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State Dept.: Clinton IT aide's email archive is lost

221 points by a3n 11y ago

a3n 11y ago
Huh.
- reefoctopus 11y ago
  >The State Department has lost all archived copies of the emails sent to and from the man believed to have set up and maintained Hillary Clinton’s private email server during the four years she served as secretary.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  Oops.
mizchief2 11y ago
Totally by accident i'm sure. How can you idiots support this criminal?
diakritikal 11y ago
No coverups here at all.
- johndevor 11y ago
  Move along, citizen.
  - jefurii 11y ago
    And pick up that can while you're at it.
jonny-bravo 11y ago
"Lost"
mariusz79 11y ago
NSA should have a copy...
chishaku 11y ago
Can't the FBI just query the NSA's impressive archive? They don't even need a warrant. https://www.aclu.org/doj-report-fbi-activities-under-section-702 https://www.aclu.org/doj-report-fbi-activities-under-section...
- lern_too_spel 11y ago
  According to Snowden's leaks, the NSA doesn't have a domestic email archive or even domestic email envelope metadata, so no.
  - chishaku 11y ago
    > the NSA doesn't have a domestic email archive or even domestic email envelope metadata "Eventually, the NSA gained authority to "analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States", according to a 2007 Justice Department memo, which is marked secret." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining... "The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology." http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324108204579022874091732470 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873241082045790228...
    - lern_too_spel 11y ago
      The "in some cases" means with a court order for one of the correspondents, which didn't exist for Clinton. PRISM is a program entirely for processing communications court-ordered to be collected from specific providers (not Clinton's mail server or other federal mail systems) for specific users (not Clinton).
      - dmix 11y ago
        Really? I'd assume the counter-intelligence teams would be watching the Secretary of State... If not then they could just ask GCHQ or CSEC for a copy.
atemerev 11y ago
I'd look at the same place where those IRS email backups are. Ask Lois Lerner.
spoiledtechie 11y ago
Isn't this the least bit fishy? To say that politicians are held to a different standard than the average citizen is in full effect here. Its a HUGE cover up. How is she not in jail yet?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- zer00eyz 11y ago
  I love the mythical "cover up". Is she hiding the fact that she knows Ted Cruz dad helped shoot JFK? What exactly do you think is being hidden. Also, at what point do you get upset about tax dollars being wasted to investigate something to death. Couldn't we be spending this money on better things?
  - VMG 11y ago
    > What exactly do you think is being hidden. Evidence of corruption.
  - spoiledtechie 11y ago
    Next time a cop pulls you over or cites you for something, why don't you just tell him leave you alone and NOT investigate. Since Hillary Rodham Clinton can do it, why shouldn't it be passed down to every citizen under her. Once a countries laws become negligible, the country ceases to exist.
    - zer00eyz 11y ago
      Here is the thing, I don't disagree with you. But the facts in this case point to something different. If were working with your analogy, then my car got taken apart (every last bolt and nut is on the side of the road). The people in the car with me have been investigated... Still found nothing, keep investigating. At what point does an investigation become a witch hunt? At what point does an investigation become waste? I think were at that point (or just slightly past) it. The investigation has revealed some rather alarming things about our government: 1. The government doesn't have it's shit together when it comes to archiving email. Go figure, we all knew there was waste there but this is worse than any decent nerd ever expected. 2. Our classification system is a mess. The fact that we can retroactively classify something is INSANE. Documents got out that you don't like, classify them, then prosecute any journalist who writes about them. 3. The number of people recently (not just in clintons case) who have immunity for testimony is amazing. In the case of clinton it looks like there was/is some wrongdoing on the part of the staffer who RECEIVED immunity. We all understand this is a prisoners dilemma problem, but there are external ethics that we don't often think about: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2378070 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2378070 -- and this doesn't even factor in outside actors (us) who are harmed by the crime. 4. After Chelsea/Bradley Manning(see note) released all the cables, it apparently had ZERO impact on the IT culture at the state department. You would think that after an issue like that, things would have been on lockdown, but apparently government doesn't learn from its mistakes. Why isn't any one screaming on high about these things? NOTE: The whole gender and name change thing is confusing when referring to something done under/by the old name/gender so I put both down.
gthtjtkt 11y ago
