Comments (63)

PTF wrote on April 9, 2007 10:10 AM:

The important difference, as always with Karl Rove, is how the policy is executed.

Sosnik and his shop did not have access to DNC e-mail. In fact, the only e-mail gateway that anyone had in the Clinton White House, was that provided by the EOP's and/or WHCA's servers. The DNC computers were exactly that - computers attached to printers. No network.

It was against Clinton White House policy to use outside e-mail servers (Hotmail, AOL, NetScape) and in 1998 all of those web-based services were blocked by IT. This was done to ensure that all e-mails being subpoenaed by Rep. Dan Burton were being provided fully. It was also to adhere to the Presidential Records Act.

The RNC e-mail story is Rove's Achilles heel. They haven't done much to refute it, except for doctoring a photo of Rove carrying a folder. Don't let the light swivel away from this story.

And don't let the "Clinton did it" justification go unnoticed, either.

Via wrote on April 9, 2007 10:25 AM:

I will show my ignorance, but is there not some way records from the RNC server can be recovered?

jeffgee wrote on April 9, 2007 10:29 AM:

Apparently, Rep. "Pumpkin Shooter" Burton's ardor for investigation has cooled since Clinton left office.

melior wrote on April 9, 2007 10:29 AM:

Coincidentally, no one knew the White House had a recording system that taped everythign the President said until Watergate broke, etiher.

KvH wrote on April 9, 2007 10:31 AM:

The Republician problem is the reverse of the Clinton issue. The Clinton whitehouse was accused of using policy systems (i.e. e-mail) for political purposes. The Rove whitehouse is accused of using political systems for policy issues.

I'd rather have Clinton's transgression than Rove's, under Clinton's we have the records. Rove's is designed avoid the records.

KvH wrote on April 9, 2007 10:34 AM:

Recovery from RNC servers depends greatly on their mail system.

If they run their own full-blown enterprise level mail system where mail is stored on the server, and regular backups are made. Then yes the mail should be recoverable, even if the republicians deleted it.

If instead they run a system more like your typical ISP where mail is deleted from the server as soon as you download it, then quite a bit of the mail won't be recoverable from the RNC servers (mail left overnight may be, if proper backups have been performed.)

That mail may be available on the Republican computers the mail was downloaded onto.

foggylady wrote on April 9, 2007 10:35 AM:

Anyone else remember reading, in these very TM pages, quotes from ( maybe about) the WH that Bush, Rove,Cheney do not use e-mail at all?
So now Rove IS using e-mail?
Wonder who else is using RNC ;????

Bill Peterson wrote on April 9, 2007 10:38 AM:

If I had a parallel computer in my office, that was not owned by the high-tech company I work for, and if that private computer was used to send protected information, I would be in a world of hurt. Any information that is owned by the company, cannot be sent on any open network; any personal network cannot be used for the majority of my work. I do use my personal machines to VPN into work, but no company information is kept on my personal machines. All company email is sent using the approved mail server.

Rove should be fired. He is not conducting the People's business at all. It is proper that 90+% of his emails are on that private server, he works for them, not for us, the People. Rove should quit, or be fired, and move his office to the RNC. Thereafter, he should not have a .gov email address.

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 10:39 AM:

If Rove was quoted as saying he did not use e-mail, I'm sure that statement was laced with parsing and qualifications.

Punchy wrote on April 9, 2007 10:42 AM:

I'm pretty sure they've gone to great lengths to delete, destroy, burn, bury, and drown all evidence on any email servers. Rove would rather use the stolen Iraqi money to buy the RNC new systems than face prison for all the illegal shit he's pulled off. I'll bet every dollar I own that the RNC emails are suddenly "unrecoverable" at the first attempt by Wax Man at seeing them.

Lee wrote on April 9, 2007 10:43 AM:

And what about PIN to PIN on Blackberrys???

Has anyone asked or thought abou that?? You can send a Blackberry email Pin to Pin and its not on any mail server

Richard L. Adlof wrote on April 9, 2007 10:47 AM:

My question is and remains . . . Why does the human-pocine hybrid has any resources in the White House?

