Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) issued the following statement regarding the Internal Revenue Service informing the Committee that they have lost Lois Lerner emails from a period of January 2009 – April 2011. Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame. The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.
“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries. There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General.
“Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents. It appears now that was an empty promise. Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies. Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone. This failure of the IRS requires the White House, which promised to get to the bottom of this, to do an Administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner. The Administration has repeatedly referred us back to the IRS for production of materials. It is clear that is wholly insufficient when it comes to determining the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”
Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany Jr., M.D. (R-LA) added, "In the course of the Committee's investigation, the Administration repeatedly claimed we were getting access to all relevant IRS documents. Only now - thirteen months into the investigation - the IRS reveals that key emails from the time of the targeting have been lost. And they bury that fact deep in an unrelated letter on a Friday afternoon. In that same letter, they urge Congress to end the investigations into IRS wrongdoing. This is not the transparency promised to the American people. If there is no smidgeon of corruption what is the Administration hiding?"
But here's the most important quote:
...regarding the Internal Revenue Service informing the Committee that they have lost Lois Lerner emails from a period of January 2009 – April 2011. Due to a supposed computer crash, the agency only has Lerner emails to and from other IRS employees during this time frame. The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.
Obama's dog washers need to create a plausible deniability net. Erasing records isn't a thang!
18-minutes of Nixon audio tapes, to burning down record buildings of GI service records.
Nobody knows, have a mid-level government bureaucrat take the fall and make the media wash it away.
Then blame W. Bush.
According to Executive Order 13556, all e-mails and documents from high level officials (executives) from ALL agencies / bureaus must be saved and recorded PERMENANTLY.
The IRS even has a rule to make permanent paper copies of all of her emails and then they are supposed to be stored in archives.
Along with that, the server technology that is used for the IRS's emails backs all emails up on at least three different disks or a RAID system. And supposedly those emails are also backed up on a tape drive.
So my conclusion is that someone is trying to intentionally hide evidence. This goes way beyond Lois Lerner, she is just the one who will be taking the media hit if not jail time. I am sure she is well paid to keep her mouth shut.
So who would be able to pull strings like this to keep all of these specific emails away from the committees trying to figure out what happened within the IRS when Conservative, Constitutional and TEA Party groups were targeted. I can only conclude that it would go all the way to the top. No one else has that kind of pull. This is just another example of Obama's dis-respect for the rule of law. He and his administration are criminals and he should be impeached and convicted along with putting many of his cronies into jail. Will it happen? I doubt it.
The "lost records" defense for the Obama criminals. Eighteen minutes of erased Nixon tapes created a fire storm for the mass media who today is trying to hide anything against Obama. Obama is not aware of anything that goes on under his watch, and the I don't know excuse is getting pretty lame. He seems to only know of what is hapening when he watches MSNBC which is saying little negative about the Obamanation. He is unaware and out of touch.
I don't see why anyone is surprised. No one in O's administration will be held responsible for anything. There is currently no authority which will prosecute any of these people, and O certainly will not see a courtroom.
You wanna' know what my favorite cover-up is? "Mysterious missing information".
When it's you they're bustin', they got IMAX of you farting into a baby seals mouth, but when it's them in the hotseat, all of a sudden they forget how to speak English!
A "computer crash" won't result in lost emails. The data is on the email server, and the email server is backed up. BY LAW. The Law Requires Email Archiving
quote
After the amended Federal Rules of Civil Procedures were passed in December of 2006, all emails, communications, files, directives and requests that may be relevant to a current or future litigation cannot simply be deleted or overwritten. The data must be produced and thus it must be archived, because that's the law.
Remarkably, most business operators don't realize they must comply with the Federal Regulations on Civil Procedures, or FRCP. In this instance, ignorance is far from bliss. It could put you and your organization in serious legal trouble, if the requested electronically stored information (ESI) is not produced when requested by courts. In fairness, those that are aware of the need to archive fail to make the investment to put a proper archival process in place because of the perception that it's too complicated or too costly or too much trouble. The reality is if you can be sued in federal court, and that includes just about every individual and organization, you must archive and then be able to quickly and completely retrieve requested email communications. Another reality is your existing data storage systems, NAS and SAN solutions are not intended as a solution for archival, litigation holds, and eDiscovery
Here's another tough question:
If your organization is sued, are you prepared to provide records of all communications and transactions conducted by certain individuals with the company during certain dates relating to a certain set of issues?
Remember, it's the law that any of your electronic records can be requested and must be provided by a court order under the newly updated Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
What are the FRCP standards?
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure govern the production of evidence in Federal cases. The FRCP is designed for the civil federal court system, with input from the US Supreme Court, and approval by the US Congress. Seventeen states have adopted the new rules for electronic stored information (ESI) discovery and eighteen additional states are considering adopting the new rules for state civil litigation. Companies that find themselves subjected to lawsuits within the federal and state courts system need to be prepared to meet the requirements as written and supply information immediately as it pertains to individual cases.
