't usually read long threads all the way through, but this is great.

Thanks T_S and DU.

[Lost4words]

104. kick

:kick:

[Tace]

106. Tandalayo_Scheisskopf For President!

: )

[HuffleClaw]

111. they are counting on the public's ignorance of things technical

to win the day. someone needs to come up with a joesixpack-friendly analogy to explain this and soon or they'll be able to sweep this under the carpet.

[DemReadingDU]

113. morning kick

[SpiralHawk]

116. republicons lying to the people of America. Again.

Why do republicons lie to the people of America so consistently?

WHY ARE REPUBLICONS SO UNETHICAL?