His position is lauded as purely political. He IS the 'cellphone' and by law needs to be off-the grounds.

Richard L. Adlof wrote on April 9, 2007 10:48 AM:

pocine = porcine

davcbr wrote on April 9, 2007 10:48 AM:

Bill Peterson touches on an issue that could be important. The MAIN reason yopur company doesn't want you sending its info over your personal system is security. White House servers are the target of hackers constantly, and are kept secure. Can the same be said for the RNC servers? Do they even know if somebody already has Karl's e-mails?

bp wrote on April 9, 2007 10:49 AM:

The present White House makes no distinction between politics and policy. Its one and the same. They live off the public purse: they're entitled, aren't they!

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 10:52 AM:

By sending 95% his e-mails through a non-secure government server, he may have compromised national security.

And, unlike the demure letter-sending back and forth between Waxman, the White House and the RNC, whose to say that the Russians haven't already downloaded all of the GWB43.com files and are working on a blackmail plan as we speak.

Is GWB43.com more or less secure than "FOX Security?"

POed Lib wrote on April 9, 2007 10:53 AM:

Were any security-encoded data/documents/information passed around on an insecure network? That is, was the national security of the US compromised by Karl Rove's desire to avoid indictment in the future?

Tony Toledo wrote on April 9, 2007 10:54 AM:

Is it my imagination or is this "creature" Rove practicing for the part of Dark Overlord after Bush's dad finally croaks?

JP wrote on April 9, 2007 10:55 AM:

Not a lawyer, but a thought crossed my mind ... Given that part of the communications strategy to justify the U.S. Attorney firings was to personally malign the terminated USA's. In the normal course, should one of those former USA's want to sue over this libelous conduct, Rove and others would be protected under sovereign immunity. Since, however, they presumably used non-governmental resources to hatch the plan, it could be argued that they were acting in their capacity as private citizens and, therefore, can be sued. If they argue that, no, they were acting in their governmental capacity then the use of the RNC server to accomplish this may be an illegal act.

It'd be fun to test.

POed Lib wrote on April 9, 2007 10:56 AM:

Some clever persons should try to hack into Karl Rove's account, simply for the public knowledge of determining if it is possible.

This should be paid for by the DNC, as research into the degree that Karl Rove has compromised the national security of the US.

teacherken wrote on April 9, 2007 11:07 AM:

given that WH communications are a target of foreign intelligence agencies and also given that Rove and others were apparently communication using non secure (eg - RNC) facilities, could we perhaps find an intelligence agency that has all the stuff even if RNC has wiped their servers clean? Perhaps Mossad, or China, or Russia?

3G wrote on April 9, 2007 11:12 AM:

RE: teacherken
"...could we perhaps find an intelligence agency that has all the stuff even if RNC has wiped their servers clean? Perhaps Mossad, or China, or Russia? "

... or the NSA?

It's good to see the MSM is starting to grasp the gravity of this story. Maybe in another 3 months they will start to piece together all of the other clues that are being discovered by TPM and others.

featherfamily wrote on April 9, 2007 11:19 AM:

Am I the only one that remembers ? The closed-off room in the San Francisco routing center, and similar rooms across the country, where Bush's intelligence services were keeping copies of every email sent from every computer in the freedom-loving USA ??? The records are all sitting in boxes under the control of the US govt. right now, let's make the connection and make a huge stink to high heaven to force Homeland Security to release them ...

PTF wrote on April 9, 2007 11:30 AM:

The LA Times Article makes it sound like the Clinton White House's DNC computers had access to e-mail. These computers in fact did not have access to e-mail. All e-mails leaving the Clinton White House (and this is pre-BlackBerry times!) went out through the EOP.GOV system.

Also interesting to note, this quote from Government Exec Magagine:

"...One former White House political aide said he vaguely recalled receiving guidance about sending e-mail on an RNC-provided BlackBerry and using a gwb43.com e-mail account, but he had clearer memories of getting "a billion and one" White House ethics briefings.

