How to prove wrongdoing when emails go missing?
Another hard drive bites the dust, taking with it the record of possible malfeasance:
Federal employees, like all Americans, are entitled to hold passionate political beliefs. Most executive branch federal employees, however, may not engage in certain political activities, thanks to an anti-conflict of interest principle enshrined in a federal law called the Hatch Act…
Which brings us to the case of April Sands, an employee at the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), who struck a deal with the agency’s Inspector General to avoid criminal charges related to running afoul of the Hatch Act on numerous occasions. She has openly confessed to breaching federal law as part of her effective plea bargain, but investigators were unable to probe a potential goldmine of incriminating activity: Her email. Why? You guessed it; her hard drive crashed, supposedly wiping out her email records, and resulting in the FEC recycling (i.e., destroying) the hard drive. Sounds familiar. Did I mention that Ms. Sands worked under Lois Lerner when Lerner served as the agency’s Associate General Counsel for Enforcement?
Sands’ job was “helping to enforce election laws” as an FEC employee, and yet she posted strongly partisan anti-Republican political opinions on Twitter (example: “I just don’t understand how anyone but straight white men can vote Republican. What kind of delusional rhetorical [sic] does one use?”). She has already confessed to “violating the Hatch Act by soliciting political contributions via Twitter, conducting political activity through her Twitter account, and participating in a political discussion ”˜via webcam from an FEC conference room . . . while on duty’.”
But Sands’ emails, which could be an extremely important source of evidence on which to base a charge of committing the criminal offense of soliciting campaign contributions from work, have been destroyed along with her hard drive. The criminal investigation is stalled without it.
So let’s leave Ms. Sands for a moment, and ponder the question of the necessity for emails as evidence. Emails would seem to be easily recoverable, even if hard drives crash, because until now it’s been unusual for computers and/or hard drives to actually be destroyed in order to cover a perp’s tracks. Computers and emails have largely taken over business and government correspondence within the last twenty years or so (perhaps even earlier, but I’m not sure, since I wasn’t employed in the business or government world). But I seem to recall that, before that, paper was the way to keep a record of things, and paper was not only harder to find in discovery (it’s not on a hard drive) but quite easy to destroy. And yet prosecutors managed somehow to indict and convict people.
So, how was it done? Not everyone made tapes a la Nixon (who of course most likely erased some crucial minutes of his); in fact, most people kept no electronic record whatsoever. So, how was prosecution accomplished? I don’t think white collar workers were routinely tortured back then to make them squeal. Did cases without a paper trail rely on witnesses, confederates who became informants? I doubt that perps had such a great respect for paper that they never destroyed it, either. Were threats to the perp or confederates involved? Or did perpetrators just get away with it?
Maybe I’m missing something; help me out here.
I’m really curious, because I foresee that from now on “my hard drive has been recycled” will be a routine defense. If we don’t figure out other ways to amass evidence of wrongdoing, government employees will violate these and other laws with impunity, and we will have no protection from them.
Hmmmm. Perhaps that’s already happened.
[NOTE: I realize that some people have suggested we call on the NSA records, the ones they’ve amassed through spying. That’s a pretty dangerous incursion on liberty, don’t you think? And wouldn’t the NSA just say it didn’t have any records for the people the government is interested in exonerating? Who checks on the NSA?]
Ms. Sands is Black and a Democrat. So is Eric Holder and the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Nothing will happen. No indictment. Nothing.
Forget about the Rule of Law.
Back to Blood.
Neo, you ask many questions here. I wish I could parse this with logic and give some credence to law, but this is most simply explained as high-tech omerta. Gangster government. How big an asterisk should we give our current leader on the table of presidents, or how many? What if they actually DID steal the last election somehow? How would we prove it?
If the fourth estate is in alliance with the perps (look at all the intermarriage, etc) we are dealing with a tribal question as well. Them vs us. I’ll leave it to others to define who is “them” and who is “us”.
If anyone can put forth a scenario where this Justice department takes any action to get to the truth behind all of this electoral hanky-panky, I’m listening. There will be no accounting, and even if the federal government is reclaimed by the forces of democracy, the current apparatchiks count on their successors being too busy with the crisis that will be left behind to have any time for accounting or score settling. If they haven’t figured out how to steal the next one too, that is. We assumed an Obama defeat for a couple of years before the 2012 ballot, and see what happened there?. The current scenario has gone beyond surreal.
“Hmmmm. Perhaps that’s already happened.”
I think it has. There is a whole occupational field called “records management” which is concerned with keeping track of an organization’s documents, both paper and electronic. It is a pretty big deal because failure to do this in approved ways leaves the org open to essentially unlimited discovery in the event of a lawsuit. (Or so I’m told by someone involved in r.m.) And in the case of the government I’m pretty sure there are legal, or at least regulatory, requirements. See, for instance, this document. I don’t know how long all this has been in place, but these IRS and FEC incidents are hardly in the distant dawn of electronic documents. It looks like we’re seeing people just ignoring the rules when they want to–the very people, of course, who can pretty well ruin you if you disobey their rules.
