Still Hating America.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Isn't there a huge difference between firing people because you want to give someone else a chance, and firing people because they decline to press spurious criminal charges against members of the opposition party in order to influence an election?

If Domenici called Iglesias in Oct. 2006 to inquire about a vote fraud investigation, of what possible relevance would emails in 2004 be?

Look at the timeline of this stuff. The missing emails are all early on--during the beginning of teh second term, when they're evaluating which USAs to keep and which ones to let go/can. It took them 18 months, or more, before settling on which ones to can. But the alleged partisan/vote fraud investigations they failed to undertake all occured in the last few months before the actual cannings.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Did you read the statute?

no. i read 1 subsection. the one that seems most relevant:

• 2) The term "Presidential records" means documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, created or received by the President,

Okay here.

• his immediate staff,

still okay.

• or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise and assist the President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.

as i said this sounds like it would not extend to stuff that is routine and beneath the President's attention. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it means everything every person in the WH creates for the entire term must be preserved. can you show that?

by the way, if it means "save everything created by anyone working for the WH" it is a very poorly written law, don't you think?

[andViolins]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Sure. If. All I'm saying is that the controversy is over emails from a couple of years ago and that it's like that by now any server on which the email once was stored has probably overwritten the deleted email.

Don't any of your employers force you to clear out your deleted items box every so often? If not, why the fuck not?

Talk to any forensic computer analyst about this issue, and he will regale you with tales of recovering "over-written" 4-year old data off a drive.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
If Domenici called Iglesias in Oct. 2006 to inquire about a vote fraud investigation, of what possible relevance would emails in 2004 be?

Look at the timeline of this stuff. The missing emails are all early on--during the beginning of teh second term, when they're evaluating which USAs to keep and which ones to let go/can. It took them 18 months, or more, before settling on which ones to can. But the alleged partisan/vote fraud investigations they failed to undertake all occured in the last few months before the actual cannings.

If Domenici called Iglesias in October 2006, does that preclude similar calls by GOP officials to U.S. Attorneys in 2002 or 2004? Does Congress have no business investigating if such calls led to investigations (perhaps like this one) instead of firings?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by andViolins
Talk to any forensic computer analyst about this issue, and he will regale you with tales of recovering "over-written" 4-year old data off a drive.

I've heard these pitches, too, and they're impressive. But when they're actually working for me, I hear "oh, we can't do that" a lot more. Am I just unlucky?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by andViolins
Talk to any forensic computer analyst about this issue, and he will regale you with tales of recovering "over-written" 4-year old data off a drive.

I'd rather not, but I suspect that email servers operate somewhat different from the hard drive on a PC.

For example, consider the difference between an Exchange/IMAP server and pop server. While the former will retain emails locally, a pop server will move the email off as soon as it's downloaded to a local computer/blackberry.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I've heard these pitches, too, and they're impressive. But when they're actually working for me, I hear "oh, we can't do that" a lot more. Am I just unlucky?

we had people come here to find all my old email re. a project that was a few years old. the only way they found anything was from a back up tape.

i was just at a lunch where a Federal judge was talking on e-discovery. he had written several lawyers letters asking them for anecdotes or problems or whatever- he got nothing. from what i have seen it is something you have to jump through to say you checked more than anything, and of course you can't delete anything after filing- then you're fucked.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski

• his immediate staff,

I don't really have a dog in this hunt, but doesn't this include Rove?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
we had people come here to find all my old email re. a project that was a few years old. the only way they found anything was from a back up tape.

i was just at a lunch where a Federal judge was talking on e-discovery. he had written several lawyers letters asking them for anecdotes or problems or whatever- he got nothing. from what i have seen it is something you have to jump through to say you checked more than anything, and of course you can't delete anything after filing- then you're fucked.

You sure that they actually took a forsenic look at your machine? Because generally one would go to backup tapes before that. And, actually, they would yank the actual harddrive out and leave you with a copy.

As for e-discovery, they type of analysis we are talking about here would not be required under the federal rules.

[andViolins]

Originally posted by Adder
You sure that they actually took a forsenic look at your machine? Because generally one would go to backup tapes before that. And, actually, they would yank the actual harddrive out and leave you with a copy.

As for e-discovery, they type of analysis we are talking about here would not be required under the federal rules.

I'm not sure I follow you. From my experience, it is a LOT more expensive to try to pull data out of a back-up tape than it would be to do a forensic search of a hard drive.

In addition, there is not much of a reason as to why you would have to leave a person with a copy of a hard-drive and take the original. When imaging the drive, the forensic analyst will create an MD-5 hash for the drive data for chain of custody issues. Original stays with Hank.

aV

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by andViolins
When imaging the drive, the forensic analyst will create an MD-5 hash for the drive data for chain of custody issues.

Out of curiousity, did you learn this in law school?

What has become of the profession?

[Adder]

Originally posted by andViolins
I'm not sure I follow you. From my experience, it is a LOT more expensive to try to pull data out of a back-up tape than it would be to do a forensic search of a hard drive.

In addition, there is not much of a reason as to why you would have to leave a person with a copy of a hard-drive and take the original. When imaging the drive, the forensic analyst will create an MD-5 hash for the drive data for chain of custody issues. Original stays with Hank.

aV

Depending on the type of backup tape, yeah, it can be a lot more expensive than a single forensic search, but it is also much more likely to lead to something. And in my work, usually we are talking about more than one person's email.

As for the taking the original, that is what I was told by a forensic guy a few years ago. Of course, he was the client's internal forensic guy, so he probably had more leeway than others.

[andViolins]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Out of curiousity, did you learn this in law school?

What has become of the profession?

No. In law school I learned about the dormant commerce clause and Pennoyer v. Neff. I guess I find this stuff more interesting.

aV

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Are you saying the president should not get to make appointments in accordance with a law duly passed by Congress and signed by the president?

Would the answer change if the law was in derogation of the division of powers laid out in the Constitution, and therefore wasn't "duly" enacted by Congress?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Would the answer change if the law was in derogation of the division of powers laid out in the Constitution, and therefore wasn't "duly" enacted by Congress?

Are you saying US Attorneys are cleary not "inferior" officers whose appointment may be entrusted solely to the president? And, if you are, are you saying that if Congress enacts a law that is unconstitutional, the President is obligated to ignore it?