The e-mail instructions, from Sara Taylor, director of White House political affairs, were meant to help aides juggle dual sets of communications devices to comply with the Hatch Act and the Presidential Records Act, and to use the RNC equipment and accounts "only for political activity..."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0407/040907ol.htm

Sarah Taylor resigned last week.

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 11:41 AM:

from PTF 's link

"The RNC's policy, Stanzel said, is to delete e-mails every 30 days, except for the e-mails of White House aides "who use the political e-mail accounts the RNC has provided them." David Almacy, White House Internet and e-communications director, told Computerworld in March that the RNC's archive exception for White House e-mails began in 2004."

So WH aides mail still on server??????

mark wrote on April 9, 2007 11:56 AM:

Obtaining RNC email would be difficult, FOIA does not apply. However, any email sent to a government address would be subject to a FOIA request. I wonder if it is possible to follow the trail of people that Rove would have been emailing and obtain copies that way.

If it turns out that RNC email was being used for official business, then FOIA may be made to apply, it probably would also trigger records retention statutes.

M. Katz wrote on April 9, 2007 11:59 AM:

I thought it had become clear that the phone companies and ISPs are recording all of our email. So no matter what the RNC servers delete policy was, there may be another copy just a subpoena or a national security letter away. How come no one discusses this?

AnnieW wrote on April 9, 2007 12:03 PM:

"So no matter what the RNC servers delete policy was, there may be another copy just a subpoena or a national security letter away."

Because these kind of rules only apply to terrorists...or Democrats.

PTF wrote on April 9, 2007 12:22 PM:

I'd really like to know if Grover Norquist has an e-mail account with GWB43.COM or RNCHQ.ORG.

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 12:24 PM:

"If it turns out that RNC email was being used for official business, then FOIA may be made to apply, it probably would also trigger records retention statutes.

Posted by: mark
Date: April 9, 2007 11:56 AM

rewrite this as ..."that RNC email was being used AT ANT TIME, then FOIA would apply to ALL those communications"

Unless I am mistaken here, just ONE SINGLE political email included in it's list makes the entire email collection subject to legal public scrutiny, and once that (or those) emails are exposed, there's no legal grounds to keep the snopers out of the files, without a court separating them into "exclusionary" categories (which could very well occur, considering the make-up of the DOJ these days.)

I'm no lawyer, but this seems like a likely scenario.

One bad email CANn spoil the whole bunch!

JEP wrote on April 9, 2007 12:27 PM:

I'd really like to know if Grover Norquist has an e-mail account with GWB43.COM or RNCHQ.ORG.

Posted by: PTF
Date: April 9, 2007 12:22 PM

Not joking at all, Grover probably owns the server... Now there's a search warrant that would make the ganglia twitch! And would probably send a couple hundred old R's off to Kenny Lay's island resort.

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 12:31 PM:

Bored with hearing about Clinton: GOP impeached him. All they could get him for was perjury. One impeachment for illegal activity was good enough for the GOP. Suddenly, in 2007, the rule of law isn't important. Quit wasting time with this GOP--treat them as the war criminals they are. The moment the GOP gets control of the House, they will impeach for any reason.

Purging e-mails is evidence of criminal activity and obstruction of a war crimes investigaiton. All the e-mail evidence, and the destruction-purging of that e-mail, is evidence of war crimes. Stop playing nice with the GOP. These are issues of Geneva Convention War Crimes.

Nuremburg clearly established the relationship between "impeachment" and "war crimes" -- impeachment was expected to have been used to enforce Geneva. Because the Germans refused to impeach to enforce Geneva, they were adjudicated with war crimes.

The GOP efforts to block impeachment, destroy e-mails, and hide evidence: It is not a problem; it is evidence -- a solution. Change your attitude: A cover-up is not a problem: It is evidence of a conspiracy to hide violations of the Geneva Conventions. There is no statute of limitations for war crimes.

parrot wrote on April 9, 2007 12:35 PM:

I like the idea of directing the FBI to issue a national security letter regarding emails "and other communications, financial account records, and any other communications that may be related to possible violations of various Federal statutes."