Amended Rule 26: As of December 2006, all institutions must meet the eDiscovery requirements as stated in the FRCP. This amended rule was created to assist specifically at helping courts and litigators navigate the new world of ESI. The eDiscovery requirements recognize all electronic communication, especially email and IMs as now legal to request at the court's convenience. Organizations now have a clear responsibility to produce ESI or face the penalty of the law.
Penalties of not following FRCP eDiscovery Requirements: As outlined in Section V, Rule 37 "Failure to Make or Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions," penalties include paying for the expenses of the opposing party, contempt of court, imposing of sanctions against your case, heavy fines, or even an automatic guilty verdict.
How Your Organization can comply with FRCP Standards: Organizations need to know exactly where data is stored, what data storage technology is used to backup and archive records, how the retention schedule applies, how and when they are recycled, how long it will take to produce them, and in what formats they can be produced.
Another important shift brought about by the new Rule 26 is the courts' increased emphasis on identifying and preserving relevant ESI. Organizations not only must know the terrain of their records management landscape" including email and instant messages "they must also be able to traverse it quickly and efficiently to control retention and disposal. If you can't explain where you put your data, or if you can't act quickly to prevent the destruction of potential evidence, you face sanctions or worse. Your IT team must be aware of this
The IRS is in violation of Federal Law if they don't provide the emails.
Lois Lerner clams up to the point where they hold her in contempt and now they claim they lost the very email's they're looking for but didn't tell anyone they had lost them for a year and a half? It's really sounding like there's some very damaging information in those emails and they're willing to do anything possible to make sure they're not made public. I've been wrong before but this is really starting to smell very fishy. Why is it that when an individual does this very kind of thing, we're ready to throw them in the slammer before they even get a trial. But when our govt does it, depending on who's in office at the time, some people are far too willing to just believe everything they say?
Where are the Democrats / liberals in this thread?
Newf, Yellowtail, RayB, Neptune, etc???
------------------ Ron Count Down to A Better America: http://countingdownto.com/countdown/196044 Isn't it strange that after a bombing, everyone blames the bomber, his upbringing, his environment, his culture, his mental state but … after a shooting, the problem is the gun?
My Uncle Frank was a staunch Conservative and voted straight Republican until the day he died in Chicago. Since then he has voted Democrat. Shrug
Agreed. I want them to release their network diagrams and all their freaking procedures...
Go ahead and do a FOIA request. The IPs will probably be redacted, but you should get what you're asking for. If they modify it before sending it, then that's a criminal offense.
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: Go ahead and do a FOIA request. The IPs will probably be redacted, but you should get what you're asking for. If they modify it before sending it, then that's a criminal offense.
Not producing the emails is also a criminal offense.
Originally posted by Formula88: The IRS is in violation of Federal Law if they don't provide the emails.
This is exactly correct. All of that stuff has to be saved and archived. All. Of. It. Everything. This was drilled into us, at work. I'm quite certain that even any "unimportant" emails that I delete are still out there in a repository someplace.
Aside from the legalities of it all, does anyone here really believe that if the IRS were trying to make a case against someone for non-payment, that they wouldn't be able to go straight to every financial transaction that you've made (up to and including buying beer and condoms at Walgreens) for the last ten years, if they wanted to?
But all they have to do is say it was an accident...
Anyone with any IT knowledge knows the data can't be lost by "accident." By law there have to be archived copies. It would take multiple "accidents" to remove the data from multiple locations.
But all they have to do is say it was an accident...
No, a FOIA request is a request for all documents related to a specific topic. The request I was saying was to request information about network diagrams and configurations... not specifically about the claim of the server crash.
As seems to be the standard for this administration when challenged they get uppity and snarky. What you don't believe us? How can that be? Haven't you ever heard of a computer crashing? Its all just a conspiracy by the Republicans.
Its so bad now that the Main Stream Media is actually not buying their story.
You wanna' know what my favorite cover-up is? "Mysterious missing information".
When it's you they're bustin', they got IMAX of you farting into a baby seals mouth, but when it's them in the hotseat, all of a sudden they forget how to speak English!
Yeah, they have all my info on file, and will tell me if I underpaid by 23 cents 10 years ago (and will spend hundreds to collect it) but they can't find her emails from 3 years ago?
Uh huh, that's plausible.
They should switch to Gmail. Then if anything happens at least the NSA would have copies.
[This message has been edited by Taijiguy (edited 06-16-2014).]
This is one that we should NOT let just drift away. That data IS retrievable.
What happened - one drive in an array died, and they didn't detect it until someone asked for the data? and the drive is just "dead"? gimme a break. if drivesavers can save a drive...
This is one that we should NOT let just drift away. That data IS retrievable.
What happened - one drive in an array died, and they didn't detect it until someone asked for the data? and the drive is just "dead"? gimme a break. if drivesavers can save a drive...
Gah, this just insults my intelligence.
