Judge Recommends Order "To COMPEL WH To Search Individual Workstations" Re: Missing E-Mails

[kpete]

For Immediate Release:
April 24, 2008

Court Sets Deadline for White House Answers on Missing E-mail

Magistrate Judge Cites "Lack of Precision" in White House Statements

Order Could Force White House to Save Individual Workstation Files; Action Comes in Response to Archive Motion

For more information contact:
Meredith Fuchs - 202/994-7000
John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand - 202/879-3939


Washington D.C., April 24, 2008 - Responding to the National Security Archive's motion in the pending White House e-mail lawsuit, Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court today ordered the White House to provide "precise information" about the users of the e-mail system from 2003 to 2005 and how many of their hard drives still survive today.

Citing the "lack of precision" in White House statements and its changing story about which backup tapes have been preserved, Magistrate Judge Facciola also ordered the White House to "resolve any ambiguities … once and for all" and identify the specific dates between March 2003 and October 2003 for which no backup tape exists.

The magistrate judge also recommended that District Judge Henry H. Kennedy issue a series of orders that would compel the White House to search the individual workstations of White House staff, preserve the personal folders (.PST files in the Microsoft environment) where e-mail may have been stored, and secure any portable or external media that may contain e-mail from March 2003 to October 2005. Referring to the White House position that it has no formal program for distributing "hard or external drives, CDs, DVDs, jump, zip, hard, or floppy disks," Magistrate Judge Facciola commented "ne would hope that the components have filled the void left by (Office of Chief Information Officer) by implementing policies and procedures to "track and manage" the removal and/or transfer of (Executive Office of the President)data…."

"It is remarkable that the EOP, absent this Court's order, has not taken the most elementary steps to preserve very basic sources of the missing e-mail -- steps that, even as the Court notes, should in this day and age be conducted as a matter of course in any litigation," commented Sheila Shadmand of Jones Day, counsel for the Archive.

more at:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20080424/index.htm

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Comply with a court order... but that's so haaaard.

I'd have to turn on Scooter's computer n' everything.

[Richard Steele]

2. Another Court order this White House will ignore with zero consequences. *sigh* nm

[ladjf]

4. I think there has been a coup d'etat.

[L. Coyote]

3. Blatant ongoing criminality, simply put. Why haven't they

done that long ago. They have a legal duty to preserve documents. Anything less is a crime.

Why isn't the judge turning this over to a grand jury? Or has that happened already.

How many grand juries are working? Any secret ones?

[hootinholler]

5. Hey Yer Honor!

Why not ask the NSA for copies? They should have them since AT&T was allowing them to slurp the backbone.

Oh, slurp? A technique where all traffic (or a file) is read at once before further processing.

Oh, backbone? Yeah, not the one that the Congressional Leadership are missing, it refers to the main trunk lines of the internet. 99.9% of all internet traffic goes through one of 3 points on the backbone and according to allegations the NSA has a slurpie machine sitting on each one.

-Hoot

[Supersedeas]

6. I'm sure that Bushie Computer chick will get right on that Judge

[The Stranger]

7. Meanwhile the Nancy Disaster is all up in arms about something else today -- what was it? I forget.