Shouldn't they be in the Datto backups? The ones that even Clinton herself didn't know about because they were kept by mistake (and against her orders)? The ones that contain the 30,000+ emails she and her lawyers attempted to delete because they were "personal"? The ones that still haven't been released despite numerous FOIA requests and a lawsuit? I have a feeling we're only getting one side of this (the State Department's) while the FBI already has these emails. The FBI would have no reason to chime in and tell the public "It's ok, everyone, we have those emails too." And the State Department obviously wouldn't have them since she wasn't using their email system. I'm 99.99% sure nothing is missing here, it's just not where they expected it to be. Pagliano already struck a deal with the DOJ and appears to be cooperating, which probably isn't a good thing for Clinton.
- djrogers 11y ago
  > Pagliano already struck a deal with the DOJ and appears to be cooperating No, not really - http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a2bf597d0dec4780af6f8710822ee9d7/ex-clinton-staffer-again-says-no-testifying-congress http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a2bf597d0dec4780af6f8710822ee... Unless he changes his mind again or is compelled to testify...
  - gthtjtkt 11y ago
    He's cooperating with the FBI and DOJ. Do you really think they'd offer him an immunity deal that allowed him to plead the 5th? What you're talking about are separate investigations by Senate committees. It's understandable that he has no desire to participate in those dog and pony shows.
    - snuxoll 11y ago
      I may be mistaken, but judicial immunity automatically waives your fifth amendment rights since you can no longer incriminate yourself. I can't really imagine the point otherwise.
  - ryanmerket 11y ago
    Testifying to Congress is largely political theater. What really matters is if he's cooperating with the FBI.
awt 11y ago
Maybe Lois Lerner has it?
luso_brazilian 11y ago
See also the "Bush White House email controversy": [1] > The "gwb43.com" domain name was publicized by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who sent a letter to Oversight and Government Reform Committee committee chairman Henry A. Waxman requesting an investigation. > Waxman sent a formal warning to the RNC, advising them to retain copies of all emails sent by White House employees. According to Waxman, "in some instances, White House officials were using nongovernmental accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of the communications." >The Republican National Committee claims to have erased the emails, supposedly making them unavailable for Congressional investigators It is hopeless to expect voluntary transparency by the government, there is no incentive to 1) comply with the rules when transparency is clearly detrimental to your backroom deals or 2) to punish the very people that appointed you to your high positioned job or 3) to punish the opponents in the other party when they fail to comply while, after 4 years, the positions can be reversed and you may be in the crosshairs in a similar investigation. Nothing was done when Bush did it, nothing will be done now that is Hillary doing it and don't expect anything different regardless of what party manage to snag the congress and White House. If regulatory capture is a significant problem in the private sector imagine inside the government itself. It is hopeless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controv...
- MrTonyD 11y ago
  Many workers are closely supervised and monitored (I think of the facial recognition being used by WalMart to track all their employees continuously.) I think that both wealth and power should come with responsibilities - and the obligation to be monitored for the good of our society. All Big Data techniques should be used to monitor them closely - to keep track of every person they contact and the nature of their conversations. At the same time, there should be less monitoring of ordinary citizens.
  - pc86 11y ago
    This is easily one of most ridiculous things I've read on here in a long time.
- 11y ago
dccoolgai 11y ago
If there are emails that were deleted in a .pst file, they are (or at least were back when I was a MS desktop admin 8ish years ago) entirely recoverable by remapping the index at the head of the file (i.e. the messages are "soft-deleted")...should be a piece of cake to recover...
Cozumel 11y ago
Well, that's convenient!
abhi3 11y ago
It increasingly seems that they knew what they were doing since the beginning when they decided to use the private server rather it being a mistake/oversight. One can just hope this drama gets over before the convention.
pdabbadabba 11y ago
They don't have a PST archive, but they still have at least some of his emails. FTA: > “The absence of this email file, however, does not indicate that the department has no emails sent or received by him,” she added. “In fact, we have previously produced through [the Freedom of Information Act] and to Congress emails sent and received by Mr. Pagliano during Secretary Clinton’s tenure.”
Mendenhall 11y ago
The RNC also said they have no text messages or blackberry messages sent to or form Clinton during her time in office lol the state department declined to discuss that, isn't that nice. "In addition to the emails, the State Department also does not have any text messages or BlackBerry Messenger messages sent to or from Clinton during her time in office, the RNC claimed. The State Department declined to discuss that declaration."
bitL 11y ago
Obstruction of justice anyone? Ooops, wrong caste!
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
