The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed Friday that it cannot produce Lois Lerner’s emails to and from the White House and other administration departments due to a supposed computer crash.
The IRS previously agreed to hand over all of the ex-IRS official’s emails from 2009 to 2011 to the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Dave Camp. But the IRS claimed Friday that it has Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS officials but it cannot produce emails to and from the Treasury and Justice Departments, the Federal Election Commission, or Democratic offices.
The IRS’ computer crash may go down in history next to the eighteen and a half minute gap in the Watergate tapes, which was supposedly caused by a mistake by Richard Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods.
“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries,” Camp said in a statement. “There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General.”
“Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents,” Camp continued. “It appears now that was an empty promise. Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies. Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone. This failure of the IRS requires the White House, which promised to get to the bottom of this, to do an Administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner. The Administration has repeatedly referred us back to the IRS for production of materials. It is clear that is wholly insufficient when it comes to determining the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”
Great, more poo to be flung at my employer.. The only people AT the IRS that are suffering for this are the front line employees when our budget is permanently at 2009 levels...
By extension, the people suffering the most from all this is the taxpayer who we cant provide service to because we cant afford to hire more people to man the phones.
I am by no means supporting this nonsense, but when you continually cut the budget of the only agency to turn a profit of 4 to 1 on investment dollars you pretty much shoot yourself in the foot, whatever the reason may be.
But I'm sure they could find every silly thing I posted on Dakka while at work during the last 6 years!
Well... to be fair, I could find that just by looking in your profile.
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IronWarLeg wrote: Great, more poo to be flung at my employer.. The only people AT the IRS that are suffering for this are the front line employees when our budget is permanently at 2009 levels...
By extension, the people suffering the most from all this is the taxpayer who we cant provide service to because we cant afford to hire more people to man the phones.
I am by no means supporting this nonsense, but when you continually cut the budget of the only agency to turn a profit of 4 to 1 on investment dollars you pretty much shoot yourself in the foot, whatever the reason may be.
I hate being a federal employee...
Edit: spelling and punctuation
Our budget is actually 20 billion shorter then it was in 2009.
The independent analysts that worked on it then said that the White House email system was amazingly bad; clearly it was never fixed - I can't imagine a reliable record of all communications is in the best interests of any administration, politically.
The independent analysts that worked on it then said that the White House email system was amazingly bad; clearly it was never fixed - I can't imagine a reliable record of all communications is in the best interests of any administration, politically.
Plausible deniability is just so awfully convenient...
Then. Now. IT Tech certifications from a cereal box?
Edit
I requested a CD disk of all my internet activities on my last tour. All the work I had done on the laptop, All the power point briefing, projections, operations, troop movements, land routes, air routes, just everything that I had a hand in. Mainly to protect myself and reference if asked for. Was a Specialist with three years in who literally talked me through the entire process of retrieving all my emails on "Deleted"
What I'd really like to see, ideally, is when an office of the Executive Branch is subpoena'd for emails, and busts out "oops, we lost them" as they are historically wont to do, maybe throw someone high up in that office in jail for contempt. See if that helps them try to find them a little harder.
This is probably unconstitutional, though. But it's a nice thought.
The reality is, no one ever goes to jail or even probably gets fired. Instead we have a week long national whinefest and then we all forget about it for a few years, until it happens again.
Jihadin wrote: Except they're using what's called a SIDPER net. Its an enclosed net which have share drives upon share drives that save data regardless of what it is. Someone posted a pic of a SIDPER email on here a bit back. In fact that's how the CIA station Chief name was revealed from someone copy and pasting off a SIDPER net to a commercial net
What, you want all of the potentially compromising emails? Oops, server crash! Damn, that was unlucky. Looks like you're not going to be able to get hold of them now...
This is probably one of the funniest things I've heard - EVER.
A "computer crash" wiped out years of a single individuals emails. That is BS of the highest order...
An mx lookup of irs.gov reveals 10 external facing mx records.
That's a big system, big systems are replicated, replicated systems are robust and fault tolerant.
In other words it's complete and utter BS.
The fact that anyone in the IRS is suggesting this is utterly preposterous.
Lerner taking the 5th, one can infer that she has something to hide. It was my belief that she orchastrated it illegally and wants to thwart the investigation to protect herself.
THIS tells me that it's much bigger than that... high level House/Senate/Presidential level.
I cannot fathom having to finance multiple types of secure internet "channels" while there is one in heavy use. I mean with just one type already in place being military presence in areas, I am unsure that one "cluster" can be used to service all government entities. I guess how they would do it is each entity would have their version of a cluster concerning their area and use maybe a military satellite or something to communicate outside of their cluster if long distance or maybe a individually secure "wire" within maybe city limits branching out to others. I am guessing all of this for I am unsure how they would do it
According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS reports having “lost” former IRS manager Lois Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS employees sent between January of 2009 and April of 2011 due to a ‘computer crash.’
In light of the disclosure, these are some of the logical requests that should be made of the IRS:
-Please provide a timeline of the crash and documentation covering when it was first discovered and by whom; when, how and by whom it was learned that materials were lost; the official documentation reporting the crash and federal data loss; documentation reflecting all attempts to recover the materials; and the remediation records documenting the fix. This material should include the names of all officials and technicians involved, as well as all internal communications about the matter.
-Please provide all documents and emails that refer to the crash from the time that it happened through the IRS’ disclosure to Congress Friday that it had occurred.
-Please provide the documents that show the computer crash and lost data were appropriately reported to the required entities including any contractor servicing the IRS. If the incident was not reported, please explain why.
-Please provide a list summarizing what other data was irretrievably lost in the computer crash. If the loss involved any personal data, was the loss disclosed to those impacted? If not, why?
-Please provide documentation reflecting any security analyses done to assess the impact of the crash and lost materials. If such analyses were not performed, why not?
-Please provide documentation showing the steps taken to recover the material, and the names of all technicians who attempted the recovery.
-Please explain why redundancies required for federal systems were either not used or were not effective in restoring the lost materials, and provide documentation showing how this shortfall has been remediated.
-Please provide any documents reflecting an investigation into how the crash resulted in the irretrievable loss of federal data and what factors were found to be responsible for the existence of this situation.
-I would also ask for those who discovered and reported the crash to testify under oath, as well as any officials who reported the materials as having been irretrievably lost.
The Committee had requested the Lerner emails as part of its investigation into to the targeting of conservative non-profits by the IRS. The Obama administration has denied any corruption or intentional wrongdoing. Lerner took the Fifth when asked to testify to Congress. The House of Representatives subsequently held her in contempt. The lost materials are said to include any communications that may have occurred between Lerner and outside agencies or groups such as the White House, the Treasury Department, the Department of Justice, the Federal Elections Commission and the offices of Democrats.
House and Ways Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) says that along with providing news of the emails that have been lost, the IRS suggested in the same letter to Congress that it end its investigation.
The late disclosure of the lost emails may be reason to disregard the suggestion.
As Issa asked recently:
“If there wasn’t nefarious conduct that went much higher than Lois Lerner in the IRS targeting scandal, why are they playing these games?” asked Issa.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Did it erase my tax forms aswell?
I mean, A computer that selectively erases when it crashes is amazing tech, What is the technology IRS has that we.
‘Barack Obama has brought us Jimmy Carter’s economy and Richard Nixon’s excuses’
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Stockman Friday asked the National Security Agency to turn over all its metadata on the email accounts of former Internal Revenue Service Exempt Organizations division director Lois Lerner for the period between January 2009 and April 2011.
The request comes just hours after the IRS claimed it “lost” all of Lerner’s emails to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups during that period, in which she allegedly coordinated with the White House, House Democrats and political groups to harass and deny tax-exempt status to groups critical of the President. The IRS blames a “computer glitch” for erasing the emails which could have implicated Agency employees in illegal activity.
“I have asked NSA Director Rogers to send me all metadata his agency has collected on Lois Lerner’s email accounts for the period which the House sought records,” said Stockman. “The metadata will establish who Lerner contacted and when, which helps investigators determine the extent of illegal activity by the IRS.”
“The claim incriminating communications were erased by a glitch conjures memories of Rose Mary Woods,” said Stockman. “Barack Obama has brought us Jimmy Carter’s economy and Richard Nixon’s excuses.”
The text of the letter follows:
June 13, 2014
Admiral Michael S. Rogers
Director, National Security Agency
Fort Meade, MD 20755
Admiral Rogers:
First, thank you for your 33 years of, and continued service to, our country.
Second, as you probably read, the Internal Revenue Service informed the House Ways and Means Committee today they claim to “lost” all emails from former Exempt Organizations division director Lois Lerner for the period between January 2009 and April 2011.
According to chairman Camp, “The IRS claims it cannot produce emails written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices” due to a “computer glitch.”
I am writing to request the Agency produce all metadata it has collected on all of Ms. Lerner’s email accounts for the period between January 2009 and April 2011.
The data may be transmitted to our Communications Director at Donny@mail.house.gov.
Your prompt cooperation in this matter will be greatly appreciated and will help establish how IRS and other personnel violated rights protected by the First Amendment.
Grey Templar wrote: I wonder if whoever was responsible can be charged with obstruction of justice? And contempt of Congress.
Probably not. My guess is that we can find a metric crap-ton of circumstantial evidence that this is a line of crap that, combined with common sense, make it clear that it's all just an attempt to get out of providing these emails.
But I am going to guess that there are just enough holes that if you try to prove that it was all deliberate you would never get past reasonable doubt that it could have actually happened.
We all know what happened there. But unless Congress has iron-clad proof that somebody deleted all those emails and then said "oops, system crash" there will never be any charges.
Besides, next time around the other guys want to be able to bury evidence themselves.
From what I know of computers, its very difficult to totally erase things without actually destroying the actual memory chips.
Its also fairly trivial to recover lost data as long as the memory chips are intact and new data hasn't been rewritten over it(deleting things just deletes the directory, the data is still there till it gets overwritten)
I doubt the IRS guys destroyed their computers.
I'll bet they'll say all the backups crashed as well.
Does everyone know that the IRS cannot lose emails, right? These email servers are inherently clustered against failure, and that the clusters are also redundant onto themselves, and that the entire email database is not only backed up daily, it is backed up, continuously. Not only are the email servers clustered against failure, but the Storage Arrays - SAN, (which are completely separate from the email application servers) are also fail over clustered and redundant. In addition the backup tapes are stored offsite, generally by secured vendor.
So, even if the email servers all crashed at once (an occurrence with a likelihood of less than .001% (five 9s), or less than 4 seconds of outage in any given year), everything ever written to the storage arrays are still on the storage arrays and cannot be deleted without basically turning all the storage into a smoking pile of radioactive dust.
We are being lied to. Again. By the same people.
Congress can subpoena anyone. Subpoena the IT staff workers in charge of Email and the other wholly separate group that manages the IT Storage infrastructure. And ask them to produce the email or risk jail.
Even the FBI is known for their ability to recover data that were forcibly destroyed. User their expertise.
Do that and the emails will be on their desk by morning.
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Grey Templar wrote: From what I know of computers, its very difficult to totally erase things without actually destroying the actual memory chips.
Its also fairly trivial to recover lost data as long as the memory chips are intact and new data hasn't been rewritten over it(deleting things just deletes the directory, the data is still there till it gets overwritten)
I doubt the IRS guys destroyed their computers.