Code word: square as in "covering all the corners"

Phill wrote on April 9, 2007 12:41 PM:

I am sick and tired of this White House always bringing up Clinton in a comparison as a justification or to make Clinton look bad. However, instead of trying to stop this behavior, Democrats should do the opposite, and expand this practice to compare the two Presidents on EVERYTHING! This would quickly hurt Bush. At least once a day a comparison could be made between another failure of Bush's compared to Clinton's success in a similar situation.

jdw wrote on April 9, 2007 12:43 PM:

"Some Republican activists say the e-mail request will not create great difficulty for the White House because nothing nefarious happened and because the RNC automatically purges some e-mails after 30 days."

That's more drastic than expected, but retion rules/policy was discussed in prior threads here at TPMmuck. As mentioned in those other threads, it's SOP for companies and mail hosts to have rules like that.

As mentioned then - Waxie needs to get the subpeonas out to prevent additional mail from rolling off, and to cover any back ups of the system that may exist before they're recycled through. Frankly, Waxie (or more accurately someone on his staff) needs to get a briefing from some e-mail experts on exactly what to do to prevent additional bleeding.

The e-discovery laws were recently changed, putting a great deal more burden on entities under subpeonas. I'm not sure how an entity like the RNC would be covered by it.

laurie wrote on April 9, 2007 12:51 PM:

Karen Tumulty from Time's Swampland blog was on Diane Rehm recently. She said that it was well known that Karl Rove had a separate computer system in the White House for some time. She said he used it to indulge his Amazon.com fixation.

Makes perfect sense to me. Rove was just ordering CDs online....move on.....nothing to see here....no reason for journalists to ask any questions. Unbelievable

LRM wrote on April 9, 2007 12:54 PM:

This story should be screamed to the heavens until the MSM has it as the lead story in every news cycle. We forget that WE are savvy political junkies who follow such stories,but until it breaks into the consciousness of Joe Sixpack it will go nowhere.

cv wrote on April 9, 2007 12:56 PM:

The RNC emails are disappearing as we speak.

J M Day wrote on April 9, 2007 12:58 PM:

If Karl Rove is using the RNC email system rather than the highly secure White House email system has anyone asked the White House if the White House has used any government money to upgrade the RNC email so that it is as secure as the White House email system? If the White House has used public money for an upgrade of a partisan email system isn't that a violation of the Hatch Act and therefore a felony?????

litigatormom wrote on April 9, 2007 1:24 PM:

On Karl Rove's Amazon fixation:

So 95% of the time he spends on computers during working hours is spent on Amazon?

wisdom-etc. wrote on April 9, 2007 1:26 PM:

churches originally met in houses. later they were enlarged and the style evolved.

but if a church has problems, should we place the blame on houses?

or should we blame clotheslines when dryers malfunction?

THESE PEOPLE LEARNED TO LIE AND MAKE EXCUSES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! (and it shows!)

US8 wrote on April 9, 2007 1:54 PM:

Here's an article relating to a June 2006 OMB directive outlining Federal employee laptop security. There's also an embedded link to the acutal memorandum. From what I can tell the Whitehouse may be in violation of it's own directive, if they were using any sort of outside hardware or messaging systems.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062700540.html

T. Scheisskopf wrote on April 9, 2007 1:58 PM:

What intrigues me about all of this is the complete and utter ease with which one can setup a rogue email infrastructure. It's almost trivial.

As one example, I can think of a hosting company where, for the princely sum of $15.95/mo, you can rent hosting that comes with over 3000 email accounts, listserv with digesting, webmail and many other features. You could set it up with a suitably obscure domain name, place a innocuous website on the server for cover and have a very configurable and reliable email infrastructure. You could even drop in a reasonably good groupware PhP/MySQL package from the control panel, with one click, put it in a sub-domain.

There are so many ways for them to have effected a rogue email infrastructure. That is why I see the real meat 'n taters investigatory work taking place in various connection logs. It will take some hard database programming and analysis, but there is where the treasure lies.

