someone explain this to me: Bush E-Mail Mystery Deepens: White House Won't Name Tech Contractor

[Lone_Star_Dem]

I don't understand how they can not name the company that is contracted by the Information Assurance Directorate, and responsible for archiving emails that belong to the American public. What am I missing here? Is there some law that I know nothing of that permits them to withhold this information?

The White House will not identify a private company which appears to be involved in the disappearance of millions of White House e-mails.

The company was responsible for reviewing and archiving White House e-mails, a White House official told congressional staff in May, according to a letter yesterday from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Congressional investigators asked then for the name of the company and "have repeatedly requested" the information since then, according to Waxman.

They are still waiting for an answer, the chairman wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding. Waxman asked the White House to come up with the company's name by Sept. 10.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com the company's name or explain why the White House would not provide it to Congress.

More...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/08/bush-e-mail-mys.html

[Kagemusha]

1. re: some law, no, not really

They're not even bothering to make a claim of law. They're just going mute.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. Yes, I realize that

But how have they gotten away with it so far? That's why I was wondering if there was a law of which I was unaware.

[KansDem]

3. How have they gotten away with it?

Maybe giving them 10 days to come up with a name might have something to do with it.

[loveandlight]

4. they do what they want because no one actually challenges them

They have become so blatant in disregard for law or Constitutional restraint because they can. No one challenges them on anything that they refuse to do or any law they break or any Constitutional issue walk over. So they just become more blatant because they can. We took this step, let's take another. Oh, look, no one did anything about that either, let's take another. At this point, they don't even feel they have to make an excuse or pretend. They just say no and thumb their nose and say what are you going to do about it? So far?? Nothing. Will Congress ever reach a breaking point where they just say stop, you can no longer ignore the laws and Constitution of this country and its elected bodies? Who knows? I am so discouraged every day to see this kind of thing happening. It will never end until we, the people, say no and stop expecting anyone else to do it for us. I don't know if that day will come, unfortunately.

[Kagemusha]

5. They've gotten away with it because they refused to reply.

We have had a congressional recess recently and so on. The capitol's only recently getting back to work again. Let's be fair here - the wheels of Congress were not designed to work all that quickly. But in THIS instance, to answer your question without snark, it's like someone evading a bill collector by using caller ID and not picking up the phone when the 'wrong' number comes up.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. I wasn't intending to bash our Congress

What I really want to know is what legal rights do we (you, me and Joe down the street) have to pursue this issue if they continue to refuse this information. This is not the same as the missing emails themselves, which is bad enough. This is denying the American public information that (as far as I know) they should have every legal right to have. Which leads me back to the question about if there were a law regarding this.

[Kagemusha]

22. Ah, well I'm not sure .They're fighting a FOIA thing over WH e-mails but...

...that's for the plans to recover the data... as long as they do recover the e-mails, I can actually completely understand a white house not handing those plans over.

The point being, FOIA has a bunch of exemptions and all. I don't think the name of the company for something like this is supposed to be classified, and the WH hasn't even made a claim that it's classified.. but at any rate, Congress should be able to get it.

The thing is, Congress has more right to the info than "the public" because Congress represents the public in the triumvirate of branches.

[notadmblnd]

6. Isn't there some way we can find this out on our own?

here is the WHOIS for GOP.COM
Registry Whois
Domain Name: gop.com

Status: clientTransferProhibited

Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com

Expiration Date: 2015-03-03
Creation Date: 1999-03-03
Last Update Date: 2006-06-27

Name Servers:
a.ns.trespassers-w.net
ns1.cha.smartechcorp.net

This is the extended WHOIS for whitehouse.gov. The ISP is hidden

IP Address: 204.2.164.88
Website Status: active
Server Type: AkamaiGHost
Alexa Trend/Rank: 1 Month: 12,007 3 Month: 9,519
Page Views per Visit: 1 Month: 2.2 3 Month: 2.1
Cache Date: 2007-08-31 14:29:42 MST
Compare Archived Data: 2007-05-11

is there any useful information in any of this?

[L. Coyote]

24. E-mail may or may not be handled on any given server.

Hosting a domain on a server means it is possible. However, not that it is likely.

[tabasco]

7. Governement in total secrecy.

The Cheney/Bush oil mafia is un-American.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

10. True enough

But just what exactly are they hiding here?

I still question the legality of this action.

If some "third party" company is to be the scape goat for all of this do we Americans have legal recourse against them for losing our property?