It’s not irreversible, though. An executive branch that cared to do so could rein this stuff in pretty easily. Will we ever see one that does?
Someone (one or more of the House committees? Cleta Mitchell on behalf of True the Vote? Boehner?) needs to identify her email and IP address(es) then blanket-subpoena every conceivable dept. of the federal government (including the WH), the DNC, OFA and all other usual suspects for any and all emails from or to her from, say, January 20, 2009 through present. If she sent or received emails the other sides of the exchanges should still have them (unless they’ve also “recycled their hard drives). There may be other options as well; surely there are people out there who know how to do this stuff…
Until a credible whistle blower steps forth, there is not the slightest chance that the various departments and agencies of this corrupt administration will honestly investigate themselves. Unfortunately the house republicans seem unwilling to use the power of the purse string to unfund the IRS until a truly independent special prosecutor is appointed, conducts a thorough investigation, and presents his report to the house. The average taxpayer would cheer such a move. If nothing else it would keep bho a ‘loose bear’ 24/7. And the reaction of the msm would be highly amusing.
But Sands’ emails, which could be an extremely important source of evidence on which to base a charge of committing the criminal offense of soliciting campaign contributions from work, have been destroyed along with her hard drive. The criminal investigation is stalled without it.
It’s just like a terrorist cell. They can’t leave information that would alert the authorities to the other cells or to the backers. Remember when they blew up the terrorist mastermind during COIN in Iraq, and found his thumb drive? There was a lot of stuff on there, and a lot of people who were easily surprised and captured for working against American forces.
We assumed an Obama defeat for a couple of years before the 2012 ballot, and see what happened there?
I didn’t assume it. I knew the Left had 95% of their unused strategic assets. If they really wanted to win, they could by deploying those assets in the war.
Jim Geraghty had yesterday’s best headline on NRO’s Corner: Lois Lerner is a one-woman walking electromagnetic pulse.
Maybe that explains it.
Expat, or maybe she’s an alien and has a deal with the US government to import slaves from here.
Others more versed in IT have explained the complex back-up server systems that under normal circumstances would have archived these emails. The hard drive shtick appears to be a red herring.
But this is not a technical problem. It is a rogue government that puts forth the flimsiest excuses for not complying with subpoenas, such as Obama’s recent refusal to allow his aide to testify.
And that is the real issue: what do you do when bureaucrats and politicians break the law and then refuse to cooperate with authorities (congress, courts)? If Lerner et al are allowed to get away with this, we can kiss government accountability goodbye. Heck, we’ve already seen the EPA make this same claim, too.
The only solution would be to hold them fully accountable using every applicable law. And of course, fire them and any IT personnel who had been entrusted to perform data archiving.
Emails in large corporations are not stored on individual’s hard drives. They’re stored on servers, which have real-time redundancies and periodic (daily) tape backups. Those tapes are stored offsite for years in case of a lawsuit or audit. I could throw my laptop in a lake, login with another machine and see every one of the emails I’ve sent and received. We know it, they know it, and they know we know it. At this point, they’re thumbing their noses and laughing.
I can’t remember ever having this feeling of helpless outrage. I’m almost at the point where I must stop reading the news for my own health and sanity. I’d love to hear a constructive suggestion.
The bureaucracy and aristocracy have already been getting away with it. Remember Sandy Berger?
So it has already happened. What people see now is merely the fact that they can’t or aren’t covering it up any more. What does that suggest?
I’m almost at the point where I must stop reading the news for my own health and sanity.
What do you think I was doing between 2008 and 2012. I certainly wasn’t reading the news.
“that is the real issue: what do you do when bureaucrats and politicians break the law and then refuse to cooperate with authorities (congress, courts)?” Lizzy
Roman statesman Cicero asked, “What can be done against force, without force?” So too when
bureaucrats and politicianscriminals break the law and the authorities (congress, courts) are either in collusion with what amounts to a criminal conspiracy or lack the power to do anything about it.The problem is compounded by a mass media committed to furtherance of the criminal conspiracy and, a vast confederacy of fools who provide the political leverage needed to prevent lawful consequence.
It is also compounded by the fact that as one commenter put it, “The modern-day Republican Party is basically the Democrat Party under Tip O’Neill. The modern-day Democrat Party is the Democrat Party under Karl Marx.”
But there is yet more. The hard core left are, in their deepest core, nihilists. Deeper still than their allegiance to Marxism, which is the means they envision for constructing the socialist utopia that covers over the emptiness of their souls… is their nihilism and their lust for power and control.
Distinguished historian Dr. Anna Geifman observes that, “nihilism strives to ruin first and foremost what their contemporaries hold sacred”. In America; God, Family, the Constitution and Free Enterprise are the core values held sacred. Nihilists are determined to sweep that all away.
