Is the White House attempting to illegally hide records?

[Dinner]

Patroklos you are not in a policy making position and people in the White House are. Just like the Nixon tapes everyone in government didn't have to be taped but people in policy making positions did. This was a shadow network which they set up to avoid the registered legally required public records laws, we have quotes where White House insiders are saying don't use the official network because we don't want this recorded (so they obviously know they're doing something wrong), and when a special prosecutor supenaed all e-mails relating to certain events the White House pretended their illegal secret network (where Rove does 95% of his e-mails) didn't exist. They even went so far as to hide the network from Congress and the special prosecutor.

You won't even come out and say that was wrong or improper?

[Tuberski]

Is the White House attempting to illegally hide records?

I bet they have thousands of copies of the Beatles White album.

Rat bastards.

ACK!

[SlowwHand]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Perfection
Why can't they just use yahoo accounts?

They wouldn't, because they wouldn't be secure enough.

They shouldn't because federal law mandates that they use .gov domain email for government business. They have demonstrably not done that in the case of thee prosecutor firings.

Rove and a bunch of other staffers have very clearly broken a federal law here. That nothing will come of thatt speaks to the overall health of the Republic, and does not speak well.

[Dinner]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9564614

As predicted the secret e-mail servers have all some how managed to get erased. Gee, who would have ever thought the Republicans would break Federal law and erase records of wrong doing?

[Ming]

Was it wrong... yep... illegal... yep... expected... yep

Do I condone it... NO... Are the democrats as bad... yes... Do I condone the dems when the break the law... NO.

Am I outraged at both major parties... Yes... Am I outraged at the current administration and all other past administrations that have also broken the law... YES...

Do I think that my party is clean and that only the other party sucks... NO

The Dems will be in power soon enough so that they can get their fair share of corruption, and have the ability to break federal law as well. I hope you will be as outraged then

[Dinner]

Of course I will be. I post here when the Dems break the law though when it's just some lame partisan hack attack without any law breaking I argue against it.

[mactbone]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/04/12/BL2007041200941.html

The White House yesterday said it has no idea how many e-mails have been lost.

In an afternoon conference call with reporters, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel spread the blame all around. "White House policy did not give clear enough guidance," he said. "The oversight of that wasn't aggressive enough." And individual White House staffers "did not do a good enough job of following existing preservation policy -- or seeking guidance."

Said Stanzel: "I guess the bottom line is that our policy at the White House was not clear enough for employees."

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."

Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which -- due to Stanzel's refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues -- raised more questions than it answered.

Stanzel said that "some people" may have used their non-government accounts for official business due to "an abundance of caution" in order to avoid violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government e-mail for overtly political purposes, such as fundraising -- and due to "logistical convenience."

[Dinner]

Ming both parties have a degree of corruption (it is unavoidable given the nature of large organizations with hundreds of thousands if not millions of members) but it's pretty clear one party is VASTY more corrupt then the other one. It's a problem of degrees.

Will the Republicans always be more corrupt then the Democrats? Probably not and things can indeed change in a few years but right now it's pretty clear one party just can't be trusted with anything. They're just that corrupt.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Ming both parties have a degree of corruption (it is unavoidable given the nature of large organizations with hundreds of thousands if not millions of members) but it's pretty clear one party is VASTY more corrupt then the other one. It's a problem of degrees.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA... the ole, we aren't as bad as you crap... HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

Wait until the probes are done in Chicago with the Democratic party ...

Both parties are equally BAD... If you want to feel good about yourself because you "think" your party isn't worse than the other... so be it. Sounds like a real hollow victory to me.

[-Jrabbit]

It's pretty simple: Power corrupts.

The GOP has held the White House for 6 years now, so they've had plenty of time to descend into corruption. The Dems under Clinton were arguably no different, but lacked the legislative branch to ram their policies through. The current era is possibly the first (in my lifetime at least) in which the 3 branches of govt were all under majority control of the same political view. So you can make a case for more widespread effects (becasue checks and balances are ineffective).

But the core level of corruption in modern government is, IMHO, pretty constant.
Only the players change.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
It's pretty simple: Power corrupts.

Dude, like, no way!!

[-Jrabbit]

Well, except for me. Grant me all the power. I promise you won't regret it...

[MrFun]

My bullsh!t detector's gauge is at it's highest level, Mr. Rabbit, which means, not to believe such a bald-faced statement.

[Edan]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Well, except for me. Grant me all the power. I promise you won't regret it...

Won't regret it, or won't be allowed to regret it?