I'll bet they'll say all the backups crashed as well.
Data is written across storage arrays, not "memory chips".
On Friday, members of Congress revealed that the IRS would not be able to hand over Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS employees from January 2009 to April 2011, possibly due to a “glitch” or “crash.” Lawmakers were seeking the emails as part of their investigation into the IRS targeting scandal.
Norman Cillo, an Army veteran who worked in intelligence and a former program manager at Microsoft, argued it is very difficult to lose emails for good and laid out six reasons why he believes Congress is “being lied to” about the Lerner emails:
1. I believe the government uses Microsoft Exchange for their email servers. They have built-in exchange mail database redundancy. So, unless they did not follow Microsofts recommendations they are telling a falsehood. You can see by the diagram below that if you have three servers in a DAG you have three copies of the database.
2. Every IT organization that I know of has hotswappable disk drives. Every server built since 2000 has them. Meaning that if a single disk goes bad it’s easy to replace.
3. ALL Servers use some form of RAID technology. The only way that data can be totally lost (Meaning difficult to bring back) is if more than a single disk goes before the first bad disk is replaced. In the diagram below you can see that its possible to lose a single disk and still keep the data.
4. If the server crashed (Hardware failure other than disks), then the disks that contain the DATA for the Exchange database is still available because the server hardware and disks are exchangeable. Meaning that if I have another server with the same hardware in it, I can put the disks in and everything should boot right up.
5. All email servers in a professional organization use TAPE backup. Meaning if all the above fails, you can restore the server using the TAPE backups.
6. If they are talking about her local PC, then it’s a simple matter of going to the servers which have the email and getting them from the servers. If the servers have removed the data you can still get them by using the backups of the servers to recover the emails.
However, Cillo, who has been working in IT for roughly 16 years and is currently a consultant for a tech company, said it’s possible the IRS is telling the truth if the federal agency is “totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever.”
Other than that, it’s just not “feasible,” he told TheBlaze. “If the IRS’ email server is in such a state that they only have one copy of data and the server crashes and it’s gone, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“I don’t know of any email administrator that doesn’t have at least three ways of getting that mail back,” he added. “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.”
"We didn't delete them on purpose, the system crashed."
"Thanks, you may step down."
Now what?
Does everyone know that the IRS cannot lose emails, right? These email servers are inherently clustered against failure, and that the clusters are also redundant onto themselves, and that the entire email database is not only backed up daily, it is backed up, continuously. Not only are the email servers clustered against failure, but the Storage Arrays - SAN, (which are completely separate from the email application servers) are also fail over clustered and redundant. In addition the backup tapes are stored offsite, generally by secured vendor.
So, even if the email servers all crashed at once (an occurrence with a likelihood of less than .001% (five 9s), or less than 4 seconds of outage in any given year), everything ever written to the storage arrays are still on the storage arrays and cannot be deleted without basically turning all the storage into a smoking pile of radioactive dust.
We are being lied to. Again. By the same people.
You are never going to be able to prove that.
We all know it. But it won't hold up in court.
Congress can subpoena anyone. Subpoena the IT staff workers in charge of Email and the other wholly separate group that manages the IT Storage infrastructure. And ask them to produce the email or risk jail.
That's just stupid.
You can't throw somebody in jail unless you can prove that they lied. Which is not going to happen.
Republicans are okay with that. They are going to scream and put on a dog and pony show for everyone to fake their outrage, but they want to be able to do the same down the line.
Even the FBI is known for their ability to recover data that were forcibly destroyed. User their expertise.
Do that and the emails will be on their desk by morning.
They are not going to do that because they have zero reason for wanting to take away the ability to do the same. We don't have proof that a crime occured to begin with other than "We are all pretty damn sure that this story is bs." The FBI can't just go digging aorund in other agencies without any sort of court order.
You start with higher ups in the IRS looking into things, then the OIG, then some more hearings, then MAYBE the OIG calls the FBI to ask for help, then some more hearings, then some other scandal that is new and juicy comes along and/or a Republican is in the White House and the whole thing gets dropped because neither party wants this to change.
"We didn't delete them on purpose, the system crashed."
"Thanks, you may step down."
Now what?
Do you even know what that means? They're lying.
That's like saying their name is Brad Pitt.
Does everyone know that the IRS cannot lose emails, right? These email servers are inherently clustered against failure, and that the clusters are also redundant onto themselves, and that the entire email database is not only backed up daily, it is backed up, continuously. Not only are the email servers clustered against failure, but the Storage Arrays - SAN, (which are completely separate from the email application servers) are also fail over clustered and redundant. In addition the backup tapes are stored offsite, generally by secured vendor.
So, even if the email servers all crashed at once (an occurrence with a likelihood of less than .001% (five 9s), or less than 4 seconds of outage in any given year), everything ever written to the storage arrays are still on the storage arrays and cannot be deleted without basically turning all the storage into a smoking pile of radioactive dust.
We are being lied to. Again. By the same people.
You are never going to be able to prove that.
We all know it. But it won't hold up in court.
We can prove it. Determine how the email system is architected. Really... it's as simple as that.
Congress can subpoena anyone. Subpoena the IT staff workers in charge of Email and the other wholly separate group that manages the IT Storage infrastructure. And ask them to produce the email or risk jail.
That's just stupid.
You can't throw somebody in jail unless you can prove that they lied. Which is not going to happen.
But, you can prove it.
That's why the "My dog ate my homework" excuse won't fly here...
Even the FBI is known for their ability to recover data that were forcibly destroyed. User their expertise.
Do that and the emails will be on their desk by morning.
They are not going to do that because they have zero reason for wanting to take away the ability to do the same. We don't have proof that a crime occured to begin with other than "We are all pretty damn sure that this story is bs." The FBI can't just go digging aorund in other agencies without any sort of court order.
You start with higher ups in the IRS looking into things, then the OIG, then some more hearings, then MAYBE the OIG calls the FBI to ask for help, then some more hearings, then some other scandal that is new and juicy comes along and/or a Republican is in the White House and the whole thing gets dropped because neither party wants this to change.
I'm going on record... if a Republican administration did this, I want them hammered just as hard.
5. All email servers in a professional organization use TAPE backup. Meaning if all the above fails, you can restore the server using the TAPE backups.
Ours doesn't, and that's actually considered a selling point by many of our clients. So by "all" he means "the majority of".
Does everyone know that the IRS cannot lose emails, right?
Neither you nor the person in the article know the specifics of the system the IRS uses and it's all speculation. He literally does not even know what software they run, he's speculating it's Exchange.
If the IRS didn't have massive numbers of backup systems and protection against this very sort of thing I'd question their competence and the mental capacity of everyone who designed their system.
Grey Templar wrote: If the IRS didn't have massive numbers of backup systems and protection against this very sort of thing I'd question their competence and the mental capacity of everyone who designed their system.
Although I, like Whembly and the guy from the article, am not privy to the IRS's email system, I am nonetheless quite confident in speculating it's absolutely terrible software, contracted out the lowest bidder who also was connected to someone in the appropriations process, that the specs changed constant, the program manager changed things during development without documenting anything, and it cost at least 3 times what it was supposed to while delivering 30% of the features it was sold upon.
Grey Templar wrote: If the IRS didn't have massive numbers of backup systems and protection against this very sort of thing I'd question their competence and the mental capacity of everyone who designed their system.
Although I, like Whembly and the guy from the article, am not privy to the IRS's email system, I am nonetheless quite confident in speculating it's absolutely terrible software, contracted out the lowest bidder who also was connected to someone in the appropriations process, that the specs changed constant, the program manager changed things during development without documenting anything, and it cost at least 3 times what it was supposed to while delivering 30% of the features it was sold upon.
It might be terrible software, but my statement still stands.
Not having tons of backups and protection against data loss would be a colossal screw up. I know the government doesn't hold a high standard, but not having those things is insane.
Not having tons of backups and protection against data loss would be a colossal screw up. I know the government doesn't hold a high standard, but not having those things is insane.
All data is not created equal. For an organization like the IRS emails are way less important than financial information.
Not having tons of backups and protection against data loss would be a colossal screw up. I know the government doesn't hold a high standard, but not having those things is insane.
All data is not created equal. For an organization like the IRS emails are way less important than financial information.
How so? Tax payer's confidential isn't as important as financial information?
Recovery is possible for nearly all data, the only question is how much money you're willing to expend in the course of recovery; and how much you can recover.
Recovery is possible for nearly all data, the only question is how much money you're willing to expend in the course of recovery; and how much you can recover.
Not having tons of backups and protection against data loss would be a colossal screw up. I know the government doesn't hold a high standard, but not having those things is insane.
All data is not created equal. For an organization like the IRS emails are way less important than financial information.
Grey Templar wrote: If the IRS didn't have massive numbers of backup systems and protection against this very sort of thing I'd question their competence and the mental capacity of everyone who designed their system.
Obamacare had some really excellent system designers!
Grey Templar wrote: If the IRS didn't have massive numbers of backup systems and protection against this very sort of thing I'd question their competence and the mental capacity of everyone who designed their system.
Obamacare had some really excellent system designers!
Well... the point being is that we're being asked to suspend our disbelief that it only affected Lerner's emails during the timeframe in question.
If it was that catastrophic, it would've impacted more than just Lerner.
Knowwhatimean?
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT:
Found out that the IRS uses Microsoft Exchange.
Taking a step back: the confidential information of taxpayers is not likely to be included in an email, and if it is it can be easily censored; a problem which will likely crop up in the release of IRS records regarding Cincinnati.
Do you really think they have a server dedicated for their e-mail? And only it had a problem? And the e-mails which happened to disappear were ones which were being demanded in an investigation. And if said e-mails had actually disappeared when they claim they did then we would not have heard about it immediately upon those e-mails being wanted?
Probability is spilling over into a mathematical certainty that they were deliberately destroyed.
Grey Templar wrote: If the IRS didn't have massive numbers of backup systems and protection against this very sort of thing I'd question their competence and the mental capacity of everyone who designed their system.
Although I, like Whembly and the guy from the article, am not privy to the IRS's email system, I am nonetheless quite confident in speculating it's absolutely terrible software, contracted out the lowest bidder who also was connected to someone in the appropriations process, that the specs changed constant, the program manager changed things during development without documenting anything, and it cost at least 3 times what it was supposed to while delivering 30% of the features it was sold upon.
They use Microsoft Exchange Servers (Outlook).
If you do a "mx lookup" of irs.gov... that'll show at least 10 external facing mx records.
That's a big system... HUGE.
Systems that big are replicated... that are robust and fault tolerant.
I have been in the IT industry long enough to deal with Exchange Server in various capacity. For instance, the IRS is most likely using Exchange 2010 or newer, which has built in features for litigation hold, retention policies, and database availability groups which allow you to copy mailbox databases to multiple servers.
Couple that with storage array replication to other sites, backup to disk and/or tape, its damn near impossible to lose data by accident. You have to be purposefully malicious to somehow have email lost and apparently, the IRS believes it would be easy to get away with this excuse with the general public because they don’t understand how such systems is architected.