Which means that the hard core left would rather this country be utterly destroyed, than remain loyal to the founder’s vision. These people believe as does George Soros, that “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.” and they are willing to use any means necessary to remove that ‘obstacle’.
Obama and the hard core left, the 60% of ‘solid liberals’ who do not feel pride in this country, for those who declare that ‘duty and honor’ are not personal values… are counting on our unwillingness to tear this country apart.
Which would surely happen if Obama was to be impeached in 2015 and if the bureaucrats and politicians who have and are breaking the law and then refusing to cooperate with Congress and the Courts were to be held fully accountable.
They are counting on our playing by the rules, as the criminally inclined always do, while they break all the laws in pursuit of an end justified by any means necessary.
So we wait for the next election in 2014 and 2016.
Perhaps we’ll win them but ‘perhaps’ is a hope and a prayer.
If we do not, we stand on the precipice of civil war, a war that the left is literally driving us toward, for what is left once redress of grievance is gone? A war that the left is preparing for with the increasing militarization of federal and police agencies, the gutting of our military and the spying by the NSA with the increasing declaration that political opposition is motivated by racism and constitutes ‘hate’ speech and ‘hate’ crimes.
We are being herded as sheep to the slaughter.
Mac said…
“I don’t know how long all this has been in place, but these IRS and FEC incidents are hardly in the distant dawn of electronic documents. It looks like we’re seeing people just ignoring the rules when they want to—the very people, of course, who can pretty well ruin you if you disobey their rules.
It’s not irreversible, though. An executive branch that cared to do so could rein this stuff in pretty easily. Will we ever see one that does?”
This National Archives’ Agency Recordkeeping Requirements: a Management Guide is just that, a guide, not hard-and-fast requirements. It seems to leave the actual steps taken to ensure adequate recordkeeping up to each agency. I guess that explains why the IRS has such loose requirements with regard to how it handles email records, for example, leaving it up to individuals to back-up emails on their PCs.
It’s all bureaucrats talking to and setting the rules for other bureaucrats. I really don’t see that it would be all that easy to change things. Even Al Gore couldn’t bring them to heel with his “reinventing government” efforts.
The answer is simple: targeted assassination.
The laughing will stop pretty quickly when some (guilty) bureaucrat is riddled with gunfire.
If you don’t want to go that route, then we must wait until Obama is out of office and then pursue him and his cronies under a new AG that takes the law seriously.
And you can quote me on that, NSA.
I understand the reluctance to resort to violence, but sometimes the other side doesn’t give you any other alternatives.
I liken it to suicide bombers; in the end, you have a simple choice: you or them.
I know which one I’d choose.
Great post Geoffrey, but I don’t feel sheepish and will not line up to board the cattle cars. The “hard core left” and the rinos underestimate that 3-10% can rain on their parade.
We returned yesterday from 10 days at Long Lake in Minnesota; we had a great time with the kids and grandkids having lots of fun, but one night the adults had a long conversation about the state of the dead republic and what we would do when TSHTF. I do not think my family is alone in our intentions to resist DC. Flyover country ain’t NYC-LA.
parker,
For me, the Rubicon is if Obama doesn’t leave office on January 21, 2017.
If he’s still in office (for whatever trumped-up reason) on that date, I’m buying a rifle and heading to D.C.
Don’t make the mistake of playing defense: if we wait for them to move first, they will pick us off in small groups.
I doubt that perps had such a great respect for paper that they never destroyed it, either. Were threats to the perp or confederates involved? Or did perpetrators just get away with it?
Maybe I’m missing something; help me out here.
ok
i want to see that form in triplicate…
ie. one for the office, one for your records, one for administration, etc.
copy paper was big money…
the problematic person could get rid of their copy, but their could be 10 others out there.
then there is the old serial numbered pages and receipt books… books constructed in such a way that if you tore a page out, it would be seen as they were stitched together.
lots of stuff like that..
There was a huge cheating scandal in Atlanta which was uncovered with simple old fashioned police work. Of course, we’ll never see Holder order a proper investigation.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/07/21/140721fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all
Great post Geoffrey, but I don’t feel sheepish and will not line up to board the cattle cars. The “hard core left” and the rinos underestimate that 3-10% can rain on their parade.
not really…
you have nothing compared to what they have.
what would you like to use? they are using armored personel carriers with ability to withstand 50 cal, IEDs and RPGs…
also, they are not newbies, their model is the soviets, and i explained over and over, you should read how they handled such.
first they take your daughter or wife, then they start with a pair of snips at the first knuckle, then the second, then the toes… eventually you wont fight them.
the first man to ask a question gets shot.
i linked to things that described the process, but lets just say given today’s stuff, you aint got a prayer in hell
they can microwave you where you stand..
