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from the inconvenient-data-is-impossible-to-retrieve dept.
Lois Lerner, former director of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, is a key figure in the IRS's controversy over the tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups. Now CBS News reports that the IRS has told congressional investigators that the IRS cannot locate many of Lois Lerner's emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed that year. "Isn't it convenient for the Obama Administration that the IRS now says it has suddenly realized it lost Lois Lerner's emails requested by Congress and promised by Commissioner John Koskinen?" says House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa. "Do they really expect the American people to believe that, after having withheld these emails for a year, they're just now realizing the most critical time period is missing?
According to a veteran IT professional, the IRS' claim that the agency lost two years' worth of former IRS official Lois Lerner's emails is "simply not feasible." Norman Cillo, an Army veteran who worked in intelligence and a former program manager at Microsoft, says it is very difficult to lose emails for good because Microsoft Exchange used by the government for their email servers have built-in exchange mail database redundancy and all servers use some form of RAID technology and tape backup. Cillo says it's possible the IRS is telling the truth if the federal agency is "totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever." "I don't know of any email administrator that doesn't have at least three ways of getting that mail back. It's either on the disks or it's on a TAPE backup someplace or in an archive server. There are at least three ways the government can get those emails."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by goody on Sunday June 15 2014, @01:12AM
All the IRS needs to do is say they fired their backup administration staff years ago in order to reduce the size of government and the teahadist GOPers will go back to talking about Benghazi 24/7.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 15 2014, @01:38AM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @02:02AM
> Don't want to believe me? Why then has nearly every instance of its influence been to the detriment of a GOP incumbent? Logic, yo, it will fuck up your world view.
Winning primary elections does not prove that the new guys aren't part of the same party, it kind of says the opposite of that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 15 2014, @02:17AM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:24AM
> That's like saying if a full on GOP conservative ran as a democrat without changing platform in the primary and won, he'd just be another democrat.
Which would never happen because a "full on GOP conservative" wouldn't have a chance in a democratic primary.
When you have to make up completely unrealistic analogies to support your beliefs that should give you pause.
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:34AM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:42AM
> Analogies are by no means required to be realistic. It is implicit in their nature that they can be fictional and still serve their purpose.
I guess it really does take quite a bit of an independent streak and some world class critical thinking skills to break yourself out of the overwhelmingly Liberal echo chamber that is the online community.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @09:15AM
That could be reality's well-known liberal bias showing through, so don't blame the online community for that.
(Score: 1) by goody on Sunday June 15 2014, @02:33AM
You may be right, but they're certainly not Democrats, and GOP leaders and candidates embrace the tea party whenever convenient (i.e. it gets them votes or brownie points with far right wingers).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:23AM
Nah, the GOP embrace them because they're scared of what will happen if they don't. The tea party aren't far right wingers, though they do have some of those who apparently got lost or didn't read up on what they were joining. They're mostly people who think the government should A) Follow the constitution, B) Don't spend what you can't afford, and C) Leave people the fuck alone. Those ideals are neither right nor left wing. They don't fit on that spectrum at all; that spectrum is one of corruption and oppression from either end to the other. They're a game breaker and I really hope they gain massively in power.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by goody on Sunday June 15 2014, @05:42PM
I think your view of the tea party is a bit idealistic. Regarding C above, they believe that except when it involves homosexuals, abortion, Democrats, or religion other than Christianity. They may have been a big tent "all sides are welcome" movement initially, but there's no doubt they are very right wing and are essentially the fringe element of the GOP -- those who think the GOP isn't conservative/harsh/pure enough. They're getting funded by PACs funded by the same people that are supporting the GOP. If they do gain massively in power, they can take their poisonous politics of fear, cynicism, and anger and take the states they are overrunning and secede for all I care.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 15 2014, @07:37PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @08:54PM
> This is simply not the case though you'll hear nothing else from the media because they have a vested interest in the two party system and a third party would bring chaos to the power structure they shill for.
Which is why the tea party runs candidates in republican primaries - the media makes them do it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 15 2014, @09:20PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @10:02PM
> There are no tea party candidates,
A third party with no candidates. Logic! Winning! Circular!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @03:54AM
You'll also find that the largest tea party groups have been headed by 'former' GOP politicians and insiders like Dick Armey, Matt Kibbe and Tim Phillips.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday June 15 2014, @06:30AM
the GOP fully embraces the Tea Party because they're both fully funded by the Koch brothers, Murdoch, etc, and have similar goals (which is whatever their rich owners dictate).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15 2014, @11:43AM
-1 troll.