One of the biggest irony is that private businesses have to follow email retention policies depending on what industry they’re in. The Sarb-Ox compliance requires email retention (min of 7 years I believe) or you can face fines. MS Exchange would have these functionalities inherently. Somehow, the IRS is saying that our federal government can’t be bothered to ensure data is protected…yet they want to run other aspects of our lives(namely the PPACA).... ???
O.o
Congress should not only grill whomever is in charge of messaging at the IRS and their IT director/CIO, but anyone who’s this incompetent should get the hell out of my industry. That's how embarrassing this is...
Here's a list of questions Congress should ask for each of the IT executives:
a) Given the redundant infrastructure, disaster recovery and business continuity facilities, and other preparations designed to maintain the IRS's technical operations, describe how the agency could state that a small fraction of the email related to Lois Lerner could be reported as "destroyed".
b) Describe the logical architecture of backups for the Exchange system including DR sites, offline storage of backup tapes, etc.
c) Describe the interval of full and incremental backups for the Exchange system.
d) Describe a scenario in which all backups from Lerner for the years in question could be destroyed.
This isn't hard guys. Very basic IT industry concepts.
Clearly they have about 10 crap servers then right?
I don't even think a medium sized company could get away with this crap. If they've had a crash and actually lost important stuff like this, in an organisation specifically made to store records and such, then obviously this would call for a pretty big overhaul of their system to make sure it doesn't happen again. Then whoever was in charge of it would have a bit to answer for.
This is like some guy building a house, he has just finished the roof looks around then goes "OH FETH ME! I FORGOT TO PUT THE FLOORS IN!". This is like the tech support asking you to shut down your computer with a bathtub to stop you wearing out the power button. Or like having a new traffic signal design; laying on its side with all the lights green and where they blink every .5 secs it means stop every .6 times it means go and every .4 secs it means bridge out.
Has anyone acknowledged d-usa's point that this is pretty much a recurring theme? If it happens with the next admin, then it's happened R-D-R then would we stop getting up in arms about it while pretending the other side didn't do it?
motyak wrote: Has anyone acknowledged d-usa's point that this is pretty much a recurring theme? If it happens with the next admin, then it's happened R-D-R then would we stop getting up in arms about it while pretending the other side didn't do it?
Just to be clear though, I don't think it is right simply because both sides are doing it. I do think it's complete bs and an insult to all of us to pretend this really happened. I don't think we should care less about it happening simply because of who the guys in charge are or if we disagree with them.
I'm just pragmatic enough to realize that neither party has any vested interest in actually fixing the problem. So other than grand-standing nothing will happen because they want to get away with it later as well.
Grey Templar wrote: Do you really think they have a server dedicated for their e-mail?
Yes. It is a massive organization which processes thousands of emails every day. That is a huge amount of data, which would require a dedicated server.
And if said e-mails had actually disappeared when they claim they did then we would not have heard about it immediately upon those e-mails being wanted?
I was unaware that the IRS made a specific claim regarding the date of the disappearance of the emails. But at any rate, no, we would not.
Missing data can only be accounted for by way of the presence of other data. Analogically the sequence (1,2,3,5) only appears to be missing 4 because (1,2,3,5) establishes a consistent pattern with which we are all familiar. But if we're discussing something more complicated, like the email habits of an IRS director, patterns are only forthcoming after a good deal of research; and even then specifics will not be available.
We also wouldn't know that "just those emails" are missing.
There is no way of knowing what, if any other, emails were wiped out unless you have prior knowledge of what ever other email stored in the same area would be.
(CNN) – Republican lawmakers are slamming the Internal Revenue Service, with one calling for an immediate investigation, after the agency notified Congress Friday that it was unable to recover former official Lois Lerner’s e-mails from January 2009 to April 2011 because of a computer crash.
The agency made the disclosure in a letter sent to Congressional investigators Friday afternoon, according a statement from Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-Louisiana.
Lerner, former director of the IRS’ exempt organizations division, is a central figure in the IRS controversy involving the agency’s targeting of tea party and other interest-specific groups. Her e-mails were subpoenaed by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, in an attempt to learn whether other outside agencies were potentially involved in the flagging of applications from those groups.
In a statement, the IRS said that Lerner tried to recover her e-mails after her hard drive broke down but was unable to do so. The agency said it then worked backward to recover the missing e-mails from recipients of the messages.
"At the time, Ms. Lerner asked IRS IT professionals to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so,” the IRS said. “Nonetheless, the IRS has or will produce 24,000 Lerner e-mails from this 2009-2011 time period, largely from the files of the other 82 individuals. The IRS's production to Congress of the 67,000 Lerner e-mails is nearly complete."
On Friday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp issued a statement questioning the credibility of the IRS’ compliance with the congressional investigation for not having raised the issue sooner. He also called for an immediate investigation.
“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to Congressional inquiries,” Camp said. “There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General.
But the IRS said it advised the Senate Finance Committee three months ago that it had completed the production of materials related to the committee’s investigation and that the missing Lerner e-mails are part of an additional search.
Issa went a step further, saying that the crash was “convenient” for the Obama administration, and that they are playing games. Echoing Camp’s comments on credibility, Issa said that the supposed loss of Lerner’s documents damages the credibility of claims that the IRS is complying with congressional requests to seek the truth.
Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that while he is concerned about the missing documents, he is also “greatly troubled” by the administration’s failure to notify his committee of the computer crash when they first became aware of it. This new information, he says, “will without question delay our investigation.”
Hatch says he is looking forward to a “forthright discussion” with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on the matter next week.
The IRS insists that it has made unprecedented efforts to produce the documents needed to help complete the investigations. According to a statement, their efforts to respond to Congress’ requests have involved more than 250 IRS employees working more than 120,000 hours at a direct cost of nearly $10 million. The agency says it has thus far delivered more than 750,000 pages of documents to Congress.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, was less critical, but said his committee is working to determine if any documents were withheld. “We’re working to finalize the Committee’s bipartisan investigation of the IRS’s review and processing of applications for tax exempt status,” Wyden said in a statement. “To date, our effort has included a review of hundreds of thousands of related pages of documents and over 30 interviews. We are now working with the IRS to determine if any relevant documents were not provided and will continue to work toward a release of our bipartisan report.”
Yeah.... that is the equivalent of saying that the dog ate her homework
whembly wrote: I have been in the IT industry long enough to deal with Exchange Server in various capacity. For instance, the IRS is most likely using (snip)
Again, neither you nor anyone else in this thread knows feth-all about the specifics of the IT infrastructure of the IRS. It's all criticism based upon speculation. You're assuming they use Exchange, you are assuming what version, you're assuming offsite backup, and you're assuming tape. All assumptions predicated on the fact you see malice where incompetence adequately answers the question. I don't even know if SOX applies to the IRS.
I hope the fact that I pointed at the Bush administration and speculated that intentional incompetence is responsible, rather than a Machiavellian scheme, doesn't make it seem that I excuse what happened. I think there needs to be a congressional subcommittee and make sure there was no violation of the law, and that if anyone did break the law, they are prosecuted. I'm not saying it's OK, just saying this is what usually happens and nothing is typically the result. Still, we need to get this Kabuki going.
Now, the Michigan Republican says the Obama administration should conduct an “administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner.”
The IRS explains in the letter that it has not always backed up all employee emails due to the cost the agency would incur for allowing 90,000 employees to store their information on the IRS’s internal system.
Currently, IRS employees have the capacity to store about 6,000 emails in their active Outlook email boxes, which are saved on the IRS centralized network. But the letter and background document sent to the Hill Friday said they could only store about 1,800 emails in their active folders prior to July 2011.
When their inboxes were full, IRS employees had to make room by either deleting emails or archiving them on their personal computers. Archived data were not stored by the IRS but by the individual.
Such archived emails on Lerner’s computer were what were lost when her computer crashed.
“Any of Ms. Lerner’s email that was only stored on that computer’s hard drive would have been lost when the hard drive crashed and could not be recovered,” the letter reads.
Overall, more than 250 IRS employees have spent more than 120,000 hours digging up documents and emails for congressional investigators, spending $10 million.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Finance Committee that is also probing the matter, released a more neutral statement.
“We’re working to finalize the committee’s bipartisan investigation of the IRS’s review and processing of applications for tax-exempt status,” Wyden said. “To date, our effort has included a review of hundreds of thousands of related pages of documents and over 30 interviews. We are now working with the IRS to determine if any relevant documents were not provided and will continue to work toward a release of our bipartisan report.”
whembly wrote: I have been in the IT industry long enough to deal with Exchange Server in various capacity. For instance, the IRS is most likely using (snip)
Again, neither you nor anyone else in this thread knows feth-all about the specifics of the IT infrastructure of the IRS. It's all criticism based upon speculation. You're assuming they use Exchange, you are assuming what version, you're assuming offsite backup, and you're assuming tape. All assumptions predicated on the fact you see malice where incompetence adequately answers the question. I don't even know if SOX applies to the IRS.
(CNN) –
In a statement, the IRS said that Lerner tried to recover her e-mails after her hard drive broke down but was unable to do so. The agency said it then worked backward to recover the missing e-mails from recipients of the messages.
"At the time, Ms. Lerner asked IRS IT professionals to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so,” the IRS said. “Nonetheless, the IRS has or will produce 24,000 Lerner e-mails from this 2009-2011 time period, largely from the files of the other 82 individuals. The IRS's production to Congress of the 67,000 Lerner e-mails is nearly complete."
To whit, you don't lose your emails if your computer's hard drive dies. This excuse is so flimsy it can be spat through
whembly wrote: I have been in the IT industry long enough to deal with Exchange Server in various capacity. For instance, the IRS is most likely using (snip)
Again, neither you nor anyone else in this thread knows feth-all about the specifics of the IT infrastructure of the IRS. It's all criticism based upon speculation. You're assuming they use Exchange, you are assuming what version, you're assuming offsite backup, and you're assuming tape. All assumptions predicated on the fact you see malice where incompetence adequately answers the question. I don't even know if SOX applies to the IRS.
(CNN) –
In a statement, the IRS said that Lerner tried to recover her e-mails after her hard drive broke down but was unable to do so. The agency said it then worked backward to recover the missing e-mails from recipients of the messages.
"At the time, Ms. Lerner asked IRS IT professionals to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so,” the IRS said. “Nonetheless, the IRS has or will produce 24,000 Lerner e-mails from this 2009-2011 time period, largely from the files of the other 82 individuals. The IRS's production to Congress of the 67,000 Lerner e-mails is nearly complete."
IRS IT professionals hard at work to recover the lost emails.
To whit, you don't lose your emails if your computer's hard drive dies. This excuse is so flimsy it can be spat through
If they're exclusively stored on the drive which failed you very well might.
Additionally, I'm uncertain as to what your quote was meant to prove; given that it refers to emails produced from the records of people that are not Lois Lerner.
To whit, you don't lose your emails if your computer's hard drive dies. This excuse is so flimsy it can be spat through
If they're exclusively stored on the drive which failed you very well might.
Additionally, I'm uncertain as to what your quote was meant to prove; given that it refers to emails produced from the records of people that are not Lois Lerner.
I agree with Avatar 720 here. Perhaps this means something else to someone who does this for a living,but I'd certainly say they use Exchange.