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

8. SMARTECH?

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/03/gwb43-white-house-vote-theft-and-email.html

<snip>

Here (with a hat tip to Jackstraw45 of DU) is the WHOIS info on GWB43:

Domain Name: GWB43.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Republican National Committee [email protected]
310 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
US
999 999 9999 fax: [phone]

Record expires on 16-Jan-2008.
Record created on 16-Jan-2004.
Database last updated on 21-Mar-2007 17:45:46 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.CHA.SMARTECHCORP.NET
A.NS.TRESPASSERS-W.NET

"Trespassers-W.net"? Odd name, that.

We learn that this same Tennessee-based hosting service -- Smartech -- played a mysterious role in the 2004 election in Ohio. From a November 7, 2006 story by luaptifer at Daily Kos:

</snip>

[EVDebs]

15. Would they work in cooperation w/Ptech now GoAgile's software ? see post below

[librechik]

17. good lord.

Why do we have such ineffective leadership? This story should be PARAMOUNT to the Dem leadership. They seem so feeble.

[Clark2008]

19. Same company that got Bob Corker elected here. Ugh.

[On the Road]

21. "Trespassers-W.net"?

Must have been set up by a Winnie the Pooh fan.

"Next to house was a piece of broken board which had: "TRESPASSERS W" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name…it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one—Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers¹."

[Subdivisions]

11. Ah ha! Tripped-up in the Friday news dump filter! Good

catch my fellow Texan Lone_Star_Dem!

This is preposterous!

"They are still waiting for an answer, the chairman wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding. Waxman asked the White House to come up with the company's name by Sept. 10."

Always giving them all the time they need. He's giving 10 days to come up with a name they have right now.

This is all big god damned joke!

[EVDebs]

12. Related DU thread at (see Ptech, now GoAgile)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2973501&mesg_id=2973501

[Lone_Star_Dem]

13. Yes, I saw that one

But chose to ask about it here as I thought I'd get more response than my question in that thread.

[EVDebs]

14. OK by me. BTW, why isn't this software company's story more widely known ?

DoD and all the other govt. entities involved would also have 'bid' or 'no-bid' contracting going on. It would be nice to research HOW this company got so many govt. contracts for its enterprise architecture software, huh ?

And the name change is icing on the cake. Por que, senor ?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

20. If that's not related directly it is at least equally as rotten

I will not be surprised to find a relationship between that mess and the unnamed email archiver.

[seafan]

16. This is on SMARTech's web site:

See the bolded section:

Local company hosts GOP Internet sites

posted: 08-22-2004

By Andy Sher Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — It’s more than 700 miles from Madison Square Garden, but that won’t stop Chattanooga from "hosting" next week’s Republican National Convention in New York City.

Chattanooga based Smartech Corp. is serving as Web host for the convention, bringing the event to computer screens across the globe. The company will provide convention speeches, video-on-demand "streams" and live shots of events through powerful Web servers, most of which are at Smartech’s headquarters in downtown Chattanooga.

"The world will view everything from Chattanooga; that’s the best way to think about it," said Smartech founder and President Jeff Averbeck. "We’ll have one camera (in New York) that looks down from the ceiling on the podium, and then we’ll have several others placed around in strategic locations."

He said Smartech will put together a daily montage of video activities for viewing at www.2004nycgop.com. Lee Rainie, executive direc- tor of the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington, said Smartech’s coverage of speeches will be important because television networks have reduced convention coverage from pervious years.

"If I’m John Q. Voter and I just want to watch the speeches, the online universe or C-Span is the best way to go," Mr. Rainie said. Democratic Party officials estimated they received more than 16 million hits on their convention Web site during the first 24 hours of the event last month in Boston.

Mr. Averbeck said his company also is creating an Intranet service to provide transcripts and other material to news organizations at the New York convention site.

Max Everett, the Republican National Convention’s director of information technology, said in a statement that "Smartech has been great for us so far."

"They’ve got a tight group that does their support, and they know how to do some coding of their own, so they are able to respond and customize more than your average Web host," he said.

In addition to its work at the convention, Smartech also sends out several million e-mail messages a day under contracts with both President Bush’s campaign and the Republican National Committee.

The company also hosts the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site, at www.georgewbush.com, and the national committee’s site, www.GOP.com. In the past year, the company has added six employees, bringing its total to 12. Smartech does not release revenue figures, but political work accounts for 25 percent to 35 percent of the company’s total business, Mr. Averbeck said.

Mr. Rainie said Web sites have become increasingly important as a means of communications in political campaigns. Online fund-raising really began with Republican John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign but skyrocketed in 2003 and 2004 as a result of efforts by Democratic hopeful Howard Dean, he said.