I have a feeling that this case is going to be studied for years no matter how it turns out. In ethics the appearance of impropriety is generally considered enough to be a breach. I think most independent observers would admit that there's plenty of bad-looking stuff here, however with the election season in full swing I could be wrong. More interesting, I imagine, is the legal maneuverings going on. Assuming that something went way wrong here, and please enough with the clintonesque tu quoque arguments, it's fascinating comparing what happened to the witnesses after the investigation was launched here compared to, say, aaronsw. In Aaron's case, a school set up a camera and caught him accessing files he shouldn't. In the Clinton case, scads of sensitive emails were sent all over the internet from a server that shouldn't be handling them. The difference in evidence here looks astounding, especially if you know something about email. In the first case, a lone prosecutor is able to use the full force and weight of the U.S. government to harass and threaten. There's a small number of people involved, limited resources, and lots of press. In the second case, over a hundred FBI agents are working hard night and day, one supposes, but evidence goes missing, hard drives which need to be in evidence are instead sent to secure destruction facilities, and we can't even seem to be able to to locate low-value secondary information. Press consists of lots of pieces slanted against the government's case. My money says nothing comes of this. I'd give 50-50 odds that in some fashion it's tossed to the Congress to consider impeachment, and of course that'll never happen. There are a lot more incredible contrasts between these cases. I hesitate to mention them due to folks getting upset about their political candidate not looking so good.
- krapp 11y ago
  It's going to be studied very closely and publicly by the Republican party until November, at the very least.
- giardini 11y ago
  "...over a hundred FBI agents are working hard night and day, one supposes..." NBC says there are 12 FBI agents working on the case: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fed-source-about-12-fbi-agents-working-clinton-email-inquiry-n548026 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fed-source-about-12-fbi-... titled "Fed Source: About 12 FBI Agents Working on Clinton Email Inquiry". Undoubtedly they are a hand-picked group (although whose hand did the picking, I don't know). Furthermore I fear that FBI agent Comey is in Clinton's pocket/corner. Comey gave Hillary Clinton a bye in the Whitewater investigation: http://www.westernjournalism.com/wow-something-from-20-years-ago-is-a-major-clue-about-what-fbi-will-do-to-hillary/ http://www.westernjournalism.com/wow-something-from-20-years... Comey has done well in his career in the years since Whitewater.
OliverJones 11y ago
.pst? Microsoft Outlook? Really? Wasn't that software package very exploitable in the 08-12 timeframe? It seems likely the server was some version of Exchange. Why would anybody in her right mind -- not to mention a powerful and visible government official -- operate her own email server? In that timeframe there were several SaaS email providers that were very secure. A couple were even certified as HIPAA Associated Business Entities (for certain limited use cases). That's a high standard of security. It's not hard to believe that servers for staff use operated by a department of the US federal government were ancient, poorly maintained, and vulnerable. It's almost certain they had unreasonable usage limitations. "Sorry, your mailbox contains 24 / 25 megabytes so it's almost full." Plus, they probably thought they were cool because they had a T1. But why couldn't a powerful person like Secretary Clinton figure out how to contract with a competent SaaS? I bet the big email provider on Amphitheater Road would have jumped at this project. Finally, how come nobody involved in this cluster*k has ever answered the question "why?"
- smileysteve 11y ago
  > In that timeframe there were several SaaS email providers that were very secure. A couple were even certified as HIPAA Associated Business Entities (for certain limited use cases). That's a high standard of security. Thank you for saying this. In this crises we're comparing a government IT department that can't keep audit logs via .pst, imap, or exchange and comparing it to a non-cloud provided private email server. Both should be considered inept in 2008 and certainly now. Unfortunately, the assumption is that the government IT is somehow trustworthy.
hbrid 11y ago
Makes me wonder whether NSA is seriously involved. If they were to have vacuumed up and provided all these deleted emails to the FBI in the course of this investigation, that will have been the absolutely most benevolent application of broad surveillance powers I can think of.
- dTal 11y ago
  The NSA quietly and illegally helping an investigation into a presidential candidate in an election year is pretty much the antithesis of benevolence, regardless of what you think of Hillary. That kind of activity is basically worst-case scenario, war-on-democracy level stuff.
sschueller 11y ago
Let's hope the Hacker that claims he got in has a backup and can supply it to the FBI.
khan20 11y ago
Good and bad. Good for the reason you said, but bad because those emails are 'lost'. Who knows what they could have contained. I hope the FBI can get to the bottom of this because there is probably a lot of sensitive information in them that she is trying to hide. Ugh I want her to get thrown in prison so bad.. but she's gotten out of so much crap so far, so who knows. Money talks and she's got a ton of it. She's obviously paying off the right people.