the new system fires waves that are shorter and at higher frequencies than microwaves. That means, he said, that while the waves could penetrate clothing, they would barely enter the skin, reaching a depth of only one sixty-fourth of an inch
basically, your on fire all over till you stop
there is a lot of stuff you may not be familiar with as we dont use it in the field yet.. no reason to. its designed for ‘other things’.
one of the most interesting is like a killer frisbee… a thing that looks like the cart that the meter maids used to pick up change just sits. its monitors the ground for vibration and around it. when something comes near, it shoots out a tantalum frisbee with an explosive over it. it hovers till its over whatever it is, car, bus, tank.. and then blows with a shaped charge that can penetrate more than a foot of steel.
do note that if thngs get that bad, you can forget about all those niceties that seem to limit them now… nothing like hitting your house with a shell that was fired from 80 miles away… what you gonna do about it?
you might want ot read up on things like
M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System
The weapon can fire guided and unguided projectiles up to 42 km (26 mi). Firing ballistic missiles, (such as the U.S. Army Tactical Missile System–ATACMS), it can hit targets 300 km (190 mi) away;
but for a small guy with a gun, you might as well use the remote controlled bullets… ie. they explode based on settings you press on the gun. say your behind armor… no problem.. you can tell the bullet to explode after passing the sides or top..
U.S. Army deploys rifles with radio-controlled smart bullets
the $35,000 high-tech rifle is capable of firing explosive bullets that can detonate front of or behind a target. It’s designed to give soldiers the option to fire on snipers taking cover in trenches, behind walls or inside buildings rather than calling in artillery fire or an air strike.
The XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, is much like a grenade launcher that fires laser-guided smart rounds. The laser gauges a distance to target and allows the soldier to then add or subtract up to 3 meters to set where the round will explode either above or beside the target.
Once the trigger is pulled and the round leaves the barrel, a computer chip inside the ammunition receives information from the scope about how far it should travel before exploding.
but heck.. they could just play noise and cripple you
LRAD Sound Cannon
The device produces a sound that can be directed in a beam up to 30-degree wide, and the military-grade LRAD 2000X can transmit voice commands at up to 162dB up to 5.5 miles away.
nothing like six months of justin bieber singing baby baby baby
or better yet, a endless track of tiny tim singing his tiptoe through the tulips
maybe a endless reel of everything obama ever wrote, as read by michelle
everyone is ready for the LAST WAR and is a bad ass
how about THIS WAR?
artfldgr:
Yes, but in the olden days if the entire organization was corrupt from top to bottom (including the administrators), it would all be destroyed or never filed.
In the IRS scandal there are plenty of forms and letters for what the IRS (and/or Lerner) wrote to the organizations they were investigating. It’s clear, for example, that conservative organizations were dealt with by the IRS in a way that was different from the way liberal organizations were dealt with. There’s no lack of evidence about that, and I suppose a zealous prosecutor could go ahead with that.
Eric Holder is not a zealous prosecutor, to say the least.
The Lerner emails are wanted to help prove whether there was a conspiracy and intent. I doubt that even in the olden days there would often have been cases where the conspirators plotted together and filed the forms in triplicate describing their plot.
So perhaps in the final analysis it really comes down to the attitude of the prosecutor. Congress’s powers are considerably more limited in that regard than Holder’s, but Holder will never use his, because he’s part of the conspiracy.
Parker..
now that i have opened up your eyes a bit and not even included starlight night scopes that can see body heat, robotics, drones, dragon skin armor, and more
how about this?
Singing Revolution
The Singing Revolution is a commonly used name for events between 1987 and 1991 that led to the restoration of the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
The term was coined by an Estonian activist and artist, Heinz Valk, in an article published a week after the June 10—11, 1988, spontaneous mass night-singing demonstrations at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds
aversion to the Soviet regime had grown into the third Latvian National Awakening, which reached its peak in mid-1988.
The demonstration originated in “Black Ribbon Day” protests held in the western cities in the 1980s. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The pact and its secret protocols divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence and led to the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940. The event was organised by Baltic pro-independence movements: Rahvarinne of Estonia, the Tautas fronte of Latvia, and SÄ…jÅ«dis of Lithuania.
however you have to realize that the population of these countries is nothing like america and they could have gotten shot for just showing up…
call it one of the first flash protests… 🙂
The Soviet Union denied the existence of the secret protocols to the Molotov—Ribbentrop Pact, even though they were widely published by western scholars after surfacing during the Nuremberg Trials. Soviet propaganda also maintained that there was no occupation and that all three Baltic states voluntarily joined the Union — the People’s Parliaments expressed people’s will when they petitioned the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union to be admitted into the Union The Baltic states claimed that they were forcefully and illegally incorporated into the Soviet Union. Popular opinion was that the secret protocols proved that the occupation was illegal.