Refrain from sending large attachments to work groups or audiences. Remember every email message and any attachments, embedded graphics and photographs require a copy for each Exchange server store where each recipient’s mailbox resides. Instead store the document on an IRS public web archive or SharePoint repository and insert a hyperlink into the message. Ensure the permissions allow access by all recipients prior to sending the message.
Avatar 720 wrote: As someone untrained in deciphering that link I found two references to Exchange, implying that the IRS uses it in at least some capacity.
You are correct, the IRS uses Exchange and have admitted that fact. Also it is highly improbable (I would say virtually impossible) that the emails were solely stored on the HDD of Lerner's computer.
Avatar 720 wrote: As someone untrained in deciphering that link I found two references to Exchange, implying that the IRS uses it in at least some capacity.
You are correct, the IRS uses Exchange and have admitted that fact. Also it is highly improbable (I would say virtually impossible) that the emails were solely stored on the HDD of Lerner's computer.
I can actually somewhat believe that.
We have limited Outlook mailboxes as well. And once full we have to delete them to make room on the servers. They don't have 6 years worth of "yeah, I'll work overtime" and "that doctor was mean to me" emails that I wrote, but then again I'm not exactly anyone important either though.
-Shrike- wrote: I agree with Avatar 720 here. Perhaps this means something else to someone who does this for a living,but I'd certainly say they use Exchange.
Yeah, I missed that. That's what I get for using a document search instead of reading carefully.
You are correct, the IRS uses Exchange and have admitted that fact. Also it is highly improbable (I would say virtually impossible) that the emails were solely stored on the HDD of Lerner's computer.
According to the article Ouze posted at the time in question IRS personnel could only store 1800 emails on the Exchange server, a number I suspect Ms. Lerner exceeded several times over.
As time goes on, the less I care about political parties and the more I care about individual politicians. Donkeys and elephants might be whole different species, but when they gak it smells the same.
whembly wrote: I have been in the IT industry long enough to deal with Exchange Server in various capacity. For instance, the IRS is most likely using (snip)
Again, neither you nor anyone else in this thread knows feth-all about the specifics of the IT infrastructure of the IRS. It's all criticism based upon speculation. You're assuming they use Exchange, you are assuming what version, you're assuming offsite backup, and you're assuming tape. All assumptions predicated on the fact you see malice where incompetence adequately answers the question. I don't even know if SOX applies to the IRS.
Dude I'm not assuming they've even made it beyond punchcards...
d-usa wrote: I can actually somewhat believe that.
We have limited Outlook mailboxes as well. And once full we have to delete them to make room on the servers. They don't have 6 years worth of "yeah, I'll work overtime" and "that doctor was mean to me" emails that I wrote, but then again I'm not exactly anyone important either though.
For the rank and file I can believe that there is limited inbox space. I agree that as inboxs fill up that you make a decision to delete based on what is mundane v what is important. At the time this was still a ongoing issue within the IRS, it stands to reason that any discussion about an ongoing process (especially one that is legitimate) would not be removed by the parties involved. It defies any logic.
What I cannot believe is that by deleting an email on a sender's computer that it is magically deleted on the recipient's also.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: What I cannot believe is that by deleting an email on a sender's computer that it is magically deleted on the recipient's also.
Not exactly, but if the sender deletes it, and the recipient also deletes or archives it (locally), the server copy is removed, if it's set up that way.
In other words, unless there is a retention policy to prevent this, if I send you an email, and then I delete it from my sent items (or have it set to archive locally), and you get it, decide it's not important, and delete it, on day 31 it's gone, essentially. There is a single copy on my local computer hard drive, assuming it's archived there, and the copy you deleted is generally removed after sitting in deleted items for 30 days.
When I was supporting several different companies, at least one was set up this way - a big, fortune 1000 mining company. They had migrated from Groupwise and had no idea how to administer exchange, and had a terrible IT admin in general. I have no idea what they would do if they were sued and forced to produce email for litigation.
Another company I formerly supported, a 6 billion dollar realty company, tried to avoid this by having all of the PST's sorted on a share drive. The archives were routinely allowed to grow far, far in excess of the 2gb break size upon which corrupted data moves from being a possibility to a an inevitability. Yes, they had redundant backups and tape backups, as many copies of the unusable, corrupted data as you'd like.
Spoiler:
As an amusing aside, whenever they would patch the print server, every single client PC in the company would be forced to re-download drivers for their computers; and it manifested itself as the computer freezing for 20 minutes at a black screen. We must have taken thousands of calls every time that happened, and it happened fairly frequently. This is the kind of stuff that would happen all the time.
The point of this story is that, in my experience in the IT field, you'd be amazed at some of the incompetence and unreliability you find in real life versus how you expect things to work. Many companies resent that they have to spend money on IT at all and continuously underfund their departments, which results in expensive losses in productivity. Penny wise, pound foolish is the order of the day. I've been doing this almost 20 years, and I've really only worked for two companies that actually had intelligent IT planning, and one of which is because due to their business, they were often attacked by external forces of phishers hackers, and miscreants - they recognized early on that cheap IT is super expensive when you have company secrets that are worth something.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: What I cannot believe is that by deleting an email on a sender's computer that it is magically deleted on the recipient's also.
Not exactly, but if the sender deletes it, and the recipient also deletes or archives it (locally), the server copy is removed, if it's set up that way.
In other words, unless there is a retention policy to prevent this, if I send you an email, and then I delete it from my sent items (or have it set to archive locally), and you get it, decide it's not important, and delete it, on day 31 it's gone, essentially. There is a single copy on my local computer hard drive, assuming it's archived there, and the copy you deleted is generally removed after sitting in deleted items for 30 days.
When I was supporting several different companies, at least one was set up this way - a big, fortune 1000 mining company. They had migrated from Groupwise and had no idea how to administer exchange, and had a terrible IT admin in general. I have no idea what they would do if they were sued and forced to produce email for litigation.
Another company I formerly supported, a 6 billion dollar realty company, tried to avoid this by having all of the PST's sorted on a share drive. The archives were routinely allowed to grow far, far in excess of the 2gb break size upon which corrupted data moves from being a possibility to a an inevitability. Yes, they had redundant backups and tape backups, as many copies of the unusable, corrupted data as you'd like.
Spoiler:
As an amusing aside, whenever they would patch the print server, every single client PC in the company would be forced to re-download drivers for their computers; and it manifested itself as the computer freezing for 20 minutes at a black screen. We must have taken thousands of calls every time that happened, and it happened fairly frequently. This is the kind of stuff that would happen all the time.
The point of this story is that, in my experience in the IT field, you'd be amazed at some of the incompetence and unreliability you find in real life versus how you expect things to work. Many companies resent that they have to spend money on IT at all and continuously underfund their departments, which results in expensive losses in productivity. Penny wise, pound foolish is the order of the day. I've been doing this almost 20 years, and I've really only worked for two companies that actually had intelligent IT planning, and one of which is because due to their business, they were often attacked by external forces of phishers hackers, and miscreants - they recognized early on that cheap IT is super expensive when you have company secrets that are worth something.
What I am saying is not that you are incorrect. What I am saying is the IRS's statement is very clear - they did not blame server issues for the loss of emails, they did not blame the passage of time for emails being archived or deleted. They very clearly said that the emails cannot be retrieved because of a hard drive failure in one employee's work computer in a network.
So we have a scenario in the IRS with emails about a live process going to multiple people, across multiple agencies, with a number of people involved, and a lot of hardware involved, so there are lots of emails that have graced more than just Lerner's computer. Yet we're supposed to believe that because the hard drive failed on her computer (not a server, not a back up) that every single email is lost.
CNN - "At the time, Ms. Lerner asked IRS IT professionals to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so,” the IRS said. “Nonetheless, the IRS has or will produce 24,000 Lerner e-mails from this 2009-2011 time period, largely from the files of the other 82 individuals. The IRS's production to Congress of the 67,000 Lerner e-mails is nearly complete."
What I am saying is not that you are incorrect. What I am saying is the IRS's statement is very clear - they did not blame server issues for the loss of emails, they did not blame the passage of time for emails being archived or deleted. They very clearly said that the emails cannot be retrieved because of a hard drive failure in one employee's work computer in a network.
The IRS never claimed Lerner's emails were contained within a network, or that her computer was in any network beyond that associated with her email account.
So we have a scenario in the IRS with emails about a live process going to multiple people, across multiple agencies, with a number of people involved, and a lot of hardware involved, so there are lots of emails that have graced more than just Lerner's computer. Yet we're supposed to believe that because the hard drive failed on her computer (not a server, not a back up) that every single email is lost.
Something which ostensibly occurred between 2009 and 2011 is not a "live process" by any stretch of the imagination. You also have no proof that "multiple agencies" were involved, and if anyone did those agencies would have been subpoenaed.
CNN - "At the time, Ms. Lerner asked IRS IT professionals to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so,” the IRS said. “Nonetheless, the IRS has or will produce 24,000 Lerner e-mails from this 2009-2011 time period, largely from the files of the other 82 individuals. The IRS's production to Congress of the 67,000 Lerner e-mails is nearly complete."
Perhaps I don't understand what you're saying.
Perhaps it is phrasing on my part. I have never used an email system where emails are stored on an individual's computer in a manner that the loss of data on the same individual's hard drive would completely obliterate the same emails.
We'll just have to wait to see what the contents of the disclosed emails are
The IRS told Congress yesterday that two years of emails on Tax Exempt Organizations department manager Lois Lerner’s desktop were irretrievably lost due to a hard drive crash in 2011. As this is a technology blog, how could this event happen?
The Internal Revenue Service has 90,000 employees working in a complex financial-services organization. Like its private-sector counterparts, the IRS has a sophisticated Information Technology organization because the IRS mission is implementing the tax laws of the United States. The IRS is the epitome of a paper-pushing organization, and by 2011 paper-pushing was done by email.
1. The IRS first installed Microsoft’s enterprise email product, Exchange in the data center and Outlook on client desktops in 1998, about the same time as many Fortune 500 organizations. By 2011, the IRS had over a decade of operational experience.
2. Hard drives are the weak-link in IT installations. These mechanical devices fail at the rate of about 5% a year. With 90,000 employees, that works out to an average of 4,500 a year or 22 per work day. The IRS IT staff is very familiar with the consequences of user-PC hard drive failures. Data center storage management is another leaf in the same book.
3. The IRS reported to Congress that senior executive Lerner’s hard drive failed, and nothing could be recovered from it. It was forensically tested. As a result, the IRS claims, there is no record of the emails that were sent or received from Ms. Lerner’s computer. The thousands of emails recovered to date were extracted from sender or recipient email lists within the IRS, not from Lerner’s files. There is no record of emails to other federal departments, or to other organizations or personal emails.
4. The implication is that the Lerner email history only resided on her computer. There is no other IT explanation. Yet Microsoft Exchange in the data center stores copies of all email chains on multiple hard drives on multiple, synchronized email servers. That’s the way all enterprise email systems have to work. So the facts as stated make no IT sense.
But let’s look at the implications of a strategy where the Lerner email history only resided on her computer and the hard drive failed completely so nothing could be recovered:
Where are the Lerner PC backups? With a 5% annual failure rate, industry-wide PC backup strategies are as old as centralized email. There should be Lerner PC backups made by IRS IT. Leave it up to the user to make backups? No organization the size of the IRS allows that for all the obvious reasons that come to mind, starting with it doesn’t work in practice.