jpollock 11y ago
After the Microsoft anti-trust trial, people started to realize just how much information there was in an email history log. Later trials just hammered it home. In response, everyone added a chapter to their document retention policy to cover emails. Emails are typically kept for 1 year, with exceptions for specific named individuals (CEO, Member of Parliament, Senator, Secretary of State, you get the idea). Secretary of State's retention period seems to be 30 years [3]. Individuals would be able to mark a document to be kept, but that's the exception rather than the rule. As soon as a court case where a person is mentioned starts, that person's documents are typically retained regardless of schedule - destroying docs that might be material is really frowned upon by the courts. All of this is typically mediated by a custom document retention server which costs a lot of money. The state department has a document retention policy [1], and I think this section [2] covers email. It lists retention at TEMPORARY: Transitory Files (including in electronic form) TEMPORARY: Destroy immediately, or when no longer needed for reference, or according to a predetermined time period or business rule (e.g., implementing the auto-delete feature of electronic mail systems). There might be something specific, but they all seem to be 1-2 years. With that in mind, let's look at this specific situation. The controversy started in March 2015. That puts Feb 2013 - the date the RNC is saying marks the end of the period they want revealed, outside of the document retention window (Controvery Start - 2 years). However, once asked you have to _search_ for a record. So the State Department would have searched through backups, there may be an old tape sitting around containing a backup of his personal computer. Nope, they couldn't find a copy of the PST (Microsoft Exchange or Outlook!). They would have found emails that he was party to where the other person was on a longer retention schedule. They may still find others if he sent emails to departments that don't have retention policies. Since this is a government department, all of this is defined by statute - it's up to Congress to set the time periods. If they want it changed, they need to pass a bill and then fund it because document retention is expensive (think format conversion). Finally, I understand that finance companies (stock traders) have additional retention requirements, even covering chat/SMS/etc messages. There is no cover up here, just proper application of good policy. [1] https://foia.state.gov/Learn/RecordsDisposition.aspx https://foia.state.gov/Learn/RecordsDisposition.aspx [2] https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-03.pdf https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-03.pdf [3] https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-01.pdf https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-01.pdf
pasbesoin 11y ago
Audit-ability is essential to accountability is essential to effective government -- in our case, a democracy (well, ok, a republic). Failure to provide for this should be considered outright failure in one's job. Failure to serve a fundamental tenant of our form of government. To the extent it is define as a crime by our laws, it should be fully prosecuted. In the private sector, I've cleaned up far too many ill-defined, ill-documented messes. Private or public, these things end up being and serving gross dereliction of duty. I've seen it over and over.
- smileysteve 11y ago
  The counter perspective to this is that Hillary's privately managed server has better audit-ability (and could be interpreted to higher security standards) than government IT. The big "flaw" that I see in this "crisis" is the assumption that government servers (which have knowingly and publicly been hacked: OPM - or have leaks: Snowden) are somehow more secure than a given private server. And we can all probably find both a government and private website that doesn't use TLS/SSL, SPF, or authenticated SMTP.
  - pasbesoin 11y ago
    Thank you. I, for one, don't assume government server configuration and management is necessarily better. Another thing that bothers me about Clinton, is that years after Manning's leaks (which I do not condemn, personally), word was/is that State's document / information systems situation is as messed up and deficient as ever. They had a "big problem", by their own definition and rhetoric. Yet, years later -- years under her watch -- apparently nothing substantial has been fixed. (I may be wrong on this, but it's the latest that I recall reading on the matter.)
404error 11y ago
I still don't understand how someone who is being investigated by the FBI can run for President of the United States and have this be perceived as a non issue.
- mikegioia 11y ago
  Welcome to the circus that is the 2016 Presidential Election. She's running against "The Donald" ffs! The whole thing is just disgusting, top to bottom.
  - 404error 11y ago
    Ha! Yes, it is disgusting. Can you imagine applying for a job and the employer finds out that you are being investigated by the FBI. I would imagine that there would be some questions/concerns about hiring you. You can't just brush it off and say "Oh that, don't worry about that."
ck2 11y ago
Oh just give this nonsense up. WTF are y'all hoping to find? Seriously. If you have issues with Hillary there are plenty of policy issues you could attack and at least I'd respect your right to argument.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

