Where Are the E-mails?

[babsbunny]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/11/13/BL2007111300956_pf.html

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, November 13, 2007; 12:52 PM



Why is it taking White House officials so long to restore millions of deleted e-mails from the backup tapes they claim to have?

The e-mails in question date from March 2003 to October 2005 -- a crucial period that includes the Iraq invasion, a presidential election and Hurricane Katrina.

White House officials have known for more than two years that the messages were deleted -- a clear violation of presidential records-preservation statutes. But the president's aides won't explain what happened, what sort of backups they have and what they're doing about it.

That obstinacy led a federal judge to step in yesterday and order the White House to preserve every bit of related data in its possession -- just to make sure nothing untoward happens while a civil suit by two open-government groups goes forward.

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration had opposed such an order, arguing that it is unnecessary because the White House administrative office already is preserving backup tapes in its possession. But U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. was not satisfied by that assurance and issued the formal order, which carries contempt penalties if violated. . . .

[AndyTiedye]

1. Restoring the Data Goes Pretty Quickly

What is more time-consuming is going through all of the data and editing out anything incriminating,
and replacing it with whatever makes the regime look good.