If Baltic diplomats could link the Pact and the occupation, they could claim that the Soviet rule in the republics had no legal basis and therefore all Soviet laws were null and void since 1940. uch a position would automatically terminate the debate over reforming Baltic sovereignty or establishing autonomy within the Soviet Union — the states never de jure belonged to the union in the first place This would open the possibility of restoring legal continuity of the independent states that existed in the interwar period. Claiming all Soviet laws had no legal power in the Baltics would also cancel the need to follow the Constitution of the Soviet Union and other formal secession procedures.
that last part shoud intrest you in that if the people making these laws and things for a long time are found to be serving a different thing, then the laws they created can be seen as nul and void.
even things we think are valid… like penumbras.
i said over and over, that the apperance of ligitimacy is always maintained, since people will bow down and let their heads get cut off if they think its legit… but if not… then its something else.
in those countries, the celebration put the nazi and soviet flag over things… ie. they are not allowing these things to be removed under the idea that they are offensive and so erased from memory
we are not that smart here in the US
EXCLUSIVE: Holocaust denied by students in Rialto school assignment
Rialto Unified School District administrators, besieged by criticism after the assignment became public in May, claimed at the time that none of the students who completed the assignment questioned or denied the Holocaust, but a survey of the students’ work by this news organization found numerous examples of students expressing doubt or flatly denying that the Holocaust occurred.
if the holocaust never happened, because we removed the memory as offensive… its that much easier then to convince them that the soviet gulags, torture etc never happened.
after all, if 12 million is not to be believed, how does 75 million sound, or Maos 100 million?
but, one has to keep an eye on the larger picture and realize that what one was taught, the view of things, may be self serving to someone else other than the recipient.
oh well..
Yes, but in the olden days if the entire organization was corrupt from top to bottom (including the administrators), it would all be destroyed or never filed.
thats funny…
for years been telling you about the mitrokin archive.
dont you think the NKVD/KGB/GRU are corrupt from top to bottom?
The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of handwritten notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate. When he defected to the United Kingdom in 1992 he brought the archive with him.
you see… i keep telling you
these systems from the romans to the nazis to the soviets to the american liberal progressives…
they are all administrative states, and you cant administrate without records. oh, you may have two sets of books… but there HAS to be a real history of things for later…
or haven’t you heard of “the great book”?
the us has them too… somewhere on paper is the record of the names of the men and women behind the stars at the CIA… no?
what did they use at the nuremburg trials?
where did they get the stalin signed papers that committed people to death?
truth requires no energy to maintain
a lie requires infinite energy
i cant address multiple points, it would be too long
on to the next point in next post
this is interesting..
c’mon… you can do better… once you get the clue
lets change things around a bit… since as you say, holder is not going to be all that aggressive. and the first paragraph is perfect.
but read the last one… you may be surprised..
first the intent. are they wanted for that reason, or not?
nope… the American public and judiciary is rarely interested in a conspiracy. and conspiracy is not needed to show intent, the first paragraph covers that
you say conspirators did not file in triplicate?
well, not officially.. but you really should take the time (said 1000 times), to read how all that stuff works, how people are caught, etc.. you think they confess?
this was why they did not prosecute the people they discovered in the mitrokhin archive or the venona papers. second hand proof is no proof at all (except in feminist court where hearsay is admissible as first hand evidence!)
it begs the question, what do you want out of it? the people who often were cought were put in dead end jobs that paid them well, but basically neutralized them for life.. there was never a need to imprison them, just neutralize them – and one does not need a court to do that, and that can always be done later
Owen Lattimore is the man who coined the term Mcarthyism as an attack on the man that accused him… but that man was right.
In 1950 Lattimore, an expert on China and its relations with Mongolia and other Inner Asian countries, was named by McCarthy as “the top Soviet espionage agent” in the United States. This charge led to what could best be described as a procedural battle over how to define a Soviet agent between Lattimore, using this book as a platform, and his accusers in Congress.
-=-=-=-
But Lattimore’s main weapon was always word-chopping. Rather than declare whether he is a supporter of the United States or forthrightly condemn Stalinism, he argues over the meaning of the words “leftist” and “Communist.” To explain his view that U.S.-Soviet collaboration in Asia after 1945 was a fine idea, he cites, among other utter drivel, a 1943 New York Times editorial with the happy if idiotic message, “We can do business with Stalin!” To support his benign view of Chinese Communists, soldiers of Mao and killers of dissident leftists, he quotes General Patrick J. Hurley’s 1945 howler, “The Communists are not in fact Communists, they are striving for democratic principles.”
what do you want? public trial and prison. never happens
neutralization and thats that, happens all the time
history often contains the answer to the things your asking
from wiki:
The accusations led to years of Congressional hearings that did not substantiate the charge that Lattimore had been a spy (and wartime intercepted Venona cables did not refer to him as one). The hearings did document Lattimore’s sympathetic statements about Stalin and the Soviet Union, however. Although charges of perjury were dismissed, the controversy put an end to Lattimore’s role as a consultant of the United States State Department and eventually to his career in American academic life.
and what evidence did they have on the husband and wife team that was put to death? Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
if it interests you the grand jury transcripts were released in 2008
and how were they caught?
he prosecution’s primary witness, David Greenglass, stated that his sister Ethel typed notes containing U.S. nuclear secrets in the Rosenberg apartment in September 1945.
so they did make records… 🙂
and the typewriter ribbon has that record on it too.
anyway… i guess the violation of failing to keep records is not good enough? destruction of evidence is not good enough? etc
the point is that records exist. they almost always exist.
the idea of the great book is that after the revolution of the world is over, the TRUE story of the battle will be revealed. its a human compulsion.
