National Security Archive Update, January 16, 2008

White House Admits No Back-Up Tapes for E-mail Before October 2003

Responds to Court's Questions; Claims Not to Know Whether Critical
E-mails Were Erased

Despite Previously Acknowledging That as Many as 5 Million E-mails are
Missing, White House Now Tells a Different Story

For more information contact:
Meredith Fuchs/Tom Blanton [National Security Archive] - 202/994-7000
John B. Williams/Sheila L. Shadmand [Jones Day] - 202/879-3939

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington DC, January 16, 2008 - In response to a federal court order
issued last week, the White House late last night refused to acknowledge
any missing e-mails, instead stating that it "has undertaken an
independent effort to determine whether there may be anomalies in
Exchange e-mail counts" during the 2003-2005 period. A sworn statement by
the Chief Information Officer of the White House Office of Administration
filed with U.S. federal court just before midnight admitted the White
House had recycled its e-mail back-up tapes before October 2003 and only
began retaining the back-ups starting at that point.

"It strikes me as odd that they recognized a problem and changed their
practice in 2003 to start saving the backups, but four-and-a-half years
later they still have not yet figured out whether or what e-mails were
deleted," commented Meredith Fuchs, the Archive's General Counsel. "It
also is troubling that the problem may have started before October 2003,
and they acknowledge that back-ups prior to that period were recycled and
are gone."

"Two years after a special prosecutor concluded that key e-mails were
missing from the White House system administered by the Office of
Administration, the White House astonishingly now admits it has no
back-up tapes from before October 2003 and doesn't know if any e-mails
are missing," said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security
Archive.

The loss of White House e-mails first surfaced on January 23, 2006, when
prosecutors in the Scooter Libby matter informed Mr. Libby's defense
counsel that they were unable to provide copies of e-mail records
"because not all email records from the Office of the Vice President and
the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was
preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House
computer system." The full scope of the problem was not appreciated until
April 2007, when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
(CREW) issued a report stating that over 5 million e-mails were missing
throughout the Executive Office of the President. At that time, White
House spokesperson Dana Perino acknowledged the lost e-mails.

Sheila L. Shadmand, counsel for the Archive, commented: "It is a victory
to finally get the White House to respond to the Archive’s claims, but
somehow I suspect we will have many battles ahead of us to preserve the
documentary history of the government for the American public."

"This declaration may mean that records about policy and decisions in the
Executive Office of the President are not entirely lost, but in many
respects it raises more questions. We still do not know what was lost,
why it was lost, and what steps we have to take to recover it--assuming
it is still recoverable," explained Ms. Fuchs.

On January 8, Magistrate Judge Facciola of the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia ordered the White House to answer a series of
questions about the missing e-mails, asserting that the information was
"time-sensitive" because any back-ups of the missing e-mails "are
increasingly likely to be deleted or overridden with the passage of
time." Judge Kennedy had previously ordered the preservation of e-mail
back-up tapes held by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) in the
consolidated lawsuits filed by the National Security Archive and Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information
about today's posting.

http://www.nsarchive.org

In alt.history.british Michael O'Neill  wrote:
>National Security Archive Update, January 16, 2008

>White House Admits No Back-Up Tapes for E-mail Before October 2003

>Responds to Court's Questions; Claims Not to Know Whether Critical
>E-mails Were Erased

>Despite Previously Acknowledging That as Many as 5 Million E-mails are
>Missing, White House Now Tells a Different Story

'Tis too bad we have no Runnymeade here.  Rule of law?  What does
the law matter when there are TERRORISTS out there?

-- 
   --- Paul J. Gans

On Jan 16, 5:55 pm, Paul J Gans  wrote:
> In alt.history.british Michael O'Neill  wrote:
>
> >National Security Archive Update, January 16, 2008
> >White House Admits No Back-Up Tapes for E-mail Before October 2003
> >Responds to Court's Questions; Claims Not to Know Whether Critical
> >E-mails Were Erased
> >Despite Previously Acknowledging That as Many as 5 Million E-mails are
> >Missing, White House Now Tells a Different Story
>
> 'Tis too bad we have no Runnymeade here.  Rule of law?  What does
> the law matter when there are TERRORISTS out there?
>
> --
>    --- Paul J. Gans

Sooner or later some one will work back and find one or more server
with all of these little gems all socked away. People want to write
memoirs, some even think they have deleted everything and might not
have, or that guy who used to come in and service the machine
programmed an extra address into all those millions of emails.

I seem to remember that was done some time in the pre 1993 period.