How could Lois Lerner do her work? The hard drive was lost and there were no PC backups. Besides losing two years worth of emails, GS-15 department head Lerner had to also lose all the data of a digital business life: calendar; contacts; personnel notes; work-in-process plans, schedules, meeting notes, reviews, budget spreadsheets, official IRS rulings.
It is inconceivable that a modern executive could be stripped of all her business data and not face-plant within a week. Could you? Not me. Nobody has paper backup for everything anymore. Your business smartphone backs up to your PC.
The Exchange servers log every email coming into and going out of the IRS. Did the whole set of IRS backup tapes fail in an unreported catastrophe? That primary (but undiscovered) failure would make the routine failure of Lerner’s PC unrecoverable.
I cannot think of an acceptable reason for the unexplained yet unrecoverable loss of the data on Lerner’s PC while following the usual practices every IT organization I have worked with over decades. Which leaves only two alternatives: a much clearer explanation from IRS IT professionals of how these events could happen; or something nefarious is going on.
Follow me on Twitter @peterskastner
The author’s experience with federal email and records management began with the Ronald Reagan White House in 1982.
Also, keep in mind that the IRS absolutely MUST use electronic records such as these emails as evidence in court. Given that the haphazard way the IRS wants us to believe how they handle emails... there is no way that this passes the smell test.
IF, and that's a big if, it’s up to each individual to store emails on their own PC, then how can they establish the trustworthiness of those records to be used in the court of law? You can’t prove it hasn’t been altered if we’re supposed to believe that it resides for years only on an individual’s desktop computer. In the IRS' case, it would be asinine to do this.
Just to give everyone the basic of what is a typical email architecture:
I. All email comes through the mail servers (in this case Microsoft Exchange). Before an email is sent or delivered a copy is made on the server that cannot be changed or deleted. A disk crash on an individual’s PC will therefore not cause the loss of the emails on the server. Furthermore, you can’t lose one person’s email on a server without losing everyone else’s.
II. The Microsoft Exchange Mail server, if properly administered, has multiple redundant backups of the database. Microsoft implements something they call a Database Availability Group (DAG) to prevent the loss of email traffic. A DAG is implemented as a group of servers where each server backs up the other servers in the DAG. So if you have a DAG with 10 servers there would be the original database and nine copies.
III. These days in large data centers applications do not store data directly on physical disks. Instead something called a Storage Array Network (SAN) is used. A SAN is one or more cabinets the size of a refrigerator filed with high-density, high-speed disks which are accessed through a sophisticated disk controller. The disk controller and software clump all disks in the SAN into one large pool of available disk space. The administrator can then crave out individual virtual drives of any size desired. Furthermore, RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) technology can be applied on the SAN. Basically RAID duplicates the data across disks in the SAN so that if any one disk goes bad, the data is not lost. The SAN then marks the bad disk and starts replicating the data on other disks in the SAN. The bad disk can then be hot-swapped with a new disk and everything goes on. This all happens in a way that is completely transparent to the mail server.
IV. The mail server databases should be backed up to tape every day, or as is done in my shop is backed up to v-tape which is yet another redundant SAN application. This is simply best industry practice. This is done in case the database becomes corrupted for some reason where it can be restored.
Congress should subpoena all the tech guys in the IRS’ shop that would have responsibility for anything to do with email servers, storage and hardware. Put them under oath and ask some pointed and testy questions about email servers, their storage and backup practices. The truth will spill out and some people in the IRS should be going to jail for obstruction of Justice/Congress.
If they cannot provide adequate explanation... then, a special prosecuter from the DoJ need to be established.
IRS offices may transfer electronic records to NARA on magnetic tape using either open-reel magnetic tape or tape cartridges. Open-reel tape should be on 1/2 inch 9-track tape reels recorded at 1600 or 6250 bytes per inch and blocked no higher than 32,760 bytes per block. Tape cartridges should be 18-track 3480-class cartridges recorded at 37,871 bpi and blocked at no more than 32,760 bytes per block.
I don't see any necessary relevance, given that "may" is not "must" and "transfer" is not "backup".
Also, keep in mind that the IRS absolutely MUST use electronic records such as these emails as evidence in court.
How did you come to this conclusion?
Que?
In order to establish the trustworthiness of electronic records for judicial proceedings they have to verify that security and audit procedures prevent unauthorized addition, modification, or deletion of a record.
Failing that... the lawyers would have a field day.
whembly wrote: Before an email is sent or delivered a copy is made on the server that cannot be changed or deleted.
By the individual. Whoever is managing the server is fully able to do either.
Exactly... forensic would be able to determine if it was purposely done.
In order to establish the trustworthiness of electronic records for judicial proceedings they have to verify that security and audit procedures prevent unauthorized addition, modification, or deletion of a record.
Failing that... the lawyers would have a field day.
The document you cited specifically differentiates between "electronic records" and "e-mail". There is even a sub-heading called "When are e-mail messages records? " which appears to have been changed as of March, 2014. As such it is entirely possible that Lerner's emails were not required to be backed up, because they were not considered to be "records".
Exactly... forensic would be able to determine if it was purposely done.
And that would mean nothing, as someone could purposely delete an email from a server or local hard drive without any malicious intent simply because they were not required to keep it.
Yes. Who would the special prosecutor be prosecuting? Certainly not the IRS, as that would be ridiculous given that it cannot be criminally punished, and a civil judgment has tons of Constitutional issues. It also wouldn't be Lois Lerner as that would already have been done.
So what would such a person do, at least aside from waste tax-payer dollars.
The place I work at now, and the place before it both were trying to undertake a process of ensuring all important and somewhat important emails were properly recorded and preserved through records management. It's a bitch of a process, both in terms of the technical stuff (which I understand not at all) and the cultural change (because people really can't be bothered dealing with unwieldy records management systems). In both cases the reforms were driven by parliamentary questions that were not able to be fully met because emails had been lost.
So in terms of the IRS being unable to recover lots of emails, well it means their systems are poor and need reform, but its hardly evidence of a conspiracy. This isn't to say there is no conspiracy to cover anything up- 'sorry we lost that' is second only to 'I can't recall' in the arsenal of the cover up, just that it isn't evidence in and of itself.
Anyhow, this is all getting really Benghazi really quickly - there are some feth ups here that Congress and the nation ought to investigate, but the hyperbolic nature of the investigation, looking for grand presidential crashing conspiracies in everything, just makes me start to reflexively react against the investigation.
sebster wrote: The place I work at now, and the place before it both were trying to undertake a process of ensuring all important and somewhat important emails were properly recorded and preserved through records management. It's a bitch of a process, both in terms of the technical stuff (which I understand not at all) and the cultural change (because people really can't be bothered dealing with unwieldy records management systems). In both cases the reforms were driven by parliamentary questions that were not able to be fully met because emails had been lost.
So in terms of the IRS being unable to recover lots of emails, well it means their systems are poor and need reform, but its hardly evidence of a conspiracy. This isn't to say there is no conspiracy to cover anything up- 'sorry we lost that' is second only to 'I can't recall' in the arsenal of the cover up, just that it isn't evidence in and of itself.
Anyhow, this is all getting really Benghazi really quickly - there are some feth ups here that Congress and the nation ought to investigate, but the hyperbolic nature of the investigation, looking for grand presidential crashing conspiracies in everything, just makes me start to reflexively react against the investigation.
Seb... think of the absolute lamest, dumbest excuse one could use in your industry, where everyone in your field would immediately raise the red flag.
sebster wrote: The place I work at now, and the place before it both were trying to undertake a process of ensuring all important and somewhat important emails were properly recorded and preserved through records management. It's a bitch of a process, both in terms of the technical stuff (which I understand not at all) and the cultural change (because people really can't be bothered dealing with unwieldy records management systems). In both cases the reforms were driven by parliamentary questions that were not able to be fully met because emails had been lost.
So in terms of the IRS being unable to recover lots of emails, well it means their systems are poor and need reform, but its hardly evidence of a conspiracy. This isn't to say there is no conspiracy to cover anything up- 'sorry we lost that' is second only to 'I can't recall' in the arsenal of the cover up, just that it isn't evidence in and of itself.
Anyhow, this is all getting really Benghazi really quickly - there are some feth ups here that Congress and the nation ought to investigate, but the hyperbolic nature of the investigation, looking for grand presidential crashing conspiracies in everything, just makes me start to reflexively react against the investigation.
Seb... think of the absolute lamest, dumbest excuse one could use in your industry, where everyone in your field would immediately raise the red flag.
This is it here.
It actually isn't. I work in IT and having automatic rules that remove emails from the Exchange servers and store them on the individual recipients hard drive is a pretty common configuration designed to save space on the email servers. Do you have any idea of the amount of space needed to store this type of information? And the vast, vast majority of it is pretty useless in the first place.
Now most companies that work with sensitive data will have processes in place to store emails that are essential to the company itself, but those are workflow processes and in no way are they automatic features of an Exchange server, if the IRS has those processes in place or not, I have no idea.
All in all, as far as excuses go, this one is a pretty plausible one.
sebster wrote: The place I work at now, and the place before it both were trying to undertake a process of ensuring all important and somewhat important emails were properly recorded and preserved through records management. It's a bitch of a process, both in terms of the technical stuff (which I understand not at all) and the cultural change (because people really can't be bothered dealing with unwieldy records management systems). In both cases the reforms were driven by parliamentary questions that were not able to be fully met because emails had been lost.
So in terms of the IRS being unable to recover lots of emails, well it means their systems are poor and need reform, but its hardly evidence of a conspiracy. This isn't to say there is no conspiracy to cover anything up- 'sorry we lost that' is second only to 'I can't recall' in the arsenal of the cover up, just that it isn't evidence in and of itself.
Anyhow, this is all getting really Benghazi really quickly - there are some feth ups here that Congress and the nation ought to investigate, but the hyperbolic nature of the investigation, looking for grand presidential crashing conspiracies in everything, just makes me start to reflexively react against the investigation.
Seb... think of the absolute lamest, dumbest excuse one could use in your industry, where everyone in your field would immediately raise the red flag.
This is it here.
It actually isn't. I work in IT and having automatic rules that remove emails from the Exchange servers and store them on the individual recipients hard drive is a pretty common configuration designed to save space on the email servers. Do you have any idea of the amount of space needed to store this type of information? And the vast, vast majority of it is pretty useless in the first place.
Now most companies that work with sensitive data will have processes in place to store emails that are essential to the company itself, but those are workflow processes and in no way are they automatic features of an Exchange server, if the IRS has those processes in place or not, I have no idea.
All in all, as far as excuses go, this one is a pretty plausible one.
But conveniently over the time period in question of the subpoenas? Pardon me if I'm skeptical.
For instance... my email archive (I work in the IT healthcare industry) is just over 14GB, encompassing 14 years worth on a network resource. (huh... a gig a year... that's interesting.) That's an ass-ton of emails. We are prohibited by policy from storing our archives on our workstations because of the nature of patient confidentiality and audits.