They wouldn't even have to do that. Restore from backup. By law they have to keep archived copies. They've become so arrogant in their abuse of power they're not even trying to make the lies believable anymore. Democrats know it and are either embarrassed to say anything or they support the abuses.
Then if anyone complains, they'll make a comment about something Bush did. Didn't the Democrats say Obama was supposed to be better than Bush? He's the man they called the worst president in history and their own favorite son can't do better? They should be holding Obama to the higher standard they claimed to want, but they won't.
As seems to be the standard for this administration when challenged they get uppity and snarky. What you don't believe us? How can that be? Haven't you ever heard of a computer crashing? Its all just a conspiracy by the Republicans.
Its so bad now that the Main Stream Media is actually not buying their story.
From some accounts, it seems they have almost all of them (from the server-side), but HER local computer crashed...so it's only her OST (offline store) (and possibly some PSTs) which were "gone"...
This is one that we should NOT let just drift away. That data IS retrievable.
What happened - one drive in an array died, and they didn't detect it until someone asked for the data? and the drive is just "dead"? gimme a break. if drivesavers can save a drive...
Gah, this just insults my intelligence.
I know a recent retired engineer, who retired from a company that makes disk arrays. Although I haven't spoken to him about these missing emails, but he has told me back in day what a disk array does.
From my understanding is that one byte is written on one disk the next byte is written on the next disk and so on through the series of disks in the array. If one disk goes out, they can change it out and have these smart programs that extrapolate the other bytes in the array and fill in the missing bytes.
For example lets say you have a 1k file and a 100 disks in an array. If one disk goes out you till have 99% of it saved. You change out the disk, run a recovery program that looks at the 99% and knows pretty much what to fill in for that 1% and does, making it 100% retrievable now.
Honestly--I don't think it's "Lois"--not alone anyway. Emails go in more than just the "in" direction.
maryjane: There is no way this is limited to Lois Lerner. This goes all the way to the top. To the president. That is why there is such a concerted effort to cover this up. She does not have the pull to try to get this all covered up. But, he does.
As it is becoming more apparent even CNN and some of the other supporters of Obama are backing away and calling them on this one. Truth will out.
I know a recent retired engineer, who retired from a company that makes disk arrays. Although I haven't spoken to him about these missing emails, but he has told me back in day what a disk array does.
From my understanding is that one byte is written on one disk the next byte is written on the next disk and so on through the series of disks in the array. If one disk goes out, they can change it out and have these smart programs that extrapolate the other bytes in the array and fill in the missing bytes.
For example lets say you have a 1k file and a 100 disks in an array. If one disk goes out you till have 99% of it saved. You change out the disk, run a recovery program that looks at the 99% and knows pretty much what to fill in for that 1% and does, making it 100% retrievable now.
Correct. They use what's called a "parity" bit. Since all data is just 1's and 0's, you right the first two bits. If they're the same, parity is 0, if they're different, parity is 1. So if your two data bits are 1, 0 - parity is 0. Lose a drive you have 1, *, 0 You can tell the missing bit must be a 0. This can be calculated on the fly.
In addition to that, all server data is backed up to a separate system, so even if every drive failed at the same time, you just recover from backup. In addition to that, any critical system must have a disaster recovery plan in case the primary facility is destroyed. That means off-site copies, either two separate sites with real time data copies between them, or a set of archived backups stored at an off site location. This is normal procedure for any IT shop and email data retention is a serious matter due to federal laws concerning eDiscovery. Those laws were put in place specifically to prevent a defendant from just claiming "my computer crashed" to avoid turning over evidence.
They are either in violation of the law for failure to provide discovery data, or they are in violation of the law for failure to properly archive the data, or they are in violation of the law for willfully destroying the data.
Arrays are a bunch of hard drives in a box. Usually, 1 or two of them are "spares".when a drive fails, the data is automatically recreated on the spare. (it is "rebuilt") The drives are "hot swappable", which means you can pull them out and swap 'em without having to shut down the machine.
Even if her local machine crashed, there should be server backups...
Maybe, just maybe they can be hoisted on their own petard:
From The Blaze -
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) asked the National Security Agency on Friday to turn over all the metadata it has collected on the email accounts of former IRS official Lois Lerner from January 2009 to April 2011. Stockman’s clever move comes hours after the tax agency apparently claimed it had lost Lerner’s emails from that same time period due to a computer glitch.
“I have asked NSA Director Rogers to send me all metadata his agency has collected on Lois Lerner’s email accounts for the period which the House sought records,” Stockman said in a press release. “The metadata will establish who Lerner contacted and when, which helps investigators determine the extent of illegal activity by the IRS.”
There ARE server backups. Now the question is if those too end up getting or have been "lost."
I actually wouldn't be surprised to find out that the backups are lost. I have a feeling some of these places just dump the boxes in a big warehouse or ocean...I'm only half-joking...
And now they're saying that other emails being subpoenaed have been lost. It's sounding like any emails they ask for magically end up lost. If this is such a non-issue as some would have you believe, then why all the fifth pleading by Lois Lerner?