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 2:04 PM:

Irony is not dead. Very little correspondance from the Bush White House will survive. Imagine the meager holdings that will go on to live at a presidential "library." Future generations will find the paltry amount pathetic and symbolic of a vacuous mind. It's a legacy the Bush administration collectively deserves.

Dave From Battlefield wrote on April 9, 2007 2:07 PM:

There really should be more to this story. Two salient points:

A) If the GOP computers were in the Whitehouse, they were connected to a network somewhere. How does this not violate the usage rules. (Remember the outrage when Al Gore used a wrong telephone for a single call?)
B) Connecting outside computers to a government run network is a major league verboten. And I don't want to hear the president authorized it. It's a major security risk NO MATTER WHAT STEPS THE GOP TOOK BEFORE HAND.
C (or B-prime)) If the answer to B is that the Whitehouse support staff or some other government agency took the necessary hardening steps on those computers, doesn't this add another whole set of rules to the list of violations?

Somebody needs has some explaining to do.

Dave From Battlefield

Singularity wrote on April 9, 2007 2:45 PM:

Waxman needs to subpoena the head of White House IT. I bet a lot of questions could be answered there. In my experience, most end-users have no clue how to configure their personal computers to connect to an unfamiliar network, particularly one with a strong security protocol. Someone in technical support services had to assist with connecting Turdblossom to the Internet. That person undoubtedly knows quite a bit.

I once knew a guy who backed up everything in his boss's email account without anyone's knowledge. He considered it a safety net....

PTF wrote on April 9, 2007 2:50 PM:

"...Waxman needs to subpoena the head of White House IT..."

This is what Dan Burton did repeatedly back in 1998-2000. You may remember that he dragged many civil servants through the mud claiming that he was being railroaded. In fact, the computer system had some defects. Millions were spent to fix the system -- and it's the same one that's in place for Bush today.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/03/23/whitehouse.email/

Contrast with today. Waxman is being railroaded. And not a single subpoena has been issued. And crimes are being committed.

Michael Stevens wrote on April 9, 2007 3:51 PM:

I'll (once again) strongly suggest that Waxman subpoena the e-mail records held by Research in Motion (RIM).

Nearly every e-mail sent to and from most (non governmental) BlackBerry devices go though RIM's servers. Since many Blackberry users have other e-mail accounts set to automatically forward messages to their Blackberry device addresses, it is possible than *any* GWB43.com e-mail may have gone through RIM's e-mail servers.

Not only should Waxman subpoena RIM for any e-mail addresses, he should also subpoena them for all devices owned by the RNC. Bottom line, RIM may have copies of e-mails that the RNC "can't find"

fedmailcontractor wrote on April 9, 2007 4:14 PM:

Folks here need to remember the fate of email in the 1998-2000 White House subpoenas. At the time, several contractors were responsible for mail, its backup, and its restoration (Look up "Northrop Grumman and White House Mail". While mistakes may have been made in technology planning (one will never know) and admin then, those same mistakes do not occur now. Technology is more mature, as are its administration policies. Data servers are not completely swept, because optical and magnetic devices (particularly in single-customer or restricted domains) can easily hold the mail traffic without being overwritten. Full and incremental offsite backups are the norm. We have complete "shadow government" facilities with active servers inside of mountains in case of attack. Surely communications of this sensitivity are not farmed out to GoDaddy by RNC.

Some enterprising person should locate the prime contractor for mail at the White House (public contract, easy to FOIA), as well as the RNC (harder to get, not impossible unless all tech is done inhouse, which is not likely for a national organization). Usually, a contractor actually knows where the bodies are (and has the map to find them) without the political baggage. They also are not protected under executive privilege, but the terms of a contract, which can be overridden by subpoena. Those Northrop Grumman contractors had to testify; and they did, much to the displeasure of the Clinton White House, and most everyone else (really, no one was interested in the actual truth) so it got very ugly.

To further our reality check, we must also remember the animal we are dealing with...a particular type of arrogant control freak. If you, as a support person, could not deliver a request, what would happen to you? One must ask what would (or did) happen if Rove needed to find an email from just five weeks ago? This would be referenced in other email, as well as help desk software tracking for the IT department at RNC (if they have computers, they have a help desk...). I doubt the answer is, "Sorry, Karl, we don't have that anymore. You should have saved it to your desktop." His response would surely be, "Find it or pack your things." I would bet that copies of all emails are stored somewhere offsite, just in case.