It is easier to formulate such a program than to carry it through. If, however, the revolution will ever win, the proletariat cannot choose another. The proletariat will unfold revolutionary accomplishment such as the world has never seen. The history of Fifty Days will be only a poor page in the great book of the proletariat’s struggle and ultimate triumph. Trotsky – fifty days – The Soviet and the Revolution
As LisaM says, the email doesn’t live on the individual’s computer. It lives on the server. Normally, server backups are taken daily, weekly, and monthly. Year end backups are kept forever – the amount of space used is relatively small, allowing easy compliance with record retention policies.
The IRS claims they delete backups after six months due to lack of space. They may not be telling the whole truth – what backups are they talking about? Lerner’s User Data on her PC? That would make sense, it would allow her to restore a mistakenly deleted file, or would allow easy replacement of a failed HD – just install a new drive with cloned copy of Windows, then restore her User Data from the previous night’s (or week’s, if they are sloppy) backup, and she is back in business. Oh, they don’t back up the PC’s User Data centrally at all? Wow.
Or do they mean they only retain the email server backups for six months? Well, then, what is the policy regarding Lerner deleting “old” email? If she doesn’t delete email, the account grows in size, but all her email will be in the latest backup. Oh, she has to keep it under 250MB? Do you know how much time (and money) it takes to weed email – compare that to the cost of a RAID upsize! Or are we conveniently hiding our actions, in defiance of Federal law?
How about this:
Issa: “Mr. Commissioner, please describe in detail how IRS data retention policies have been modified since these deficiencies have been identified. If they have not been changed, please justify that.”
Artfldgr,,
My eyes have been open for decades. You probably live in a metro area and have not the slightest idea of what country boys are capable of. IEDs, shee-it we dumb rednecks can make those. And you assume the various military forces will do the bidding of the politico class. I think otherwise. Locally I know where every member of a fed agency lives. Granted, there are not many of them out in my neck of the woods, but they know that they and their kin will not be standing within 4 hours when it all comes down to dust. You need to get out more. :-;
“…government employees will violate these and other laws with impunity, and we will have no protection from them.”
Strike out the word “will” and it’s a perfect sentence describing that actual current reality.
Well, I know what’s going to happen during tax audits from here on out.
The tax authorities have ALWAYS represented the Ancien Régime.
In the case at hand, the IRS in ENTIRELY politicized — into the collecting arms of the Democrat spendists.
They (emotionally) see themselves as robbing from the Republicans to give to the Democrats.
Only of late has it become understood that the (Federal) bureaucracy is riven through with Democrat apparatchiks.
IRS
CIA
EPA
SBA
NSA
FBI
DoJ
are Republican-free zones.
It’s a key reason why Barry can’t imagine why his ambit should be limited. He’s getting ZERO push back from his minions.
Even the top brass at the Pentagon is seriously over-weighted with Democrats. Hence Casey’s embrace of Diversity.
The hyper-elevation of Blacks is now a political cult.
Magical Negroes rise everywhere.
The Media Negro is contra-factual across the board: stereotyped as electronic nerds in most cases. The fact is that no Black American would be caught dead trying to make his mark in electronics. That requires brains and effort — not melanin.
It’s no surprise that Blacks gravitate to the crony train and race baiting. It’s where the lucre is.
Human biodiversity being what it is relegates Blacks to the cultural caboose — trailing after all other races — wondering what’s coming next — and feeling pretty sour about the state of human affairs.
Something terrible happened during the ice ages — and Africans missed out on it.
The best for all concerned is that Big Nanny STOP echoing Adolf Hitler and his mania for genetic manipulation of his polity — his proles.
The citizens are supposed to pick the government — NOT the other way around.
Matt SE @ 5:41,
Yes targeted assassination but 4th generation warfare style.
Tyrants beware. 4th Generation Warfare: How the next civil war will be fought
parker @ 6:15,
You family is not alone in your intentions to resist DC. Intent and ability however infrequently combine. Much hinges upon the US Military.
From the link above;
“What Does It Mean To Be A “Three Percenter”?
Three Percent Catechism.
Matt SE @ 6.33,
Unless a crisis scenario develops before Obama’s term of office expires that allows him to credibly declare martial law, Obama will leave office. Only a credible crisis such as a fiscal collapse of the banking system or succeeding waves of terrorist attacks or a WMD terrorist attack upon a major American city would allow him to declare martial law, stay in office and have the support of the US Military. Only under martial law can an Obama or a Hillary Clinton or an Elizabeth Warren hope to retain the support of the US Military, while gaining the constitutional power to legally suspend Constitutional provisions for ‘the duration of the national emergency’.