Besides... Under multiple records retention regulations, and primarily the Federal Records Act , the IRS is required to preserve those emails or otherwise contemporaneously transmit records for preservation (ie, print outs).
d-usa wrote: Look at all that plausible deniability making any talk about criminal prosecutions a complete waste of time.
Except its already been shown how there is really almost no plausible denability in this case.
The "they deleted emails on purpose" case?
It has holes bigger than the border fence.
It happens more than you think... there are cases out of the wazoo... Here's one:
Aramburu v. The Boeing Co. Cliffnotes: When evidence has been destroyed, or sometimes just lost, some jurisdictions recognize a tort action against the person responsible for spoliation based on the unavailability of the evidence.
It's called "spoliation", where the court would permit an inference that the evidence was unfavorable to the party allegedly responsible for the loss or destruction.
d-usa wrote: Look at all that plausible deniability making any talk about criminal prosecutions a complete waste of time.
This unfortunately is the bottom line. We can argue about what their email systems should be vs what they actually implemented, and then the goalposts will move to what their infrastructure storage is supposed to be like vs how it was actually implemented, and so on and so forth but ultimately it's a huge waste of time. You can argue about how a bunch of email getting lost because it was archived onto a user's hard drives shouldn't happen, but it can and does happen, I've seen it happen many times in the real world from large well funded organizations that should know better, and ultimately it is going to be utterly impossible to prove to a jury that someone, somewhere actually did this on purpose* vs simple entrenched bureaucratic incompetence.
*That being said, there needs to be an investigation anyway to make sure no one actually did destroy evidence, that whatever data safeguards that the IRS has in place are adequate; and if not establish some that are, and if established guidelines were let slip due to incompetence, some jobs need to be lost.
whembly wrote: It's called "spoliation", where the court would permit an inference that the evidence was unfavorable to the party allegedly responsible for the loss or destruction.
The problem is that's it's exceedingly unlikely you will be able to identify one single person responsible for lost data. Is it the system designer? The exchange admin? The person who decided what the quota should be on Exchange? Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi, WD, or whoever designed the hard drive? The vendor who designed the hard drive firmware? The guys who built the platters in Malaysia? The deskside tier 2 guys who tried to recover her drive and failed? The people responsible for her hard drive offsite backup that didn't make sure her data was backed up? The person who decided they only needed to bck up the last 3 or so years of data?
Does being bad at your job, or being good at your job of implementing a bad design or policy rise to a criminal action? You know it's not possible to prosecute anyone for this unless they uncover some conspiracy.
As a federal employee, I can tell you that the limits on email storage are extremely harsh. In our orientation training they make it quite clear that email is not stored secondarily on the server; if you clear your deleted items folder, those emails are gone and wont be recovered. If you were to try to get my email from the exchange server, you would get on average about 5 messages. Everything else is stored in an archive file the moment a task or exchange is complete. Hell, our email system rules automatically purge email after 4 weeks, and we are a much smaller agency than the IRS, whose email traffic will be expontentially higher than here at the FTC. It is pretty much on the employee to save their email, a lesson I learned the hard way when I was at DOJ.
streamdragon wrote: As a federal employee, I can tell you that the limits on email storage are extremely harsh. In our orientation training they make it quite clear that email is not stored secondarily on the server; if you clear your deleted items folder, those emails are gone and wont be recovered. If you were to try to get my email from the exchange server, you would get on average about 5 messages. Everything else is stored in an archive file the moment a task or exchange is complete. Hell, our email system rules automatically purge email after 4 weeks, and we are a much smaller agency than the IRS, whose email traffic will be expontentially higher than here at the FTC. It is pretty much on the employee to save their email, a lesson I learned the hard way when I was at DOJ.
Interesting.
Damn... Federal (and State I'm assuming) are held to different standards then.
Obviously I can't speak for the IRS, since I dont work there and their policies can and will vary from the FTC. The one common thread though is that storage for all employees is at a premium. I keep my email archive on the network drive, but I dont have to keep tons of documents like someone in Lerner's position would so I can afford to use my little bit of space to do that. I can easily imagine someone using the hard disk of their machine to store email archives or extra personal files. I would never do it here, because I have a laptop/docking station set up and sometimes have to take the laptop home. I dont store anything on it just in case it gets lost or stolen.
I think if Lerner / the IRS were really trying to hide emails from Congress / the IG, they wouldnt be making the effort to get copies of those emails from other individuals, beyong a cursory unenforced request. Could it be foul play? Sure, it could, and it should be investigated to be 100% sure. Do I think this is some rookie level cloak-and-dagger stuff to keep THE SECRETZ? Not even a little bit.
IRS: Hey sorry we "lost" Lois Lerner's emails CRITIC: It's not credible you only lost Lois Lerner's emails IRS: Oh right we lost other emails too CRITIC: Whose? IRS: Other people involved in the targeting of conservatives CRITIC: Oh
It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.
The IRS told Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the targeting scandal.
The revelation about Lerner’s e-mails rekindled the scandal and today’s news has further inflamed Republicans. Camp and Boustany are now demanding a special prosecutor to investigate “every angle” of the targeting. They expressed particular outrage that the agency has known since February that it would not be able to produce the e-mails requested by the committee yet did not apprise the committee of that fact, and they charged in a statement that the IRS is attempting to “cover up the fact that it convenient lost key documents in the investigation.”
If Lerner is the central figure in the scandal — Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa said Monday evening he believes she was the senior-most official involved — Flax may be an important auxiliary figure. E-mails produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the group Judicial Watch show Flax giving the green light to Lerner’s request to meet with Department of Justice officials to explore the possibility of criminally prosecuting nonprofit groups — at the suggestion of Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse — for engaging in political activity after declaring on their application for nonprofit status that they had no plans to do so.
E-mails uncovered by the committee last week showed that, in preparation for her meeting with the Department of Justice, Lerner and one of her advisers transmitted 1.1 million pages of data on nonprofit groups, including confidential taxpayer information, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, potentially in violation of federal law.
whembly wrote: It's called "spoliation", where the court would permit an inference that the evidence was unfavorable to the party allegedly responsible for the loss or destruction.
The problem is that's it's exceedingly unlikely you will be able to identify one single person responsible for lost data. Is it the system designer? The exchange admin? The person who decided what the quota should be on Exchange? Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi, WD, or whoever designed the hard drive? The vendor who designed the hard drive firmware? The guys who built the platters in Malaysia? The deskside tier 2 guys who tried to recover her drive and failed? The people responsible for her hard drive offsite backup that didn't make sure her data was backed up? The person who decided they only needed to bck up the last 3 or so years of data?
Does being bad at your job, or being good at your job of implementing a bad design or policy rise to a criminal action? You know it's not possible to prosecute anyone for this unless they uncover some conspiracy.
That isn't how that works...
In civil litigation, when the other party is shown to have spoliated evidence, you win the legal conclusion you were trying to prove. The question then is this: How would this work on government agencies?
It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.
So consistency regarding the way IRS records were treated by the IRS is now evidence of intentional wrongdoing?
Like it or not, if it cannot be shown that any given IRS employee violated the law nothing can be done regarding criminal punishment.
If Lerner is the central figure in the scandal — Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa said Monday evening he believes she was the senior-most official involved — Flax may be an important auxiliary figure. E-mails produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the group Judicial Watch show Flax giving the green light to Lerner’s request to meet with Department of Justice officials to explore the possibility of criminally prosecuting nonprofit groups — at the suggestion of Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse — for engaging in political activity after declaring on their application for nonprofit status that they had no plans to do so.
I don't see the problem. The IRS explored the possibility of criminally prosecuting NPOs (presumably 501(c)3s) that may have engaged in political activity, despite not being allowed to do so.
IRS: Hey sorry we "lost" Lois Lerner's emails
CRITIC: It's not credible you only lost Lois Lerner's emails
IRS: Oh right we lost other emails too
CRITIC: Whose?
IRS: Other people involved in the targeting of conservatives
CRITIC: Oh
It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.
Spoiler:
The IRS told Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the targeting scandal.
The revelation about Lerner’s e-mails rekindled the scandal and today’s news has further inflamed Republicans. Camp and Boustany are now demanding a special prosecutor to investigate “every angle” of the targeting. They expressed particular outrage that the agency has known since February that it would not be able to produce the e-mails requested by the committee yet did not apprise the committee of that fact, and they charged in a statement that the IRS is attempting to “cover up the fact that it convenient lost key documents in the investigation.”
If Lerner is the central figure in the scandal — Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa said Monday evening he believes she was the senior-most official involved — Flax may be an important auxiliary figure. E-mails produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the group Judicial Watch show Flax giving the green light to Lerner’s request to meet with Department of Justice officials to explore the possibility of criminally prosecuting nonprofit groups — at the suggestion of Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse — for engaging in political activity after declaring on their application for nonprofit status that they had no plans to do so.
E-mails uncovered by the committee last week showed that, in preparation for her meeting with the Department of Justice, Lerner and one of her advisers transmitted 1.1 million pages of data on nonprofit groups, including confidential taxpayer information, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, potentially in violation of federal law.
It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.
So consistency regarding the way IRS records were treated by the IRS is now evidence of intentional wrongdoing?
Like it or not, if it cannot be shown that any given IRS employee violated the law nothing can be done regarding criminal punishment.
.
Right... If anything... this makes it even more improbable.
Besides... if I was a tax lawyer, I'd be filing a motion to dismissing all impending audits based on the public acknowledgement by the IRS that it was incapable of maintaining complete and accurate records and that, as a result, it is impossible for me and my client to know if the IRS had disclosed all relevant information to us. Spoliation is a hell of a thing.
In civil litigation, when the other party is shown to have spoliated evidence, you win the legal conclusion you were trying to prove. The question then is this: How would this work on government agencies?
The duty to maintain evidence only arises after it becomes clear litigation, or a subpoena, will be filed*. Trying to claim injury after a minimum of 2 years after the fact is ludicrous.
In civil litigation, when the other party is shown to have spoliated evidence, you win the legal conclusion you were trying to prove. The question then is this: How would this work on government agencies?
The duty to maintain evidence only arises after it becomes clear litigation, or a subpoena, will be filed*. Trying to claim injury after a minimum of 2 years after the fact is ludicrous.
*And even then not always.
And that's why we need IT to release what exactly the retention policy at that time is.
Once we know how it's architected, then we can ask the right questions. If the IRS is anywhere close to the industry standards, then all of this is BS.
In civil litigation, when the other party is shown to have spoliated evidence, you win the legal conclusion you were trying to prove. The question then is this: How would this work on government agencies?
The duty to maintain evidence only arises after it becomes clear litigation, or a subpoena, will be filed*. Trying to claim injury after a minimum of 2 years after the fact is ludicrous.
Besides... if I was a tax lawyer, I'd be filing a motion to dismissing all impending audits based on the public acknowledgement by the IRS that it was incapable of maintaining complete and accurate records and that, as a result, it is impossible for me and my client to know if the IRS had disclosed all relevant information to us. Spoliation is a hell of a thing.
I'm fairly certain that would never stand up in court, given that any tax lawyer worth his salt would be well aware of what was and was not considered a record by the IRS at the given time. And therefore what is, and is not likely to be backed up.
But otherwise: how can you claim spoliation when the evidence was created a minimum of 2 years prior to the investigation?
