this cost us an additional

TEN MILLION DOLLARS

we should DEMAND five million each from king george and the big dick. no, make that ten million each - to cover punitive damages

it's like our country has money to burn or something, isn't it?

Missing White House E-Mails Traced, Justice Aide Says
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
A Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge yesterday that the Bush administration will meet its legal requirement to transfer e-mails to the National Archives after spending more than $10 million to locate 14 million e-mails reported missing four years ago from White House computer files.

Civil division trial lawyer Helen H. Hong made the disclosure at a court hearing provoked by a 2007 lawsuit filed by outside groups to ensure that politically significant records created by the White House are not destroyed or removed before President Bush leaves office at noon on Tuesday. She said the department plans to argue in a court filing this week that the administration's successful recent search renders the lawsuit moot. ..........

this is news?

honestly, the news will be when and if they ever actually GET any of these emails (we all know you can never really delete OR lose an email)

come on now

Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer
Legal Battles, Technical Difficulties Delay Required Transfer to Archives
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House's electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.

Federal law requires outgoing White House officials to provide the Archives copies of their records, a cache estimated at more than 300 million messages and 25,000 boxes of documents depicting some of the most sensitive policymaking of the past eight years.

But archivists are uncertain whether the transfer will include all the electronic messages sent and received by the officials, because the administration began trying only in recent months to recover from White House backup tapes hundreds of thousands of e-mails that were reported missing from readily accessible files in 2005. .........

man these people CAN DANCE!

i have never seen such movements in my WHOLE life! it makes me sit up and take notice. apparently i'm only one of a few who do. we all KNEW they were lying when they said they were going to attempt to retrieve the emails. we all KNEW they were talking through their collective hats. we all KNEW they should have been held accountable THEN. we all know they were not then NOR WILL THEY BE NOW. why are we letting these criminals walk? (not just walk, we're giving them a free pass to boot). i am a citizen of the united states of america. we have a constitution. we have laws. i demand accountability. i want to know why the rest of my fellow citizens don't demand it as well

GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails

By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.
The move increases the likelihood that an untold number of RNC e-mails dealing with official White House business during the first term of the Bush administration -- including many sent or received by former presidential adviser Karl Rove -- will never be recovered, said House Democrats and public records advocates.
The RNC had previously told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it was attempting to restore e-mails from 2001 to 2003, when the RNC had a policy of purging all e-mails, including those to and from White House officials, after 30 days. But Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed during a hearing yesterday that the RNC has now said it "has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails." ......

at work

our emails are recorded and stored for, i believe, 5 years. from what i understand it is part of some new law(s) that went through (although i could be wrong here). if i'm right, how come MY emails (yesterday i emailed building services because one of the elevators was not functioning correctly) have to be saved and THEIRS DON'T?
White House Says It Routinely Overwrote E-Mail Tapes From 2001 to 2003

By Elizabeth Williamson and Dan EggenWashington Post Staff Writers
E-mail messages sent and received by White House personnel during the first three years of the Bush administration were routinely recorded on tapes that were "recycled," the White House's chief information officer said in a court filing this week.
During the period in question, the Bush presidency faced some of its biggest controversies, including the Iraq war, the leak of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson's name and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said he has no reason to believe any e-mails were deliberately destroyed.
From 2001 to October 2003, the White House's practice was to use the same backup tape each day to copy new as well as old e-mails, he said, making it possible that some of those e-mails could still be recovered even from a tape that was repeatedly overwritten. "We are continuing to analyze our systems," Fratto said last night........

a few years ago

i had a friend at work who just 'disappeared'. she disappeared on purpose. she took some money and some clothing and left. she left her job, she left her husband, she left her home. everyone in her life was SHOCKED. no one saw it coming. (she left with another woman. no one had ANY indication that was happening or going to happen. i tell you NO ONE). anyway, the police (or whomever) contacted our office. they wanted any emails she sent or had on her pc. they were ALL deleted. however, in a matter of less than a day, our it dudes (they happened to be dudes that time) had ALL of her emails (which were 'deleted') off of that computer.

if a small company (we were small at that time. since then we've been bought out by a HUGE international company. which, by the way, is decent enough) can retrieve those emails, well than.......

White House told to provide e-mail info
Federal Magistrate Orders White House to Say Whether Missing E-Mail Is on Backup Tapes
PETE YOST AP News
A federal magistrate ordered the White House on Tuesday to reveal whether copies of possibly millions of missing e-mails are stored on computer backup tapes. The order by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola comes amid an effort by the White House to scuttle two lawsuits that could force the Executive Office of the President to recover any e-mail that has disappeared from computer servers where electronic documents are automatically archived.
Two federal laws require the White House to preserve all records including e-mail.
Facciola gave the White House five business days to report whether computer backup tapes contain e-mails written between 2003 and 2005.
The time period covers the Valerie Plame affair in which at least three presidential aides were found to have leaked Plame's CIA identity to the news media.........