221 points by a3n 11y ago

a3n 11y ago

Huh.

reefoctopus 11y ago
>The State Department has lost all archived copies of the emails sent to and from the man believed to have set up and maintained Hillary Clinton’s private email server during the four years she served as secretary.
xlm1717 11y ago
Oops.

mizchief2 11y ago

Totally by accident i'm sure. How can you idiots support this criminal?

diakritikal 11y ago

No coverups here at all.

johndevor 11y ago
Move along, citizen.
- jefurii 11y ago
  And pick up that can while you're at it.

jonny-bravo 11y ago

"Lost"

mariusz79 11y ago

NSA should have a copy...

chishaku 11y ago

Can't the FBI just query the NSA's impressive archive? They don't even need a warrant. https://www.aclu.org/doj-report-fbi-activities-under-section-702 https://www.aclu.org/doj-report-fbi-activities-under-section...

lern_too_spel 11y ago
According to Snowden's leaks, the NSA doesn't have a domestic email archive or even domestic email envelope metadata, so no.
- chishaku 11y ago
  > the NSA doesn't have a domestic email archive or even domestic email envelope metadata "Eventually, the NSA gained authority to "analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States", according to a 2007 Justice Department memo, which is marked secret." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining... "The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology." http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324108204579022874091732470 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873241082045790228...
  - lern_too_spel 11y ago
    The "in some cases" means with a court order for one of the correspondents, which didn't exist for Clinton. PRISM is a program entirely for processing communications court-ordered to be collected from specific providers (not Clinton's mail server or other federal mail systems) for specific users (not Clinton).
    - dmix 11y ago
      Really? I'd assume the counter-intelligence teams would be watching the Secretary of State... If not then they could just ask GCHQ or CSEC for a copy.

atemerev 11y ago

I'd look at the same place where those IRS email backups are. Ask Lois Lerner.

spoiledtechie 11y ago

Isn't this the least bit fishy? To say that politicians are held to a different standard than the average citizen is in full effect here. Its a HUGE cover up. How is she not in jail yet?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zer00eyz 11y ago
I love the mythical "cover up". Is she hiding the fact that she knows Ted Cruz dad helped shoot JFK? What exactly do you think is being hidden. Also, at what point do you get upset about tax dollars being wasted to investigate something to death. Couldn't we be spending this money on better things?
- VMG 11y ago
  > What exactly do you think is being hidden. Evidence of corruption.
- spoiledtechie 11y ago
  Next time a cop pulls you over or cites you for something, why don't you just tell him leave you alone and NOT investigate. Since Hillary Rodham Clinton can do it, why shouldn't it be passed down to every citizen under her. Once a countries laws become negligible, the country ceases to exist.
  - zer00eyz 11y ago
    Here is the thing, I don't disagree with you. But the facts in this case point to something different. If were working with your analogy, then my car got taken apart (every last bolt and nut is on the side of the road). The people in the car with me have been investigated... Still found nothing, keep investigating. At what point does an investigation become a witch hunt? At what point does an investigation become waste? I think were at that point (or just slightly past) it. The investigation has revealed some rather alarming things about our government: 1. The government doesn't have it's shit together when it comes to archiving email. Go figure, we all knew there was waste there but this is worse than any decent nerd ever expected. 2. Our classification system is a mess. The fact that we can retroactively classify something is INSANE. Documents got out that you don't like, classify them, then prosecute any journalist who writes about them. 3. The number of people recently (not just in clintons case) who have immunity for testimony is amazing. In the case of clinton it looks like there was/is some wrongdoing on the part of the staffer who RECEIVED immunity. We all understand this is a prisoners dilemma problem, but there are external ethics that we don't often think about: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2378070 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2378070 -- and this doesn't even factor in outside actors (us) who are harmed by the crime. 4. After Chelsea/Bradley Manning(see note) released all the cables, it apparently had ZERO impact on the IT culture at the state department. You would think that after an issue like that, things would have been on lockdown, but apparently government doesn't learn from its mistakes. Why isn't any one screaming on high about these things? NOTE: The whole gender and name change thing is confusing when referring to something done under/by the old name/gender so I put both down.