Hardly anyone accepts the IRS’ claim to have lost two years of Lois Lerner’s emails. Those most familiar with government record retention requirements, and the technology used, probably are the most skeptical.
The supposedly lost emails cover January 2009 to April 2011, the period when Lerner is suspected of targeting conservative groups with heightened and invasive scrutiny. Those emails also pertain to communications Lerner may have had with agencies other than the Internal Revenue Service. That’s key, because many suspect that the Obama White House knew about, and may have coordinated, the targeting. Democrats in Congress including Rep. Elijah Cummings are also under suspicion because they publicly called for the IRS to investigate conservative and Tea Party groups before the IRS did so. Email evidence linking Cummings to Lerner and a plan to have the FBI investigate True the Vote, the Texas-based election integrity group that was targeted by the IRS along with several other executive branch law enforcement agencies, surfaced in April 2014.
A former IRS IT specialist is casting serious doubt on the IRS’ claim to have lost the Lerner emails.
This person worked at the IRS facility in New Carrollton, Maryland.
He worked on the agency’s Prime Systems Integration Services contract, or “Prime,” a contract inked between the IRS and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) in 1998 to modernize the IRS’ digital record-keeping system. CSC is the primary contractor, but other well-known companies including IBM, BearingPoint, Northrup Grumman, Unisys and Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) are secondary players on the same contract.
The former IRS IT contractor finds it difficult to believe that the IRS could really have lost two years’ worth of Lois Lerner’s emails.
First, he points to the United States Code for government record retention. That code, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 33, governs what a government record is and requires that agencies must notify the Archivist of any records that are destroyed and the reasons for destroying them. The code was put into place after Iran-Contra to keep government workers and contractors from deleting records.
Section § 3309 states that records “pertaining to claims and demands by or against the Government of the United States or to accounts in which the Government of the United States is concerned, either as debtor or creditor, may not be disposed of by the head of an agency under authorization granted under this chapter, until the claims, demands, and accounts have been settled and adjusted in the General Accounting Office, except upon the written approval of the Comptroller General of the United States.”
“These environments were required by federal regulations to be redundant and recoverable,” the former IRS IT worker says. “The recoverability requirements were put into place for exactly the reasons we see today.” Disposal of records outside the statutory standards requires permission in writing.
He says that the IRS uses Microsoft Outlook/Exchange systems, which are backed up using Symantec NetBackup.
He also says that “the IRS is the cash cow of the federal government. When they ask for funding for anything it was granted without discussion.”
In the case of the prime contract and record retention, “The IRS IT projects were fully funded and never lacked for resources. To state ‘Backup tapes were reused after some short period’ is a complete joke. The IRS had thousands and thousands of tapes and ‘Virtual Tape Libraries’ (VTL or non-tape backups based on hard drive storage technologies). There was never a reason to reuse tapes.”
Indeed, the U.S. government has been getting out of the tape backup regime for years. The former IRS IT worker points to this ExaGrid document from 2011. In the document, ExaGrid discusses its work with the federal government to eliminate tape backups in favor of faster and more secure record retention systems.
ExaGrid specializes in disk-based records retention systems.
The former IRS IT worker adds that in his time on the prime contract, “I have worked for many federal agencies and the IRS had some of the best people.”
“This reason is why I scoff at the story being put out. Those folks would not have had such a short retention period for email unless they had it in writing from the highest levels. It would have made the local IT water cooler gossip if the IRS had screwed up and lost tons of email by accident.”
Yet the IRS claims that it lost the emails a year ago, and is only now telling congressional investigators.
whembly wrote: He also says that “the IRS is the cash cow of the federal government. When they ask for funding for anything it was granted without discussion.”
That statement in and of itself is makes the rest of the claims in the article questionable. The IRS budget has been cut for years and they have rarely gotten the amount they've asked for. Perhaps it was true in 1998.
whembly wrote: He also says that “the IRS is the cash cow of the federal government. When they ask for funding for anything it was granted without discussion.”
That statement in and of itself is makes the rest of the claims in the article questionable. The IRS budget has been cut for years and they have rarely gotten the amount they've asked for. Perhaps it was true in 1998.
I didn't read that as the IRS' own budget, but as the Federal Government's enforcement arm to ensure that the tax revenues are flowing into the Treasury.
In other words, I'd doubt they'd be using free/sharewares to do their jobs... but, using industry standard platforms.
He also appears to confuse routine emails with government records, the latter of which have a clear legal definition.
I think we should investigate what happened, but Anonymous Blogger Guy isn't exactly the smoking gun here. Or, as Abraham Lincoln once famously said, "Don't Believe Everything You Read on Facebook:.
Ouze wrote: Or, as Abraham Lincoln once famously said, "Don't Believe Everything You Read on Facebook:.
Oh come on, Lincoln wasn't even alive when the internet was invented.
I'm so sick of people wrongly attributing quotes like this, it doesn't take much effort to Google who actually said it - in this case, that person was Teddy Roosevelt; everybody should know this by now.
Ouze wrote: He also appears to confuse routine emails with government records, the latter of which have a clear legal definition.
I think we should investigate what happened, but Anonymous Blogger Guy isn't exactly the smoking gun here. Or, as Abraham Lincoln once famously said, "Don't Believe Everything You Read on Facebook:.
Right... so you're buying the whole logic that her only archive location is on her pc?
Did you know that MS Exchange by default, automatically archives each inbound/outbound transmission? That's the whole fething point of MS' DAG architecture.
Did you know that MS Exchange by default, automatically archives each inbound/outbound transmission? That's the whole fething point of MS' DAG architecture.
I know a great deal about Exchange and various versions of MS Server, and specifically that different versions of Exchange can be configured in a nearly infinite number of ways, depending on how much space the organization wants to dedicate to network storage among countless other variables.
One of the things I know is that Database Avalailability Groups is that they were not implemented until Exchange 2010, so the chances that this technology was protecting Ms. Lerner's email in 2009 and previous is... dubious.
Did you know that MS Exchange by default, automatically archives each inbound/outbound transmission? That's the whole fething point of MS' DAG architecture.
I know a great deal about Exchange and various versions of MS Server, and specifically that different versions of Exchange can be configured in a nearly infinite number of ways, depending on how much space the organization wants to dedicate to network storage among countless other variables.
Then we'd need the IRS Exchange Admin to go on record on what's their configuration and retention policy.
For example, I believe they've backed up all their data since they went live with Exchange. Starting with offsite tape backups, to an offsite data repository.
If that is true, then every mail that passed through those exchange servers are recoverable.
One of the things I know is that Database Avalailability Groups is that they were not implemented until Exchange 2010, so the chances that this technology was protecting Ms. Lerner's email in 2009 and previous is... dubious.
As to DAG... 2010 was released in early '09 I believe.... so yeah, that'd put them most likely at that time at Exchange 2007. At that release, they still had numerous technologies to protect against this.
One of the things I know is that Database Avalailability Groups is that they were not implemented until Exchange 2010, so the chances that this technology was protecting Ms. Lerner's email in 2009 and previous is... dubious.
As to DAG... 2010 was released in early '09 I believe.... so yeah, that'd put them most likely at that time at Exchange 2007. At that release, they still had numerous technologies to protect against this.
Exchange 2010 was released November 2009 so I think it's probably a safe bet they were on 2007 - I cannot imagine a major company or organization deploying an RTM. However, now we're moving the goalposts from "Well, they had DAG" to "well, they had something else"... and we're still speculating.
One of the things I know is that Database Avalailability Groups is that they were not implemented until Exchange 2010, so the chances that this technology was protecting Ms. Lerner's email in 2009 and previous is... dubious.
As to DAG... 2010 was released in early '09 I believe.... so yeah, that'd put them most likely at that time at Exchange 2007. At that release, they still had numerous technologies to protect against this.
Exchange 2010 was released November 2009 so I think it's probably a safe bet they were on 2007 - I cannot imagine a major company or organization deploying an RTM. However, now we're moving the goalposts from "Well, they had DAG" to "well, they had something else"... and we're still speculating.
That's ideal, because at that point she can be compelled to testify by offering her conditional immunity. If there was a conspiracy - which I think is unlikely, but it needs to be investigated - that's where you want to be.
I didn't read that as the IRS' own budget, but as the Federal Government's enforcement arm to ensure that the tax revenues are flowing into the Treasury.
He also says that “the IRS is the cash cow of the federal government. When they ask for funding for anything it was granted without discussion.”
In the case of the prime contract and record retention, “The IRS IT projects were fully funded and never lacked for resources. o state ‘Backup tapes were reused after some short period’ is a complete joke. The IRS had thousands and thousands of tapes and ‘Virtual Tape Libraries’ (VTL or non-tape backups based on hard drive storage technologies). There was never a reason to reuse tapes.”
He, whoever he is, is pretty clearly talking about IRS organizational funding. There is no other valid interpretation, at least beyond the blogger being a poor author.
Besides... Under multiple records retention regulations, and primarily the Federal Records Act , the IRS is required to preserve those emails or otherwise contemporaneously transmit records for preservation (ie, print outs).
Except nothing in that act says "you have to preserve emails or otherwise contemporaneously transmit records for preservation".
It states:
Recordkeeping requirements should be outlined in procedural manuals and other issuances that specify which records need to be included in agency files or other recordkeeping systems.
So looks like each agency has some discretion and decides which records fall under the act. And unless we have an official IRS guideline saying "all emails are records to be forever preserved" it really is just a bunch of speculation with no grounds in reality and is nothing concrete enough to even push for warrants, let alone charges.
whembly wrote: Seb... think of the absolute lamest, dumbest excuse one could use in your industry, where everyone in your field would immediately raise the red flag.
This is it here.
Did you read what I posted?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: But conveniently over the time period in question of the subpoenas? Pardon me if I'm skeptical.
For instance... my email archive (I work in the IT healthcare industry) is just over 14GB, encompassing 14 years worth on a network resource. (huh... a gig a year... that's interesting.) That's an ass-ton of emails. We are prohibited by policy from storing our archives on our workstations because of the nature of patient confidentiality and audits.
Besides... Under multiple records retention regulations, and primarily the Federal Records Act , the IRS is required to preserve those emails or otherwise contemporaneously transmit records for preservation (ie, print outs).
As I already explained, email record keeping varies wildly from organisation to organisation. "We have all our emails stored therefore they must as well and this is a coverup" is nonsense.
As I already explained, I have had almost this exact situation in both of my last work places, where parliamentary questions could not be answered because whole email chains had been lost. As such it is completely unremarkable that emails requested under subpoena would no longer exist.
And, as I already explained, this doesn't mean there is nothing dodgy going on, as lost computer records are second only to 'I can't recall' in the arsenal of the coverup.
But it does mean that, as some of you are trying, it also isn't evidence of anything. Seeing missing emails as evidence of a coverup is just imagination and wishful thinking.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: Besides... if I was a tax lawyer, I'd be filing a motion to dismissing all impending audits based on the public acknowledgement by the IRS that it was incapable of maintaining complete and accurate records and that, as a result, it is impossible for me and my client to know if the IRS had disclosed all relevant information to us. Spoliation is a hell of a thing.
A judge would shout floodgates at you, probably throw his gavel in your general direction, and then strut out of court like he owned the damn place. Probably because he does own the damn place.
