MISSING WH EMAILS=SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE OF OBSTRUCTION

[Beetwasher]

I know there's another thread about this, but this post is about a specific aspect of this important story. If the WH or RNC does not, cannot or refuses to produce copies of requested emails, it is undeniably smoking gun evidence of obstruction of justice.

Seriously. There is no way in hell ALL copies of the emails in question can go missing unless someone DELIBERATELY tried to get rid of them. There are ALWAYS copies and backups somewhere. Always. Any claim by the admin. or RNC that they can't produce emails is AUTOMATICALLY OBSTRUCTION. This is a smoking gun if there ever was one. Emails DO NOT TOTALLY DISAPPEAR BY ACCIDENT. This is NOT like an erased tape a la Nixon. There is always someone who sends and recieves an email, so there are backups on servers AND on local drives on BOTH ends as well as an SERVER BACKUPS on both ends. If there are no copies of these emails anywhere, then it is SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE OF OBSTRUCTION. Period. End of story.

So you have MULTIPLE copies (at least 6 by my count) as follows for any one email:

1. Senders copy local drive (blackberry, PC, laptop etc.)
2. Sender's copy on server
3. Reciever's copy on local drive
4. Reciever's copy on server
5&6. Backups on both ends

Granted, I'm no computer genius, so someone correct me if I'm wrong and email doesn't work like this.

But if I'm right, it's IMPOSSIBLE for all copies to disappear w/out a deliberate attempt at obstruction. Smoking gun.

[Kingshakabobo]

1. That makes sense. kr nt

[BuyingThyme]

2. Me too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=630096&mesg_id=630592

[Beetwasher]

3. Yup, And That's Just On The LOCAL Drives

There are also copies on the SERVERS on each end AND on the BACKUP servers on each end.

So you have MULTIPLE copies (at least 6 by my count) as follows for any one email:

1. Senders copy local drive (blackberry, PC, laptop etc.)
2. Sender's copy on server
3. Reciever's copy on local drive
4. Reciever's copy on server
5&6. Backups on both ends

Granted, I'm no computer genius, so someone correct me if I'm wrong and email doesn't work like this.

[BuyingThyme]

4. I don't know much about the servers, but

I'm pretty sure that the law requires them to keep this stuff, so there's really no good excuses.

[CatWoman]

5. Hey Snookums

:hi:

:loveya:

we are living in strange times.

strange indeed.

buckle your seatbelt - it's gonna be a bumpy, bumpy ride......

[Beetwasher]

7. Amazing

The mask is coming off and they're just not even trying to hide it anymore.

:hi:

[KittyWampus]

27. Thank God Al Gore Invented The Internet!

:D

The bastard's emails will sink them- retrieved or not.

[renate]

30. love it!

Best title for a post ever!

:rofl:

[jazzjunkysue]

6. This is absolutely an obstruction and a coverup. Impeach.

If the senate tolerates this, they're all guilty.

Edwards has to insist that this is a crisis. Please, John. Pick up this banner and run with it.

Proud to be #5.

[unblock]

8. 100% correct

i've never worked on or with any email system that didn't have backups as a standard practice. you HAVE to have this because users say things like "i accidently deleted that important email from my account, can you get it from a backup?"

[BuyingThyme]

9. Hey, wait a minute. Shouldn't the NSA and FBI have copies

of this stuff lying around? I mean, it being on public servers and all.

What luck!

[C_U_L8R]

16. BINGO !!!

The NSA has reportedly been scooping up all net traffic
and stuffing it all away so they can look for criminal activity
and snoop in on their communications (during and after the fact)

Well this certainly qualifies as criminal activity...
But I wonder if our team has the guts to play the NSA card.

[librechik]

24. bwa ha ha ha !

maybe there's something to this email privacy stuff! (they're thinking right about now)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. Are you questioning the integrity of our government?

:spank:

[midnight]

11. This is the legal department of this country. Shouldn't they be

aware of this law-destroying evidence.

[Morgana LaFey]

12. You have to work pretty hard to "lose" selected emails --

about as hard as erasing 18 minutes of audiotape. Maybe harder.

[Gregorian]

13. Ah. Thank you.

This is the other side of the issue that I've been trying to get a hold of. My feeble mind kept saying there may not be copies. They may have owned the isp and just destroyed it all.

But then there is the other side of it, which you have so kindly posted.

Check, please! Or is that checkmate.

I suppose there is national security, or executive privilege. I highly doubt that. Not under the conditions of this subpoena.

Also, these emails may have never set foot on a hard drive. It could have all been web based email. But that still leaves footprints all over the place. Or at least ONE place. And one is enough.

Edit- No, I don't think one is enough. If they say they simply blew it, and the emails disappeared, one wouldn't work. They have to have several, coordinated losses. Then it starts looking like obstruction.

[Matariki]

14. not to mention a person has to really TRY to completely and permanently remove data

from a hard drive...

[Gregorian]

15. I'm not so sure.

I use a web based email server. Email does not reside on my hard drive. And I can purge the server at any time. However there, if I recall, is backup at the ISP for a period of time. Not to mention Homeland Security copies. But I don't know who is being watched by them. I've just heard about that.

So unless they have several independent copies that are purged, I doubt it can be proven to be obstruction of justice. But that's worse case. I'm guessing they didn't use web based email servers. We will find out, though.

There is also the chance that something important WASN'T purged. Sort of the inverse of the 18 minutes in Nixon's administration.

[Beetwasher]

17. "Web Based Servers"

Don't know enough about it. There would be only one copy of an email? I guess if both used the same server and sent emails to eachother on that server...But no, there would STILL be two copies on that server, the sent and the received version. Nope. This is checkmate. You don't "accidentally" lose both copies. Not for one email. And certainly not for more than one. Checkmate. Obstruction. Period.