gthtjtkt 11y ago

Shouldn't they be in the Datto backups? The ones that even Clinton herself didn't know about because they were kept by mistake (and against her orders)? The ones that contain the 30,000+ emails she and her lawyers attempted to delete because they were "personal"? The ones that still haven't been released despite numerous FOIA requests and a lawsuit? I have a feeling we're only getting one side of this (the State Department's) while the FBI already has these emails. The FBI would have no reason to chime in and tell the public "It's ok, everyone, we have those emails too." And the State Department obviously wouldn't have them since she wasn't using their email system. I'm 99.99% sure nothing is missing here, it's just not where they expected it to be. Pagliano already struck a deal with the DOJ and appears to be cooperating, which probably isn't a good thing for Clinton.

djrogers 11y ago
> Pagliano already struck a deal with the DOJ and appears to be cooperating No, not really - http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a2bf597d0dec4780af6f8710822ee9d7/ex-clinton-staffer-again-says-no-testifying-congress http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a2bf597d0dec4780af6f8710822ee... Unless he changes his mind again or is compelled to testify...
- gthtjtkt 11y ago
  He's cooperating with the FBI and DOJ. Do you really think they'd offer him an immunity deal that allowed him to plead the 5th? What you're talking about are separate investigations by Senate committees. It's understandable that he has no desire to participate in those dog and pony shows.
  - snuxoll 11y ago
    I may be mistaken, but judicial immunity automatically waives your fifth amendment rights since you can no longer incriminate yourself. I can't really imagine the point otherwise.
- ryanmerket 11y ago
  Testifying to Congress is largely political theater. What really matters is if he's cooperating with the FBI.

awt 11y ago

Maybe Lois Lerner has it?

luso_brazilian 11y ago

See also the "Bush White House email controversy": [1] > The "gwb43.com" domain name was publicized by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who sent a letter to Oversight and Government Reform Committee committee chairman Henry A. Waxman requesting an investigation. > Waxman sent a formal warning to the RNC, advising them to retain copies of all emails sent by White House employees. According to Waxman, "in some instances, White House officials were using nongovernmental accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of the communications." >The Republican National Committee claims to have erased the emails, supposedly making them unavailable for Congressional investigators It is hopeless to expect voluntary transparency by the government, there is no incentive to 1) comply with the rules when transparency is clearly detrimental to your backroom deals or 2) to punish the very people that appointed you to your high positioned job or 3) to punish the opponents in the other party when they fail to comply while, after 4 years, the positions can be reversed and you may be in the crosshairs in a similar investigation. Nothing was done when Bush did it, nothing will be done now that is Hillary doing it and don't expect anything different regardless of what party manage to snag the congress and White House. If regulatory capture is a significant problem in the private sector imagine inside the government itself. It is hopeless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controv...

MrTonyD 11y ago
Many workers are closely supervised and monitored (I think of the facial recognition being used by WalMart to track all their employees continuously.) I think that both wealth and power should come with responsibilities - and the obligation to be monitored for the good of our society. All Big Data techniques should be used to monitor them closely - to keep track of every person they contact and the nature of their conversations. At the same time, there should be less monitoring of ordinary citizens.
- pc86 11y ago
  This is easily one of most ridiculous things I've read on here in a long time.
11y ago

dccoolgai 11y ago

If there are emails that were deleted in a .pst file, they are (or at least were back when I was a MS desktop admin 8ish years ago) entirely recoverable by remapping the index at the head of the file (i.e. the messages are "soft-deleted")...should be a piece of cake to recover...

Cozumel 11y ago

Well, that's convenient!

abhi3 11y ago

It increasingly seems that they knew what they were doing since the beginning when they decided to use the private server rather it being a mistake/oversight. One can just hope this drama gets over before the convention.

pdabbadabba 11y ago

They don't have a PST archive, but they still have at least some of his emails. FTA: > “The absence of this email file, however, does not indicate that the department has no emails sent or received by him,” she added. “In fact, we have previously produced through [the Freedom of Information Act] and to Congress emails sent and received by Mr. Pagliano during Secretary Clinton’s tenure.”

Mendenhall 11y ago

The RNC also said they have no text messages or blackberry messages sent to or form Clinton during her time in office lol the state department declined to discuss that, isn't that nice. "In addition to the emails, the State Department also does not have any text messages or BlackBerry Messenger messages sent to or from Clinton during her time in office, the RNC claimed. The State Department declined to discuss that declaration."

bitL 11y ago

Obstruction of justice anyone? Ooops, wrong caste!