According to Pew figures, 63 percent of Americans are going online, and 49 percent have searched for news or information about politics or campaigns.

"I’m not sure that the Internet will ever quite hold the same kind of audience that TV does," Mr. Rainie said. "But it’s still important to say that for the way we talk about politics and for the way we perform politics in this country, the Internet is already well established as a vehicle."

http://www.smartechcorp.net/index.php?page=news⊂=story&id=68



Edit: Very odd, this link doesn't work after uploading this post. (It worked in preview pane, though.)

Try here and scroll down to the news story title, "Local company hosts GOP Internet sites" to get to the story.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

18. A company such as that could come in handy

Couldn't it?

[coco77]

23. Everyone should know by now..

if they don't like a law they change it and tell us they are following THE RULE OF LAW...

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

25. Smartech, Ptech, Mantech,...amazing, the ties to former officials these 'tech' cos have.

Mantech,...

A.NS.TRESPASSERS-W.NET :wtf: WHY DID THAT POP UP WHEN I DID A COPY/PASTE of the page of Mantech's BODs?

Well, here's the page: http://investor.mantech.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=130660&p=irol-govboard

Uh,...holy shit,...did I just find something COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT? I just looked at Mantech 'cause it's local.

:shrug:

[EVDebs]

30. Richard Armitage is on the board of directors. nt

[rucky]

33. His name is popping up on alot of shit.

and I do mean SHIT.

[L. Coyote]

26. At Sidley Austin, according to my inside information ... Anything ring a bell?

According to my inside information, this is what the network admins have been up to at Sidley Austin:

Since last November, creating emergency recovery mail stores on the MS Exchange server to recover email from an earlier time after an email policy of anything over 90 days old was to be deleted.

Also, of course, on a daily basis the admin maintains 24 servers--assembling and configuring member server, having them join the domains and assigning them tasks (ISA server and Blackberry Enterprise 4.1 upgrade, installing Backup Exec 10), does daily backups, monitors servers, rolls out new network printers, configures IP settings, installs new switches, works with network engineers checking VPN connections, and upgrades firmware on firewalls.

This is a large, global law firm. They have a net block, and have their own server.

A partner is Bradley Berenson, former Bush WH Counsel and current Susan Ralston attorney.

[DemReadingDU]

27. afternoon kick

[ThomWV]

28. The Reason Is Obvious - If You Name The Company Then They Can Be Called To Testify

And they can be asked who ordered them to do what.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

29. This information may be helpful in solving the puzzle.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gwb43.com

I am STILL trying to figure WHY that "a.ns.trespassers-w.net" popped up when I was trying to copy/paste the board of directors for Mantech page. I am so confused. That was so weird!!!!

[Gregorian]

31. This might explain the name.

Although it's a bit odd. Winnie the Pooh?
edit- Oh, this is even weirder. Click on the link on the following page. It takes you to the Coptix website. It's not just some anonymous Winnie the Pooh website. It's a gwb43.com server page.

http://www.trespassers-w.net/

There are a lot of hits for this in this search=

http://www.google.com/search?q=trespassers-w.net&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Like this-

Coptix "provides backup DNS hosting" for SMARTtech/AirNet Group, Inc. <1>

The robtex.com DNS lookup for gwb43.com also shows a.ns.trespassers-w.net, operated by Coptix Inc., as a "nameserver" for gwb3.com.

Created February 21, 2001, trespassers-w.net is registered to Jeffrey Cross of Cross Computer Consulting in Chattanooga, TN. Both the administrative and technical contact given for trespassers-w.net is Jeffrey Cross of Coptix Inc.

The server a.ns.trespassers-w.net is the "nameserver" for 1000 domains, many of which are also linked through SMARTech.

In turn, using "nameserver" abcpac.com as an example, it links to 58 hosts sharing IP address (a string of numbers that computers understand <2>); 325 domains (a string that humans understand<3>) sharing mailservers; and 999 domains sharing nameservers.

And speaking of Coptix, check this out. Rove's folder. (Oh, I think we've already been through all of this. I recall the posts.)

[satya]

32. Seems like this would be useful info for Waxman to have (assuming he doesn't already).

Would you consider passing it along to him?

A tech question: is it better to fax stuff to them than email? Or can faxes be intercepted just as easily?

[L. Coyote]

35. Famous TN Freebooter, Slaver, Imperialist William Walker. Any Relation??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier)

[blogslut]

36. Yes, we have

The pic is photoshopped. From what I can tell, Coptix provides application services for SMARTECH. The real company to look into is SMARTECH.

[texpatriot2004]

34. Good question eh. nm