White House: Computer hard drives tossed

[babylonsister]

White House: Computer hard drives tossed

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 21, 7:34 PM ET


WASHINGTON - Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.

"When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration "refresh program" to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration.

Some, but not necessarily all, of the data on old hard drives is moved to new computer hard drives, the declaration added.

In proposing an e-mail recovery plan Tuesday, Facciola expressed concern that a large volume of electronic messages may be missing from White House computer servers, as two private groups that are suing the White House allege.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080321/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail;_ylt=Asb5LHAk89gUyAJDNa6gdCeyFz4D

[leftofthedial]

1. criminals

[Clear Blue Sky]

2. Nixonian...

[tanyev]

18. Nixonian on steroids.

Only 18 minutes of tape disappeared in 1973.

[spanone]

3. this current cabal feels that american policy is none of the peoples fucking business

[C_U_L8R]

4. They should be hauling every IT guy over there before a Grand Jury

[rocktivity]

11. Better yet, haul ANY IT guy before a grand jury

because even the lowliest entry-level rookie would testify that replacing workstations has NO EFFECT on the data they get from whatever server they're connected to.

If those e-mails are destroyed, it's because the SERVERS they were on were destroyed--deliberately!

:mad:
rocknation

[whopis01]

24. no, it is not because the servers were destroyed.

It is because they were recycling the backup tapes prior to 2003 that they used to backup those servers. Since they no longer have the backup tapes, they were going to look through the hard drives of the workstations in order to find the local caches of the emails. However, as is good practice, those hard drives had been destroyed.

[rocktivity]

25. Then it was the backup tapes that were destroyed

Deliberately!

:think:
rocknation

[whopis01]

27. Yes. So the question really is were they following SOP when they did that.

It isn't the greatest idea (as far as security is concerned) to keep tape backups around forever. So, it is often standard policy to either destroy or reuse them. If that was the SOP at the time, then there really is no evidence of wrongdoing, however it is wasn't, then it is important to find out why it was done.

[DCKit]

29. It's not a question of SOP, it's a question of legality.

They're not ALLOWED to destroy documents, electronic or otherwise. Any excuses regarding this issue are a smoke-screen and shouldn't fly with anyone who's ever heard the word "Watergate".

Blame it on Nixon, but I don't think it's an issue they skip over at Harvard or Yale. It's not one of the Ten Commandments, so the Liberty graduates populating the DOJ and WH legal pool probably don't have a clue, but "ignorance of the law is no excuse" for Republics either.

[LakeSamish706]

5. Isn't that convenient and timely as well! n/t

[Mist]

6. Cuz THAT doesn't look suspicious...Remember the magic word: "servers" nt

[GTurck]

7. Now you know why..

habeus corpus had to go. No body no crime.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

8. Whats right and whats wrong with this..

Ever greening PC's (1/3rd a year) is right and standard it practice
Destroying old PC's physically is right and standard it practice

Believing for a second that they dont back up their email *server* and those tapes should have a retention of at least 4 years past the end of an administration is wrong!

Either

(a) They are lying criminals
(b) They are incompetent boobs..

Sadly this administration has made knowing which is more likely so very difficult..

[lpbk2713]

9. Isn't that conveenient!

[Supersedeas]

10. the absolute filth of these Repubiskanks is stomach turning

[madokie]

12. Criminals

Hell the way the bushco is getting away with criminality it makes me wonder if maybe we all ought to try it. Who knows there may be something 'there' afterall.

[L. Coyote]

13. NOTE PARSING: "hard drives are generally sent offsite..."

And the ones not "generally" sent offsite, where are they?

On has to read every word carefully to see the parsing of phrases
that evade definitive declarations and attempt deception by false
insinuation. I call this Bush Junta deception habit "parse-lie."

[C_U_L8R]

15. Doesn't this sound like a huge national security risk??

It's so freaking easy to 'unerase' stuff off even the deadest drive
Sending old hard drives from the White House off ...somewhere...
seems like the ultimate in boneheadedness.. and frankly I don't believe a word of it

[whopis01]

26. No, not really - this is standard DoD security procedures

The hard drives are not sent off-site prior to being wiped. The drive would first be sanitized by either running it through a degausser or by writing all 1's to every bit on the drive, followed by writing all 0's, followed by writing random data and repeating the process at least 3 times.

Then the drive is sent off to be destroyed.

You can read all about it in DoD 5220.22-M (National Industrial Security Program Operating Model).

[Warren Stupidity]

14. This is bullshit of the first order.

They have an email server or servers, most likely running Exchange or its equivalent, and that server or those servers are routinely backed up and those backups are archived. They have all of the email ever sent by anyone in the white house.

[Orsino]

16. So stop asking...

...or you'll get version #59 of "the dog ate our homework."

Every judge and every congressman who lets the White House skate is complicit.

[Prefer]

17. They backup professionally run environments

and there is no reason to recycle backups in the context of the presidency. There is no tangible resource limitation that could allow them not to afford fresh tapes.

Think of it from the other side. Say the President needed those archives to prove he DIDN'T do something. Do you think they would just trash their CYA position?

[tanyev]

19. They're being green! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Because GWB is the Environmentolator!

[Junkdrawer]

21. Yeah...anyone who thinks they have something to hide is a tinfoil nutcase....

(That ought to do it, huh? :shrug: Works on everything else.)

[WinkyDink]

20. Nancy won't set the table at this late date.

[Richard Steele]

22. Of course they are. Grrrecommended.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

23. Flaunting their contempt for the law at every opportunity.

As Darth says, "So?"

[jazzjunkysue]

28. Too bad our government doesn't provide oversight, like, by a congress

or something.

[Perry Logan]

30. The Republican Revolution has reached the "Data Destruction Phase."