If RNC does accept public funds in terms of grants, federal campaign funds, etc., they in fact have to abide by Sarbanes-Oxley act retention and transparency policies, as well as IRS retention policies for financials and communications. I don't know if they take federal money (not my bailiwick, but lots of your folks seem to be knowledgeable in that), but I doubt they get a pass on revealing financial or operational data. Technology operations should be on the table (for subpoena) if they want to maintain financial support and non-profit status.

Remember what was said by Newt Gingrich during the Clinton impeachment. When asked why the republican congress was repeatedly going after Clinton, Newt said, "Because we can." Look it up.

It certainly was not, "to protect the American people from its corrupt government representation" .

Anonymous wrote on April 9, 2007 4:29 PM:

fedmailcontractor-
Good thought, but a lot of those Northrup Contractors have themselves found their way into other government consulting gigs which could be threatened by the Admin in power if they decide to drop a dime.

Maybe another approach?

If the RNC has an archive of White House Staff official communications, those communications, by definition are Presidential Records, and hence government property.

It is fully reasonable for the government, in this case Congressman Waxman, to ask for government property back.

ahem wrote on April 9, 2007 4:33 PM:

Let's save the talk about the creation of an un-archived backchannel for later.

Let's talk about the use of unencrypted, unaudited private communications systems by people with security clearances.

US News reported that WH flunkies were now using SMS to communicate. SMS. Text messages sent, in the clear, on mobile phone networks.

Why the heck hasn't this been shut down already on basic national security grounds?

"Obtaining RNC email would be difficult, FOIA does not apply."

The Presidential Records Act applies: regardless of where they're stored, presidential records as defined by the Act are the property of the United States, not the RNC. And now that we've established that at least some presidential records are likely to be on RNC servers, since they used RNC routing, I'd like to see a court deny a request to turn over the complete archives -- and make the servers available for data recovery -- since it's not the job of the RNC to determine what constitutes a presidential record. That's the job of the Archivist of the United States.

Who has standing to file such a suit?

ahem wrote on April 9, 2007 4:37 PM:

"Waxman needs to subpoena the head of White House IT. I bet a lot of questions could be answered there."

Yep. The problems in the Clinton White House were technical snafus: one issue arose because the contractors used the wrong case to describe the server name in a case-sensitive backup program. But everything was routed through the EOP servers and thus the archive server.

freepatriot wrote on April 9, 2007 5:02 PM:

so how does the RNC email account qualify for Executive Privilige ???

seems to me that the RNC email accounts are privatly ownd, and subject to subpeona just the same as any other private business records

given that there are laws about using non-government computers for government business, I fail to see how presnit bush could justify using outside computers

if the outside computers ain't being used in a legal manner, why should executive privilige apply to them ???

there ain't no executive privilige outside the law

security code: shame

I think the security code guys know about our presnit

pre-amerikkkan wrote on April 9, 2007 5:54 PM:

if they are never released, the imagined story behind all this is going to be so much worse. we may give them credit for more smarts than they actually have or they are as corrupt as they seem, then it's, "how did this happen?!"

squeeze jack abramoff, steven griles, monica goodling, brent wilkes, dustu foggo and duke cunningham some more, dick and karl don't like how close they are to w and what transpires from their forced testimony may finally be good for the nation.
code: flag, as in i will never

Mark F. wrote on April 9, 2007 6:20 PM:

"based on the suspicion that the White House has been using those alternate email addresses to avoid keeping a record that might be vulnerable to subpoena."

It would seem to me that the White House would be MORE vulnerable, since it would be difficult to claim executive privilege in the case of these emails. After all--they're not "official" White House communications, are they?