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

I have a feeling that this case is going to be studied for years no matter how it turns out. In ethics the appearance of impropriety is generally considered enough to be a breach. I think most independent observers would admit that there's plenty of bad-looking stuff here, however with the election season in full swing I could be wrong. More interesting, I imagine, is the legal maneuverings going on. Assuming that something went way wrong here, and please enough with the clintonesque tu quoque arguments, it's fascinating comparing what happened to the witnesses after the investigation was launched here compared to, say, aaronsw. In Aaron's case, a school set up a camera and caught him accessing files he shouldn't. In the Clinton case, scads of sensitive emails were sent all over the internet from a server that shouldn't be handling them. The difference in evidence here looks astounding, especially if you know something about email. In the first case, a lone prosecutor is able to use the full force and weight of the U.S. government to harass and threaten. There's a small number of people involved, limited resources, and lots of press. In the second case, over a hundred FBI agents are working hard night and day, one supposes, but evidence goes missing, hard drives which need to be in evidence are instead sent to secure destruction facilities, and we can't even seem to be able to to locate low-value secondary information. Press consists of lots of pieces slanted against the government's case. My money says nothing comes of this. I'd give 50-50 odds that in some fashion it's tossed to the Congress to consider impeachment, and of course that'll never happen. There are a lot more incredible contrasts between these cases. I hesitate to mention them due to folks getting upset about their political candidate not looking so good.

krapp 11y ago
It's going to be studied very closely and publicly by the Republican party until November, at the very least.
giardini 11y ago
"...over a hundred FBI agents are working hard night and day, one supposes..." NBC says there are 12 FBI agents working on the case: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fed-source-about-12-fbi-agents-working-clinton-email-inquiry-n548026 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fed-source-about-12-fbi-... titled "Fed Source: About 12 FBI Agents Working on Clinton Email Inquiry". Undoubtedly they are a hand-picked group (although whose hand did the picking, I don't know). Furthermore I fear that FBI agent Comey is in Clinton's pocket/corner. Comey gave Hillary Clinton a bye in the Whitewater investigation: http://www.westernjournalism.com/wow-something-from-20-years-ago-is-a-major-clue-about-what-fbi-will-do-to-hillary/ http://www.westernjournalism.com/wow-something-from-20-years... Comey has done well in his career in the years since Whitewater.

OliverJones 11y ago

.pst? Microsoft Outlook? Really? Wasn't that software package very exploitable in the 08-12 timeframe? It seems likely the server was some version of Exchange. Why would anybody in her right mind -- not to mention a powerful and visible government official -- operate her own email server? In that timeframe there were several SaaS email providers that were very secure. A couple were even certified as HIPAA Associated Business Entities (for certain limited use cases). That's a high standard of security. It's not hard to believe that servers for staff use operated by a department of the US federal government were ancient, poorly maintained, and vulnerable. It's almost certain they had unreasonable usage limitations. "Sorry, your mailbox contains 24 / 25 megabytes so it's almost full." Plus, they probably thought they were cool because they had a T1. But why couldn't a powerful person like Secretary Clinton figure out how to contract with a competent SaaS? I bet the big email provider on Amphitheater Road would have jumped at this project. Finally, how come nobody involved in this cluster*k has ever answered the question "why?"

smileysteve 11y ago
> In that timeframe there were several SaaS email providers that were very secure. A couple were even certified as HIPAA Associated Business Entities (for certain limited use cases). That's a high standard of security. Thank you for saying this. In this crises we're comparing a government IT department that can't keep audit logs via .pst, imap, or exchange and comparing it to a non-cloud provided private email server. Both should be considered inept in 2008 and certainly now. Unfortunately, the assumption is that the government IT is somehow trustworthy.

hbrid 11y ago

Makes me wonder whether NSA is seriously involved. If they were to have vacuumed up and provided all these deleted emails to the FBI in the course of this investigation, that will have been the absolutely most benevolent application of broad surveillance powers I can think of.

dTal 11y ago
The NSA quietly and illegally helping an investigation into a presidential candidate in an election year is pretty much the antithesis of benevolence, regardless of what you think of Hillary. That kind of activity is basically worst-case scenario, war-on-democracy level stuff.

sschueller 11y ago

Let's hope the Hacker that claims he got in has a backup and can supply it to the FBI.

khan20 11y ago

Good and bad. Good for the reason you said, but bad because those emails are 'lost'. Who knows what they could have contained. I hope the FBI can get to the bottom of this because there is probably a lot of sensitive information in them that she is trying to hide. Ugh I want her to get thrown in prison so bad.. but she's gotten out of so much crap so far, so who knows. Money talks and she's got a ton of it. She's obviously paying off the right people.

