Gov. Rick Scott’s original transition e-mails were accidentally deleted, state now says.

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Thursday, 08.18.11
Gov. Rick Scott’s original transition e-mails were accidentally deleted, state now says.
Deletion of records could be a violation of state law, public records experts say.

By Michael C. Bender
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- The email accounts of Rick Scott and most of the governor-elect’s transition team were deleted soon after he took office, potentially erasing public records that state law requires be kept.

Scott’s team acknowledged for the first time this week that the private company providing email service deleted the records as early as mid-January, about the time the Herald/Times first sought transition emails.

Unable to gather records from the server, as is typical to comply with public records requests, Scott officials attempted to recover the governor-elect’s emails from personal accounts of his top-level staff.

But without access to the server, it’s impossible to know how many emails from Scott or his staff were lost between Election Day and the inauguration celebration, a two-month stretch when the team made key hiring moves and shaped the new administration’s agenda.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/18/2365597/gov-rick-scotts-original-transition.html

[eShirl]

1. "D'oh!"

Ha! I almost believe them. (epic failures)

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. See? We're not evil - just incompetent! nt

[Sancho]

3. What an amazing "accident"!

this is the most dishonest crook ever to be a governor!

[Angry Dragon]

4. There sure are a lot of illlegal things happening in the

Orange state ...........
Just thinking, is the weeping boner going to retire there or was he just born there??

[TBA]

5. This is BS

No way those servers were not backed up. The emails are recoverable from the backups.

[boppers]

11. ...for 14 days, there's near-line backups.

First recovery inquiry was made a month later, and the first legal request was three months later.

Rotation in a backup schedule can cause issues when dealing with public records, especially if people aren't aware that the records involved as supposed to be permanently backed up, *and* should not be hosted on the kind of service that doesn't keep permanent records.

http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/rackspace_email/

[Enrique]

6. does the law allow you to say "oops"?

because if it does, it's not much of a law. Everyone would just delete all their files and then say "oops."

[SomeGuyInEagan]

20. Emails, 18 minutes of recorded tapes ... stuff just gets erased sometimes.

Who really knows how. But that was yesterday ... we need to look forward. :sarcasm:

[jtuck004]

7. And accidentally got the backup too?

No one, no where, is there someone running a mail server without a back up. Well, maybe someone running it in their bedroom, but not the one this was on. (To Reiterate the point made in a post above).

Time to gather evidence.

[boppers]

12. Near-line backups got wiped.

At the scale of Rackspace, they can't afford to backup every account, every day, in perpetuity...

[jtuck004]

22. They can afford to back up mail servers. Betcha they do. ymmv.

I should also add that it doesn't mean they won't lie to you and tell you they don't have a backup if you lose yours.

Just that you are not important enough or don't pay enough to get it back.

Betcha someone has it.

[boppers]

26. That's why I said "near-line".

Usually that's on-disk.

Tapes (and related occasional "hard" media) are another matter. If they checkpointed to tape once a month, of course, there's still huge chunks of missing data, and (on a related note)....

Rackspace does offer "perpetual storage", if you pay for it.

It costs a bit more than $2 a month per user account, though, if you're storing the state of everybody's mail stream at every access.

[Tempest]

27. The federal government does it, so do many states.

Federal law is for 7 years of backups.

As a former network administrator for DHS in California, I can tell you with certainty I could go back seven years and pull up any email you wanted to see.

[boppers]

28. ...and they tax accordingly.

Private companies don't always have the same luxury of doing things right, when their customers can be stolen by competitors who cut corners. There is no "7 years of backups" law on private email accounts.

[coyote]

8. Sorry, but there is no such thing as "accidentally deleting" emails on an email server...

this is a coverup plain and simple.

[boppers]

15. No accident, indeed.

They closed their user accounts and (mostly) left the service.... if there's an accident, it was that people didn't realize that they had a legal obligation to preserve their records as soon as election results were official.

[Frank Cannon]

18. It's Rick Scott, for crying out loud.

It's no exaggeration at all to say the man is a fucking federal criminal. This incident would be no different than Al Capone telling the Feds, "Sorry, but my office burned down and destroyed all my tax records." Back in Capone's day, though, we put people like him in Alcatraz. Now they're "elected" Governor.

[saras]

9. No accident here.

An accident would imply, say, someone clicking "delete all" instead of "delete message", or something falling on the keyboard and hitting the DELETE key at a crucial time.

This was, as is clearly described in both the article and the OP, a completely deliberate, premeditated action.

[on point]

10. The dog ate my homework

[valerief]

13. So, of course, the private company will be sued. NOT. nt

[Bronco Bob]

14. Bullshit. Seize all of the E-mail server, and send it to the FBI

for analysis.

They can extract ANYTHING. Nothing is ever deleted. It's just marked on your hard drive, and erases "information" but it is in the magnetic disc, and with specialized tools, can recover anything.

[quaker bill]

31. There is no federal case

this is violation of a state law.

[starroute]

16. Taking lessons from Karl Rove, I guess

And Rove got away with it, so why shouldn't they?

[russspeakeasy]

17. Rick Scott =Total Asshole

:hurts:

[kestrel91316]

19. Accidentally, my ass.

[SoapBox]

21. Beyond amazing what dirt bags these creeps are...

[jwirr]

23. Wonder if Anonymous is as good at retrieving emails as they are

at hacking?

[DallasNE]

24. This Is Not Rocket Science

There are clear procedures in every data processing shop concerning disaster recovery procedures and retention rules governing retention of data for specific types of data. So how is it that when politics are involved that all of these elaborate rules and procedures are ignored. A good DP manager would blow the whistle on these corrupt practices. Perhaps it is time to throw both the person(s) ordering the destruction of data and the individual(s) responsible for the destruction to a little time in the slammer. Corruption like this is one of the biggest problems facing our nation today. There is only one way to end corruption and that is with strong enforcement. Sadly, Obama has not been up to the task any more than was Bush.

[quaker bill]

30. It is not an Obama thing

records retention and public access to records in FL is governed by the provisions of Chapter 119 F.S. There is no federal role in this enforcement. This is a state legislature / state attorney general matter, teabaggers all. If the case gets any traction, which it won't, then the Legislature will simply revise Chapter 119 F.S. to provide a retroactive exemption.

[truthisfreedom]

25. I'm sure a strongly worded letter is in the works.

Sigh. Arrogant m-fucker.

[panzerfaust]

29. Durn

Durn convenient that is.