Sarah McKee wrote on April 9, 2007 6:22 PM:

In light of the savvy comments above on various ways that Henry Waxman could subpoena White House communications routed via RNC and other presumably non-secure IT equipment, has anyone in this thread sent a summary of these recommendations to the House Oversight Committee or to Waxman himself? The NSA idea is particularly delicious. The House O. C. and Waxman need this in writing, and from someone -- not I -- who knows what s/he's talking about. There's an email form under Contact Us, bottom of Committee's homepage, http://oversight.house.gov/.

Sarah McKee

Ginger Yellow wrote on April 9, 2007 8:06 PM:

Following up what Mark F said, wouldn't a claim of executive privilege on these emails be a de facto admission that the Presidential Records Act had been violated? You can't claim privilege on communications that aren't executive branch related, and you can't email on executive branch issues outside of the White House system.

Bugboy wrote on April 9, 2007 8:49 PM:

FOIA isn't like some state secrets act where you wave a wand and stuff is "FREE", it deals mostly with access to publicly stored information.

The RNC servers are, by definition, NOT publicly stored information since they were run by a private firm, under no contract by the US government to provide backup services. Private companies are under no backup requirements.

In short, we are probably screwed on the emails from RNC. It was intended to be that way. A little lie to cover for a big like, as Krugman says.

code word is "offer" as in someone needs to be made an offer they can't refuse.

Al in Austex wrote on April 9, 2007 9:36 PM:

To Sarah McKee
Gee Ms.McKee , could it be that all these erudite suggestions to secure the "internets" evidence against BushCo have already been taken up & completed by The Democratic Posse -headed up by "Let's get a rope " Conyers. Remember there has been very little leakage from this wide ranging & particular Congressional Oversight. And I am very confident that a whole bunch of "discovery " is being done right this very moment by any numbers of educated, & savy Hill Staffers.
And also remember this is History in the making. Who'se to say that RIM records etc- aren't already sitting in Chairman's Waxman In Box. Civics 101-checks & balances read the Cliff Notes!
Get a good seat, this is going to be real fun.
TurdBlossom et al are all going to be held to account .

phil wrote on April 10, 2007 1:45 AM:

Actually, there have been emails declassified and released titled "Karl Rove Question"

It's in PDF format:
http://www.monkeytypesthebible.com/2007/03/emails-suggest-karl-rove-knew-of.html

Ordinary person wrote on April 10, 2007 8:00 AM:

FOIA does not apply to nongovernmental records. It doesn't even apply to records under the Presidential Records Act while a President is in office, it only kicks in after he has left office.

Think about it in terms of your office. Many people have access to both work accounts and private POP mail on personal mobile devices. It's up to each of us to use them properly, it's an honor system. Depending on where you work, if you're a public employee, the public can ask under a public records law for access to some of your work products if they are within your employer's recordkeeping system. Members of the public can't ask for the content of your private email accounts. That's one reason your employer depends on you to use each account as intended.

The same is true within the White House, where a handful of people -- not most employees -- legitimately have both official and political functions. As in some of your workplaces, it is up to the lawyers to make sure everyone understands his obligations. And uses equipment and systems as intended. Beyond that, it is up to each individual how he handles this.

ChrisO wrote on April 10, 2007 10:38 AM:

I wouldn't be so sure that the RNC e-mails aren't secure. Those paranoid freaks probably have better security on their system than the White House. After all, the RNC is where a lot of the really creepy shit goes on.

I worked at a PR firm where a company suing one of our clients subpoenaed all of our client-related e-mails. What as eye opening was the number of e-mails involved, because every e-mail sent to the entire team represented seven e-mails, one to each recipient. There have to be at least a few people like me who tend to have an in-box with a couple of thousand e-mails in it (the IT guys hate me.) Remember, those e-mails don't just involve Rove; they involve everyone who was cc'd on an e-mail, or who had it forwarded to them. I can't believe that the RNC is so efficient that they can effectively scrub every single relevant computer.

Finally, isn't Rove on the government payroll? I realize the standards for someone in his position are going to be pretty flexible, but I can't imagine the reaction on my job if it was discovered that 95 percent of my e-mails were for reasons other than my job. If that works for Bush, fine, but there must be some kind of accountability for government employees. I know, I know, who am I kidding?

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