[Little Wing]

28. You clearly don't know enough about how servers work, so you shouldn't be calling checkmate

[Beetwasher]

33. Bullshit

Checkmate does not necessarily have to do w/ the servers. It has do w/ IF there's no evidence of emails then they WERE purposely deleted or lost or whatever (regardless of whether it was automatic becuase the servers were set up that way or someone deliberately went and did it). That's obstruction. They were required by law to preserve the emails. Either they used a server that would keep no record OR they deleted them. Either way by not producing them they are obstructing. Checkmate. The servers are not even necessarily relevant to the checkmate.

If you got problems w/ this, talk to Leahy about it:

Leahy: Bush aides lying about e-mails By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a powerful Senate chairman said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.


"They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) shouted from the Senate floor.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."
--snip--

[NewJeffCT]

18. Easy to get around

have some "low-level staffers" with I/T experience delete everything. Blame these low-level staffers for an "innocent mistake" - they spend a few months in jail and are pardoned by Bush on Dec. 31, 2008... the low level staffers sign deals to become RW talk radio show hosts and become famous for bashing the Gore administration when they take office in 2009.

[Beetwasher]

19. Yeah, Sure, Real Simple

:eyes:

I think you should send Waxman a letter. Any low level staffer could be looking at SERIOUS jail time for this. A few years? How do you figure? Waxman is talking about serious securit violations that I believe would be FELONIES.

"This is a remarkable admission that raises serious legal and security issues," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the role of electoral politics in administration policymaking. "The White House has an obligation to disclose all the information it has."


I dunno, maybe if you were a "low level staffer" you might be stupid enough to take the fall for this. I wouldn't.

[NewJeffCT]

20. If they knew a Bush pardon was coming...

I'm sure their silence could be bought. Republicans love to recycle their criminals, too.

G Gordon Libby, Spencer Abrams, etc, etc.

[Beetwasher]

21. Jail Is Jail

And checkmate is checkmate. I guess people didn't squeal and go to jail for Watergate?

[TahitiNut]

22. Not quite that simple.

To better understand the degree to which copies of email are created across the Internet, one must gain at least a basic familiarity with the basics of client/server protocols and the store-and-forward disciplines involving mail transport agents (MTAs), mail submission agents (MUAs), and mail delivery agents(MDAs) and their design. In many cases, MTAs, MUAs, and MDAs are implemented upon host architectures employing database servers, usually SQL database servers. (Furthermore, one might consider the even more common basis upon which all Internet protocols operated which includes routers, bridges and gateways and the caches the employ, but we could probably forego that consideration due to the orders-of-magnitude greater difficulty in dealing with any recovery or tracking.)

The assumption that any copy is ever created on the end-user's (originator or recipients) host computer is not valid when it comes to web-based clients employed (particularly by PDAs).

:hi:

Now, that's NOT to say that copies don't get created in abundance over the multitude of zervers participating in any email exchange, but it's also complicated by the alternative email implemetations offered by Microsoft, Lotus, and IBM.

Furthermore, the pragmatics (including costs) of attempting such recoveries is particularly extreme when it comes to the multitude of considerations regarding OTHER email, most often wholly unrelated and involving potential privacy and security concerns of people and organizations of an almost unpredictable variety. In the Internet's store-and-forward message transfer functions, there's typically no content-specific segregation.

[Beetwasher]

23. You Nerd

:evilgrin: :hi:

But does that mean that theoretically there could only be one copy to lose or erase and that would be that?

[TahitiNut]

26. An old nerd is a bit like an old fart ... even stinkier.

:rofl:

:patriot:

[Ganja Ninja]

25. Don't forget their Blackberry's and cell phones.

There are copies all over the place.

I think it's time to stop asking for them to produce and just start impeachment proceedings. If they won't cooperate it's obstruction. No need to wait any longer just impeach.

[slackmaster]

29. A good Systems Administrator can make almost anything disappear

:hide:

[Beetwasher]

35. Sure

And that's smoking gun evidence of obstruction. The only way these emails could all disappear is through a deliberate attempt. Obstruction. End of story.

[jollyreaper2112]

31. I don't have the quote

I remember when Bush came into office there was a puff piece contrasting Clinton's style and the new order coming in. The Clinton/Gore team was quoted as being the geek administration with how they totally embraced email, the internet, and computer technology. Laptops everywhere, blackberries buzzing, geek paradise.

Bush was contrasted as saying he didn't even like dealing with email and I could have sworn something was said about having too much documentation, i.e. supeonable(sp) material. Anyone remember this?

Here's one reference to it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/15/bush_private_email/

US prez George Bush has admitted he does not send personal emails to daughters Jenna and Barbara for fear that his "personal stuff" might end up in the public domain.

Bush made the admission on Thursday to the American Society of Newspaper Editors during a discussion centring on whether the US government is sufficiently forthcoming to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, Reuters reports. Bush said the administration gets around 3.5 million FOIA requests a year and noted: "I would hope that those who expose documents are wise about the difference between that which truly would jeopardize national security and that which should be read."

We leave it to readers to imagine quite what exactly any email between George and Jenna and Barbara might contain which - were it released into the wild - could threaten national security*. Bush says it's a personal privacy issue: "I don't want you reading my personal stuff," he admitted, adding: "There has got to be a certain sense of privacy. You know, you're entitled to how I make decisions. And you're entitled to ask questions, which I answer. I don't think you're entitled to be able to read my mail between my daughters and me."

[librechik]

32. everybody send or call Waxman about this

although given the wording of the subpoena, whoever is advising seems quite knowledgeable about computer operations.

[jus_the_facts]

34. Ahh still so full o' hope we are...grasshoppa....

....sigh...I'll remain forever cynical...hope all's well with you and yours!! :hi: :loveya: