LAT: GOP-issued laptops now a WH headache: Dems say e-mail system used in violation of federal rules

[DeepModem Mom]

GOP-issued laptops now a White House headache
Democrats say a private e-mail system was used in violation of federal rules.
By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
April 8, 2007


Karl Rove: Laptops and paging devices were supplied to the political advisor and his aides by the GOP. (STEFAN ZAKLIN / EPA)

When Karl Rove and his top deputies arrived at the White House in 2001, the Republican National Committee provided them with laptop computers and other communication devices to be used alongside their government-issued equipment.

The back-channel e-mail and paging system, paid for and maintained by the RNC, was designed to avoid charges that had vexed the Clinton White House — that federal resources were being used inappropriately for political campaign purposes.

Now, that dual computer system is creating new embarrassment and legal headaches for the White House, the Republican Party and Rove's once-vaunted White House operation.

Democrats cite evidence that the RNC e-mail system was used for political and government policy matters in violation of federal record preservation and disclosure rules.

In addition, Democrats point to a handful of e-mails obtained through ongoing inquiries suggesting the system may have been used to conceal such activities as contacts with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, convicted on bribery charges and now in prison for fraud.

Democratic congressional investigators are beginning to demand access to this RNC-White House communications system, which was used not only by Rove's office but by several top officials elsewhere in the White House.

The prospect that such communication might become public has further jangled the nerves of an already rattled Bush White House....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-laptops9apr09,0,4563806.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Oh yeah!

This is where they start getting into the real meat and taters. Once they get in there, they should pull the logs on all of the proxy and security servers and run an audit on connections. Why? Because there are more servers out there. Just know that.

[calimary]

2. I hope this screws them SO bad.

I hope it jangles their nerves so badly it creates an 8.3 earthquake beneath their feet. Nothing but the best for those who have so much blood on their hands.

[TacticalPeek]

3. K & R

:kick:

[Bozita]

4. Recommended!

[krispos42]

5. To the Greatest with thee!

How much corruption is impeachable?

[trogdor]

27. From a practical standpoint, there is no limit.

It won't matter if George and Dick were caught on tape robbing a liquor store and shooting several little old ladies (age 85-102) in the face and raping their dead bodies, the 49 Republican senators will, to the last man/woman, vote to acquit.

[WinkyDink]

62. Not to mention holy-roller Independent Joe, who was so quick to condemn Pres. Clinton.

[Hekate]

6. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. When this story first came to light...

...I laughed like a loon because this alone can bring them down. Shredding can't even touch the myriad backup programs for emails, and there is NO "executive privilege" for stuff that is generated on an outside system.

Hekate

[rodeodance]

7. my my-----not only did they have separate email accounts-but LAPPIES!!

[blm]

35. Please let it all be traceable.

.

[Up2Late]

8. Now this could get very interesting.

WooHoo!

[blogslut]

9. My Favorite story

I love this one because I think it's going to have a very satisfying ending. :)

[wordpix]

43. I am already LOL about the gems that will turn up

:rofl: snip: Some Republicans believe that the huge number of e-mails — many written hastily, with no thought that they might become public — may contain more detailed and unguarded inside information about the administration's far-flung political activities than has previously been available.

"There is concern about what may be in these e-mails," said one GOP activist who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject. :rofl:

[calimary]

77. Well, hey, if you've done nothing wrong, then you should have nothing to worry about.

'EH? Isn't that correct??? Isn't that what all of you said to us at one time or another? Isn't that what you told us peaceniks whose privacy you were violating and into whose personal files, emails, snailmail, and other records you were snooping?

Beware the Pandora's Box you open in your arrogance and deviousness and power-lust.

Turnabout's fair play.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

10. Sigh. Can you believe it's been almost 7 years this country has been run by this loathsome toad?

[diane in sf]

11. make that loathsome toads

I've always visualized bush as the head of a giant pustule of corruption.
I'm looking forward to the coming eruption

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

20. I was actually thinking more of Rove, looking at his pic there.

[paparush]

33. THAT is an egregious insult to toads everywhere... ;-)

[L. Coyote]

12. kick and cross-post: Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.

Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x523978

Expect subpoenas pronto.

[Swamp Rat]

13. The Shadow Government is being exposed to the light.

You are so fucked Karl Rove. :)

[woofless]

30. Nice pic Swamp Rat

You're the Chump Chomp Champ!

[wordpix]

44. Yeah, Swamp Rat! Love it and looking forward to TurdB's emails to GWB*

[XOKCowboy]

14. I only hope that this is Shrub's "Nixon Tapes" moment..

Of course it will never be traced back to little boots. I doubt he knows how to check his email without help.

[NewJeffCT]

19. I just hope these laptops are secured & not being tampered with

I can just see it now, "well, we just sent over 100 laptops to the incinerator... so sorry, a low level staffer is responsible for it all."

[wordpix]

45. you can be sure Turdblossom is trying to figure out how to destroy it all

I am more worried aobut the emails that will be deleted to cyberspace.

[NewJeffCT]

50. Yes, that is part of my point

If the laptops that sent & received the email are destroyed, as well as the RNC server, then...

[MikeE]

21. My thoughts exactly

I'm sure it is. Now we do the happy dance!

[JTG of the PRB]

74. I'm not so sure.

I think the Commander-in-Chimp is very computer savvy. After all, he uses the Google. I'm willing to bet he's very skilled in using the Internets.

[SpiralHawk]

15. republicon cronies HIDE public facts from Americans

Why do the republicons hate America?

Why do republicons hate the American form of government?

Why do republicons always sneak and lie?

[annabanana]

16. Let's hear it for nerve rattling this White House!

The Lord knows there's some damn nerve there that NEEDS rattling!

[yellowcanine]

29. "jangled nerves", "rattled WH" ......Heh. That's the ticket. Time for Karl Rove to stock up

on Twinkies at Costco. Eat up Karl. It will make you feel better.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

17. Ruh roh. GOP in vewy VEWY big twouble!!!

The party of corruption & crime!!!

[NewJeffCT]

18. If they're not guilty of anything illegal, why should they be so worried?

Isn't that what Republics like to say when somebody takes teh 5th?

The prospect that such communication might become public has further jangled the nerves of an already rattled Bush White House....

Why should they be jangled? Nothing to see, move right along...

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

22. Bushgate emails=watergate tapes

[donkeyotay]

24. expletive deleted

Can you imagine how honest they were using their "secure" system? The emails exposed in the Abramoff investigation were very revealing. They're a bunch of fake flag-wavers. That email system will never be exposed to the light of day because this branch of the GOP is blended so tight with the branch of the military that spies on citizens and helps rig election. Too big to fail.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

39. 30 day auto-delete functions don't necessarily DELETE everything.

I wonder about how they were archived. backed up. etc. Additionally, any machine that kept the e-mail on a person's account without deletion can still be retrieved.

[wordpix]

46. we can only hope for a patriotic mole who received some emails from the toads...

Someone who's sick of the lies, distortions and illegal war, wiretapping and secret prisons, perhaps? :shrug:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

52. but do any exist?

Nixon went down because REPUBLICANS could no loner defend him.

So far, except for Hagel, Paul, and a congrescritter whose name escapes me, these guys are still in lockstep with the president. SO are all the administration lackeys.

[lefador]

23. Can the DMCA be used in this case...

... I know the feds where using some of these "digital" acts to pretty much seize servers and logs of suspected pirates. If the RIAA can sue a 7 yr old, I am sure we can get the log and e-mail dumps from these pigfuckers, right?

The laptops are really not that important, and I am sure they are being formatted as we speak, I can't wait for the frantic tech support calls that Mr. Rove must be making right now.

As I understand it, E-mail has a fairly long "self life" since it doesn't really matter if you delete it locally, it is still in a server somewhere. So I'd say that they should be getting all the servers and whatnot under sopena. I hope there are tech shabby people consulting for the dems, now the repugs are going to the liberal bias of university faculties first hand ;-)

I come from an unix bacground, but I assume these folks are using exchange or something like that, right? So would all this still apply, i.e. sopena the exchange servers...

[donkeyotay]

25. One of the servers, Smart tech, appears to be a military contractor

It's hard to be absolutely sure, since I don't have access to classified information, but if you check fedspending.org, they have records of various smart tech entities that MAY be the same smart tech referred to as running the GOP ISP out of Chattanooga, Tenn. I'm thinking they're using the best and brightest that our national security tax dollars can afford.

[EVDebs]

40. The connection to the Lam investigation: defense contracts and GOP corruption

"It's all part of a growing ongoing investigation into corruption in defense and intelligence contracts, which already has sent former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham to prison and, legal sources say, may threaten others in Congress and the CIA. "

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12634250/

MZM Inc, for example
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MZM_Inc.

I wonder if any of this leads back to In-Q-Tel
http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2006/05/17/the_cias_other_man_in_silicon_valley_will_johnson.html

run by an agency that acts, supposedly, on behalf of the US public.

[glitch]

64. I wouldn't assume that - they value loyalty not expertise. And they crap on their own.

Don't think their flying monkeys don't see how expendable they are. Not exactly the formula for long-term success.

[paparush]

36. RICO !! This is ORGANIZED CRIME!!

[paparush]

37. RICO !! This is ORGANIZED CRIME!!

[NewJeffCT]

51. It certainly is criminal

I can only dream that the whole lot of them are charged under RICO.

[Up2Late]

42. I don't know if it's that the e-mail is still on a server, but it's most likely on a back-up...

...on someones computer somewhere off site if they where using a POP mail system (which most people do). If they used an IMAP system, the e-mail might be on a server though, but it also much easier to clear out that data quickly, I think.

Where they will most likely find the old e-mail is in the data back-up tapes and disks that most enterprises who value their data use.

I myself, have been searching my computer HD, back-up disks, and old back up tapes for old e-mail from a good friend of mine who died in July 2006 and have been amazed at just how many "lost" copies of my old email I've found. I bet I have 10 to 12 copies of just this one set of old email folders from 1998 to 2000 on all the various Hard Drives on my home network alone. Add to that the various back-up disks and tapes...

I doubt I could delete every copy of that old e-mail even if I wanted to.

[wordpix]

47. subpoena the exchange servers BUT...aren't the servers people like RNC?

[gasperc]

26. Massive security breach

sounds like Karl Rove and his nutjob crew in their infinite zeal to elect republicans gave the chinese and russians, the mob and God knows who else the keys to the store

[wordpix]

48. how so?

[donkeyotay]

53. Gasperc might be referring to Abramoff

who had both Chinese and Russian clients. Abramoff's clients, the CIA's mob affiliations, Wilkes CIA-Foggo-Cunningham hookers for bribery or blackmail... I also get the feeling that the defense and national security shakedown was a good thing for bushco while it lasted, but it got out of control. The Republican crime family thought the K-Street Project and power grab would be private. They didn't realize that by corrupting the system they opened the door to every able-bodied crook on the planet. Now the scale of corruption is blowing it for the insiders. That's why I groan every time I hear how the average American isn't sacrificing anything for the war. No? Our country has been turned upside down and looted for this war. Were paying a price all right. The full price paid won't be known for some time to come.

[gasperc]

69. unsecured e-mail communications

with government officials using unsecured email servers these could be easily intercepted by foreign agents. They may not have communicated about sensitive government secrets by government business none the less. and communicated information that foreign agents could use against these government officials to blackmail them to keep their shit secret.

[yellowcanine]

28. Some Republican activists say the e-mail request will not create great difficulty

for the White House because nothing nefarious happened and because the RNC automatically purges some e-mails after 30 days.

Heh heh. Not only are they politically naive (nothing nefarious happende), they are also IT challenged (e-mails are purged). That is NOT a safe assumption to make. There's purging and there's purging. Some, if not all, of those "purged emails" could be residing on individual hard drives. They can be found. Has the FBI seized those laptops yet? And Katie bar the door if there is a lot of scrubbing activity on those email accounts right after Waxman's request.

[paparush]

34. This Just In: A Rash of 'lost' Laptops sweeps the WH

[ChairmanAgnostic]

41. i have no doubt that will happen.

or, the sale of high powered magnets, sledge hammers or trash compactors suddenly increase.

[ejbr]

31. Oh please!!

The prospect that such communication might become public has further jangled the nerves of an already rattled Bush White House.

Why would their nerves be jangled? At this point, I will only be convinced of consequences for these vapid excuses for human beings is if they were caught on live camera anally raping infants with gobs of lubricant. And EVEN THEN, some "respected" conservative pundit would come out to defend them, causing 30% of the populace to now agree that raping infants is an acceptable way of protecting the country. But ONLY with lubricant. Otherwise it would just be unAmerican.

:patriot:

[paparush]

32. Let the backpedaling and finger pointing begin. Wonder who the sacrificial

lamb will be in this clusterfock?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

38. WHAT executive privilege, assholes?

Might as well put private legal or investment advice on a postcard.

[wordpix]

49. "the RNC automatically purges some e-mails after 30 days" n/t

[Stephanie]

54. ask the computer experts here at DU

emails never go away completely, do they? I think they can always be dug up.

[paparush]

76. Purging email off of a laptop or off a blackberry is one thing...

purging all traces of an email from the server is another.

It CAN be done, but removing all of the fingerprints from an email trail is non-trivial.

[Supersedeas]

55. When will the primetime broadcast networks pickup on this

[peacetalksforall]

56. This is so typical of the duplicity of this administration.

RNC purchase of laptops - reason provided - above board, sounds honorable - conduct political business off the taxpayer dime.
RNC and WH practice - in reality - flip it - conduct government business on RNC laptops with RNC e-mail system so that messages are hidden from prying eyes into government dealings and not subject to demand from Congress to submit all correspondence, etc.

Rotten rotten rotting.

[malaise]

57. Delish

This is great news. Nail them Waxman!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

58. Oh My What I Wouldn't Give To See That All Exposed.

Can you even imagine the gems waiting to be found???

[19jet54]

59. I'm special...

...the rules do not apply to me; therefore, I can keep two sets of books - Hey, we're in charge, RIGHT! :sarcasm: (Rove)

[madame defarge]

60. I love it when technology bites Rover in his big butt. n/t

[Oldtimeralso]

61. I'll bet you can find a lot of laptops in the Potomac! n/t

[WinkyDink]

63. I guess they didn't make enough "reality" to eclipse REALITY.

[BootinUp]

65. I'm salivating at the thought

of these emails becoming public.... Wheres the salivating emoticon?

:9

[BlueIris]

66. Kick.

Focus, people, focus.

[Patsy Stone]

67. Nothing to see here: "Everyone does it."

The RNC found its favorite scapepenis:

"White House officials said the system had been used appropriately and was modeled after one used by the Clinton White House political office in the late 1990s."

:eyes:

[Dhalgren]

68. If everything is appropriate, then turn the laptops and emails

over to Waxman and let him have a look. If it is all on the up and up, then there's no worry, right? There will be a rash of folks with mail-order degrees resigning from administration jobs tomorrow, but aside from that, it's all hunky-dorey, right?

[Patsy Stone]

73. Right

It's fine... NOT!

I'm just so tired of the "blame Clinton" mindset, I can't tell you. I hope you realized that my post was sacrcastic.

[Dhalgren]

75. Yeah, I totally got that. But your point comes through clearly.

This has nothing to do with ten years ago, this has nothing to do with anything at all except legitimate oversight and fear of same.

[Venus Dog]

70. This could be Solomon's Mines!

and gazillions of hours of REAL entertainment :popcorn:

[IWantAChange]

71. Turn up the lights on Turdblossom and the rest and watch 'em scurry like rats...

[TheLeftyMom]

72. It was a good idea though from the RNC

Too bad the people they gave the laptops to (in order to avoid using gov machines/email for party work) were the corrupt slime of the earth and took advantage of it. On the surface, though, it was a good idea.