IMO, Obama’s actions, both domestically and in the foreign arena are designed to bring about one or more of those scenarios.
blert,
Voter fraud aside, the problem is that enough citizens, a vast confederacy of fools… have picked their government.
You also mistake a lack of cultural virtues for a racial inability to compete.
There are Five Critical Cultural Virtues that are responsible for a race or ethnic group’s socioeconomic success in America. They are simple but profound in their effects. They are; 1) education, 2) developing a strong work ethic, 3) acceptance of personal responsibility and accountability, 4) acceptance of familial obligations and loyalty, and 5) the virtue of delayed gratification.
Individual exceptions for exceptional talent and/or luck aside, that is all it takes to be successful in America. That is all it has ever taken.
The overall success of Asian, Hispanic, Native American and Black ‘cultures’ closely match the degree to which they culturally embrace, ignore and neglect or reject these virtues. There are no substitutes or short cuts.
The Five Critical Cultural Virtues are proven by the socioeconomic success of three groups; Asian immigrants, West Indian black immigrants and black Nigerian immigrants. West Indian black’s ancestors were also slaves and their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of whites and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes of American born blacks. And, immigrant Nigerian-Americans are also extremely high performers too. Once free of Africa’s tribal conflicts, Nigerian immigrants successfully compete. These cultures generally embrace the Five Critical Cultural Virtues.
Urban blacks reject ALL five of the critical virtues and that is the ONLY reason why they reside at the bottom of the socioeconomic ‘totem pole’. No amount of welfare, entitlements or minimum wage hikes will change that reality. Urban black ‘culture’ needs to take a hard look at itself. It’s the culture, stupid.
There are a minority of blacks who understand the 2nd and who understand that the NRA armed blacks to resist the democrat/jim crow effort to subjugate blacks and keep them on the share cropper and modern day welfare state plantation. We are not alone. The first wave is silent… blades and bludgeons. From there we branch out in creative ways that are below the radar of the nsa.
GB:As to the Three Per Cent Rules, I see no moral reason for “No first use of force”, since there are many onerous forces already at work, with implied violence or actual fiscal or physical or moral violence all now engaged by the adversary.. If we are pushed to force as a first response, so be it.
‘No targeting of innocents’ is also a slippery slope. The use of “innocence” injects juridical thinking onto a battlefield, where it ought not to be. Innocence is often claimed but seldom proven in such circumstances, and thus we get the Fauxtography showing “innocence”. I’ll stick with “casualties” devoid of implied motives or lack thereof.
Don Carlos,
The moral reason for “No first use of force” is because it is the morally correct position to not initiate violent conflict. There is also an important pragmatic reason; retaining the moral high ground wins hearts and minds, especially important in a civil war both because it wins adherents formally hostile due to ignorance and because proportional response is invaluable propaganda. If it comes to another civil war, for obvious reasons we must win with the minimum practical number of casualties.
‘No targeting‘ are the key words in “No targeting of innocents” children will die as will other innocents. “War is Hell” after all. But clearly innocent people should never be intentionally be targeted. I think it unlikely that in another American civil war, the left would hide behind children ala Hamas but if they did, nothing would turn the low info voter against them faster that that tactic.
Geoffrey,
You say, “I think it unlikely that in another American civil war, the left would hide behind children ala Hamas”.
However, the American left routinely hides behind children to cover their other atrocities. If conservatives ever suggest cutting federal funding for education, it hurts children (according to the left). The same thing applies to any conservative policies intended to restrain government abuses and overreach. And just look at the current border crisis! If we try to send the illegal immigrants back to Central America, conservatives obviously (in their diseased minds), want the children to be sent back to the hellholes they came from to be tortured, raped, murdered, or worse.
No, in the event of a second American civil war between right and left, the American left will NOT HESITATE TO SHIELD THEMSELVES WITH THE BLOOD OF INNOCENT CHILDREN!
They already sympathize with Hamas overwhelmingly, who does the same thing, placing children on top of buildings targeted by the Israelis. Hamas also routinely attacks Israel from schools and neighborhoods full of children. And the left applauds them for it resoundingly.
Art, like some other people, over estimate military and centralized counter insurgency. It took Petraeus to get the US Army to think straight on the tactics that won battles in Vietnam and Fallujah. They had the firepower and capability, but the Democrat generals refused to use it. Why? It wasn’t because they lacked firepower. It’s because something else was in the way.
American people went on and on about the quagmire in Iraq. And how many people in Iraq were armed and trained in various covert operations, insurgency operations, and so forth?