jpollock 11y ago

After the Microsoft anti-trust trial, people started to realize just how much information there was in an email history log. Later trials just hammered it home. In response, everyone added a chapter to their document retention policy to cover emails. Emails are typically kept for 1 year, with exceptions for specific named individuals (CEO, Member of Parliament, Senator, Secretary of State, you get the idea). Secretary of State's retention period seems to be 30 years [3]. Individuals would be able to mark a document to be kept, but that's the exception rather than the rule. As soon as a court case where a person is mentioned starts, that person's documents are typically retained regardless of schedule - destroying docs that might be material is really frowned upon by the courts. All of this is typically mediated by a custom document retention server which costs a lot of money. The state department has a document retention policy [1], and I think this section [2] covers email. It lists retention at TEMPORARY: Transitory Files (including in electronic form) TEMPORARY: Destroy immediately, or when no longer needed for reference, or according to a predetermined time period or business rule (e.g., implementing the auto-delete feature of electronic mail systems). There might be something specific, but they all seem to be 1-2 years. With that in mind, let's look at this specific situation. The controversy started in March 2015. That puts Feb 2013 - the date the RNC is saying marks the end of the period they want revealed, outside of the document retention window (Controvery Start - 2 years). However, once asked you have to _search_ for a record. So the State Department would have searched through backups, there may be an old tape sitting around containing a backup of his personal computer. Nope, they couldn't find a copy of the PST (Microsoft Exchange or Outlook!). They would have found emails that he was party to where the other person was on a longer retention schedule. They may still find others if he sent emails to departments that don't have retention policies. Since this is a government department, all of this is defined by statute - it's up to Congress to set the time periods. If they want it changed, they need to pass a bill and then fund it because document retention is expensive (think format conversion). Finally, I understand that finance companies (stock traders) have additional retention requirements, even covering chat/SMS/etc messages. There is no cover up here, just proper application of good policy. [1] https://foia.state.gov/Learn/RecordsDisposition.aspx https://foia.state.gov/Learn/RecordsDisposition.aspx [2] https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-03.pdf https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-03.pdf [3] https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-01.pdf https://foia.state.gov/_docs/RecordsDisposition/A-01.pdf

pasbesoin 11y ago

Audit-ability is essential to accountability is essential to effective government -- in our case, a democracy (well, ok, a republic). Failure to provide for this should be considered outright failure in one's job. Failure to serve a fundamental tenant of our form of government. To the extent it is define as a crime by our laws, it should be fully prosecuted. In the private sector, I've cleaned up far too many ill-defined, ill-documented messes. Private or public, these things end up being and serving gross dereliction of duty. I've seen it over and over.

smileysteve 11y ago
The counter perspective to this is that Hillary's privately managed server has better audit-ability (and could be interpreted to higher security standards) than government IT. The big "flaw" that I see in this "crisis" is the assumption that government servers (which have knowingly and publicly been hacked: OPM - or have leaks: Snowden) are somehow more secure than a given private server. And we can all probably find both a government and private website that doesn't use TLS/SSL, SPF, or authenticated SMTP.
- pasbesoin 11y ago
  Thank you. I, for one, don't assume government server configuration and management is necessarily better. Another thing that bothers me about Clinton, is that years after Manning's leaks (which I do not condemn, personally), word was/is that State's document / information systems situation is as messed up and deficient as ever. They had a "big problem", by their own definition and rhetoric. Yet, years later -- years under her watch -- apparently nothing substantial has been fixed. (I may be wrong on this, but it's the latest that I recall reading on the matter.)

404error 11y ago

I still don't understand how someone who is being investigated by the FBI can run for President of the United States and have this be perceived as a non issue.

mikegioia 11y ago
Welcome to the circus that is the 2016 Presidential Election. She's running against "The Donald" ffs! The whole thing is just disgusting, top to bottom.
- 404error 11y ago
  Ha! Yes, it is disgusting. Can you imagine applying for a job and the employer finds out that you are being investigated by the FBI. I would imagine that there would be some questions/concerns about hiring you. You can't just brush it off and say "Oh that, don't worry about that."

ck2 11y ago

Oh just give this nonsense up. WTF are y'all hoping to find? Seriously. If you have issues with Hillary there are plenty of policy issues you could attack and at least I'd respect your right to argument.

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