The Left might not do something obvious like use children as human shields to protect Hussein’s family. But they would use children as human shields indirectly. They’ll come up with a fake scandal, where a child is dead or in pain due to Republican strategies or patriotic actions, and then use that as a pretext for their own Islamic Jihad, Intifada. It doesn’t take much to stoke up the Leftist zombies and make them obey a new command. They just need to prep the propaganda a bit more.
Emails would seem to be easily recoverable, even if hard drives crash
You know, I’ve done this for several people using tools that are freely available. If the hard drive spins, you can almost always get SOME data off of it. The only way to prevent such recovery is to deliberately destroy the hard drive itself concurrent with a complete absence of any offsite backup anywhere. Does anyone believe that the latter is even remotely plausible? I submit that the data exists somewhere, but that it’s existence will be as closely guarded as Barry’s academic records.
Lord Squirrel,
Yes, the left certainly likes to use our natural concern for children dishonestly as political hyperbole. Robert Reich just suggested that the children flooding across our southern border be permanently admitted to the US as “drug war refugees” and, his rationale rested upon the assertion that the border crisis is, as always with leftists, America’s fault.
I do agree with Ymarsaker that in a civil war the left would “come up with a fake scandal, where a child is dead or in pain due to Republican strategies or patriotic actions, and then use that”(here we depart) as propaganda, painting the right as evil.
So in another American civil war, the left would NOT “hide behind children ala Hamas but if they did, nothing would turn the low info voter against them faster that that tactic.”
Pinochet did a lot of target eliminations of various corrupt CHilean officials and politicians. Although some fled the country until the military regime gave up power voluntarily.
You probably live in a metro area and have not the slightest idea of what country boys are capable of. IEDs, shee-it we dumb rednecks can make those.
funny…
lets just say that a bronx science physics guy can beat all of that and more…
but that dont change what i said.. besides, i married an indonesian, but my son was born of a woman from hazard kentucky… now, tell me that that aint redneck enough? her paw paw and grandparents were homesteaders..
give me a break…
you go do your IEDS.. and rememer agianst the foreign states, they have ridiculous rules of engagement which are intended to even out to attrition to avoid war crimes prosecution..
but internally, that is not a problem. as there is no war crimes crap for that.
you really should spend a few hours over at weasel zippers and so on.. and note too, that we have military bases, and supplies all over the place, so there is no fixed roads that they have to travel as in the places your referring to
but as i said.. your ready for the underground in wwii
you cant fight us military as an insurgency civil war.
duh
how would you like to stand up to a million rounds a minute fire rate?
Firing within 0.1 seconds from up to 1600 barrels (at maximum configuration) the gun claimed a maximum rate of fire of 1.62 million RPM and creating a dense wall (0.1 m between followup projectiles) of 24,000 projectiles
yeah… nothing left to scrape off the floor..
but dont worry, thats not in production
what you have to worry about is cluster bombs..
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions.
yes… nothign like 20,000 hand grenades falling over a 5 square mile area where you are..
then there are the modified cargo planes with miniguns on the side… they rain down shells from a few thousand feet up in safety… Douglas AC-47 Spooky? basically a modified C4 transport… it has 3 é— 7.62 mm General Electric GAU-2/M134 miniguns, 2,000 to 6000 rounds per minute (each)
and you forget… we have lots of abrams tanks here,and most of the armor too… dont forget emp devices, etc.
and as far as your idea of soldiers not complying… well, that might happen a bit, but not likely… in all of mankinds history, that never has happened!!!! not to mention that we changed our military to be more like soviets, in that there are controllers and they are not autonomous, and that they dont get weapons until beofre they need them.
there is not much you can do against the modern technology
you think there is, but thats because we are not allowed to use what we got to its full capacity!
from six days ago
http://weaselzippers.us/192914-happy-weekend-fried-jihadi-style/
First video is the pinpoint strike on Jihad Islamic rocket launchers commander Allah Abd Allenby.
Second video is the pinpoint strike on two Hamas operatives trying to escape on bikes after launching rockets to Israel.
after that you can find lots and lots..
then imagine being the target not the viewer
forgot to mention
israel does tap and bomb
that is, before they destroy the location they tap it with a small explosive so that people can leave and get away.
then they level the place.
the point being that the only reason they dont do more and such is political and public, not ability… the ability is so great and disparate the civilians and even the enemy would not last except for the political and public…
ie. if the american public and world didnt care as to overwhelming force… it would be over very fast…
unless up against russia…
who has better equipment than what you see them use
(just as we do)
and no one in the world is gonna say a damn thing as to the US hurting its own people any more than they said or did anything about the 75 million russia killed or 100 million mao killed.. or the hundreds to thousands being crucified by islamics in africa, and other locations
russia protests the US attacks rednecks
liberal america protests the US attack on rednecks
african community outraged at 500 rednecks killed
see the problem there?
they have already removed you support BEFORE doing anything.
by the way
obama did the same for the US… anyone gonna come to our aid? doubt it… and you can forget china and russia loaning us cash to beat up china and russia too.