Then you'd bill your client for legal costs far in excess of the likely cost of their audit, and the whole system would roll on.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dreadclaw69 wrote: So now those who have in depth knowledge of the IRS's system are doubting the IRS's claims. Interesting
No, some guy who says he used to work for the IRS doubts the claim. Which on the scale of evidence is slightly below the opinion of the guy who lives over the road who listens to talk radio all day long.
So, to make this absolutely fething clear - there is no evidence of anything here. There's a story from the IRS that has a fair chance of being total bs - at which point any investigation interested in learning what actually happened needs to go an investigate and build a substantive case that the emails were destroyed, or otherwise prove their suspicions about the IRS.
But if this just a smoke blowing exercise, trying to excite the conservative base with vague rumours of evil liberal wrong doing when everyone knows there was little to nothing at the core of this, well then you're going to get claims and reports trying to make a conspiracy out of nothing more than the fact that the emails aren't stored.
We're seeing the latter. Which is convincing more everyday that this is all just bs.
We shall see. At this point, all these conjectures is moot until we understand how all of this is architectured.
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor. I find that interesting because I'm not sure if we're doing this out the goodness of our hearts or if it's mandated by the Fed/States. Missouri actually has a "Sunshine Law", but I don't have all the details yet.
whembly wrote: We shall see. At this point, all these conjectures is moot until we understand how all of this is architectured.
Yep. There may be something at the core of this, but it's really important to actually have some evidence of that before speculating.
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor. I find that interesting because I'm not sure if we're doing this out the goodness of our hearts or if it's mandated by the Fed/States. Missouri actually has a "Sunshine Law", but I don't have all the details yet.
Interesting. We've got requirements to keep records that are important, and obviously importance is a stupidly vague concept, pretty much left up to individuals to figure out for themselves, to the extent they can be bothered with the unwieldy records system.
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor.
Are you suggesting that the IRS should store emails (records or not), which would necessarily include things like SSNs and tax deductions, on the servers of a third-party vendor?
Dreadclaw69 wrote: So now those who have in depth knowledge of the IRS's system are doubting the IRS's claims. Interesting
No, some guy who says he used to work for the IRS doubts the claim. Which on the scale of evidence is slightly below the opinion of the guy who lives over the road who listens to talk radio all day long.
So, to make this absolutely fething clear - there is no evidence of anything here. There's a story from the IRS that has a fair chance of being total bs - at which point any investigation interested in learning what actually happened needs to go an investigate and build a substantive case that the emails were destroyed, or otherwise prove their suspicions about the IRS.
But if this just a smoke blowing exercise, trying to excite the conservative base with vague rumours of evil liberal wrong doing when everyone knows there was little to nothing at the core of this, well then you're going to get claims and reports trying to make a conspiracy out of nothing more than the fact that the emails aren't stored.
We're seeing the latter. Which is convincing more everyday that this is all just bs.
Perhaps saying that he had "in depth knowledge" was overstating the relevance of his statement. That being said, on face value the IRS's statement about losing emails seems somewhat flimsy and almost too convenient. Yes, it could all just be a series of legitimate and unfortunate events that caused the IRS to lose emails from people involved in this affair over the time that it was occurring, but when the IRS has already been caught lying about their actions before Lerner went public there is a certain credibility gap that needs addressed.
And this is not just conservative v liberal. Had it been liberal groups being targeted I would be equally outraged. Anyone who values liberty should be gravely concerned over these accusations that anyone could be investigated apparently on the basis of exercising their right to freedom of speech.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: So now those who have in depth knowledge of the IRS's system are doubting the IRS's claims. Interesting
No, some guy who says he used to work for the IRS doubts the claim. Which on the scale of evidence is slightly below the opinion of the guy who lives over the road who listens to talk radio all day long.
So, to make this absolutely fething clear - there is no evidence of anything here. There's a story from the IRS that has a fair chance of being total bs - at which point any investigation interested in learning what actually happened needs to go an investigate and build a substantive case that the emails were destroyed, or otherwise prove their suspicions about the IRS.
But if this just a smoke blowing exercise, trying to excite the conservative base with vague rumours of evil liberal wrong doing when everyone knows there was little to nothing at the core of this, well then you're going to get claims and reports trying to make a conspiracy out of nothing more than the fact that the emails aren't stored.
We're seeing the latter. Which is convincing more everyday that this is all just bs.
Perhaps saying that he had "in depth knowledge" was overstating the relevance of his statement. That being said, on face value the IRS's statement about losing emails seems somewhat flimsy and almost too convenient. Yes, it could all just be a series of legitimate and unfortunate events that caused the IRS to lose emails from people involved in this affair over the time that it was occurring, but when the IRS has already been caught lying about their actions before Lerner went public there is a certain credibility gap that needs addressed.
And this is not just conservative v liberal. Had it been liberal groups being targeted I would be equally outraged. Anyone who values liberty should be gravely concerned over these accusations that anyone could be investigated apparently on the basis of exercising their right to freedom of speech.
They were, wern't they?
On a side note, they actully should be targeting conservitive/liberal groups, who are trying to get a tax-exempt status when they are obviously political. Otherwise no, but when they are trying to get tax-exempt status for being non-political and are obviosly political, then yes.
On a side note, they actully should be targeting conservitive/liberal groups, who are trying to get a tax-exempt status when they are obviously political. Otherwise no, but when they are trying to get tax-exempt status for being non-political and are obviosly political, then yes.
Then both should be vetted equally. Instead we have what appears to have been a process weighted heavily against one side, and the accusations that confidential documents were released to political opponents.
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor.
Are you suggesting that the IRS should store emails (records or not), which would necessarily include things like SSNs and tax deductions, on the servers of a third-party vendor?
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor.
Are you suggesting that the IRS should store emails (records or not), which would necessarily include things like SSNs and tax deductions, on the servers of a third-party vendor?
Yep. I can't imagine that they don't.
Considering the storm headed AT&T's way for customer data including SSNs being accessed without authorization (and subsequently being sold) by employees of third-party vendors...I'm gonna go with "NOPE!".
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor.
Are you suggesting that the IRS should store emails (records or not), which would necessarily include things like SSNs and tax deductions, on the servers of a third-party vendor?
Yep. I can't imagine that they don't.
Considering the storm headed AT&T's way for customer data including SSNs being accessed without authorization (and subsequently being sold) by employees of third-party vendors...I'm gonna go with "NOPE!".
You're mixing arguments. What should be done is not what actually was done, and what should be done now has no relevance to policy which existed at the time an action was taken in the past.
You're mixing arguments. What should be done is not what actually was done, and what should be done now has no relevance to policy which existed at the time an action was taken in the past.
Kan, it's not uncommon for 3rd party vendors to house archived data.
It isn't uncommon, but it doesn't necessarily happen either. That is a conclusion you, and numerous bloggers, reached due to a political agenda.
So what?
These days do you have a fething point other than to try discredit me.
It's nice that I'm in your head.
Edit: stupid phone autocorrect
Automatically Appended Next Post: I just read the Issa submitted a subpoena for Lerners failed hard drive earlier this week. If the IRS follows industry standard, like I think they do, that drive is destroyed by necessity. So it won't do him any good...
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor.
Are you suggesting that the IRS should store emails (records or not), which would necessarily include things like SSNs and tax deductions, on the servers of a third-party vendor?
Yep. I can't imagine that they don't.
I have worked for 2 different federal agencies now that handle sensitive PII information. For DOJ, I worked in two different Divisions: Antitrust (for almost 10 years) and Civil (for barely 1 year). I work at the FTC now.
I can tell you that DOJ, due to the sensitive nature of the data it handles, does all its archiving in-house. I know this, because I have personally walked through the racks and racks of shelves holding external hard drives containing case data going back 5 years. The same email policy I described before (employee responsibility, archive to a .PST file because the servers auto-delete old email and we have a <1GB network limit for server email[I want to say we got about 500MB of email on the server]) applied when I worked at ATR and Civil. I didn't work at Civil long enough to need to visit the archives (I wasn't around for any cases to complete their life cycle like I did repeatedly at ATR), but I was under the impression we had an entire wing of a building dedicated to data archive. ATR archived case data (including discovery, data productions, staff email, databases, etc. etc. etc.) for a period of 5 years, after which it was destroyed. And I mean destroyed. We're talking hard drives going into an industrial grinder, rather than being wiped and risking data being remotely recoverable.
I really, really can't stress enough how futile it is to try to compare private enterprise to the federal government. Getting things changed in private enterprise is practically lightning speed compared to the federal government, where some changes require a literal act of Congress to go through. Even something as simple as updating a machine, ordering replacement parts, or getting someone cleared to even LOG IN can take months going through channels. At ATR once, it took 2 months to get replacement power supplies for machines who had supplies from a bad batch. We had probably a dozen work stations down for 2 entire months, because we couldn't get the PO approved.
FWIW, I just found out that I can retrieve an email, if I desired, that I deleted from my inbox back in 2002. The only thing required from me is a timeframe, and money as its stored offsite by 3rd party vendor.
Are you suggesting that the IRS should store emails (records or not), which would necessarily include things like SSNs and tax deductions, on the servers of a third-party vendor?
Yep. I can't imagine that they don't.
I have worked for 2 different federal agencies now that handle sensitive PII information. For DOJ, I worked in two different Divisions: Antitrust (for almost 10 years) and Civil (for barely 1 year). I work at the FTC now.
Kewl.
I work in the Healthcare IT industry. We deal with PHI (Patient Healthcare Information) similar to your PII information.
I can tell you that DOJ, due to the sensitive nature of the data it handles, does all its archiving in-house. I know this, because I have personally walked through the racks and racks of shelves holding external hard drives containing case data going back 5 years. The same email policy I described before (employee responsibility, archive to a .PST file because the servers auto-delete old email and we have a <1GB network limit for server email[I want to say we got about 500MB of email on the server]) applied when I worked at ATR and Civil. I didn't work at Civil long enough to need to visit the archives (I wasn't around for any cases to complete their life cycle like I did repeatedly at ATR), but I was under the impression we had an entire wing of a building dedicated to data archive. ATR archived case data (including discovery, data productions, staff email, databases, etc. etc. etc.) for a period of 5 years, after which it was destroyed. And I mean destroyed. We're talking hard drives going into an industrial grinder, rather than being wiped and risking data being remotely recoverable.
I really, really can't stress enough how futile it is to try to compare private enterprise to the federal government. Getting things changed in private enterprise is practically lightning speed compared to the federal government, where some changes require a literal act of Congress to go through. Even something as simple as updating a machine, ordering replacement parts, or getting someone cleared to even LOG IN can take months going through channels. At ATR once, it took 2 months to get replacement power supplies for machines who had supplies from a bad batch. We had probably a dozen work stations down for 2 entire months, because we couldn't get the PO approved.
I will say that there's too much speculation going here... so, we'll see if the IRS will provide us their backup/retention policy during the timeframe in question.
As to what you just described... you know... you're almost describing the Heathcare industry... to... a... "t".
I've got guys in my group who's waiting for iPhones for three months.... but, that isn't an "IT" problem, but a bureaucratic provisioning problem.
Speaking of industrial grinder, we have that too... but, also MAGNETS! That reminds me of a Breaking Bad episode:
he mischief of the Nixon administration was specific to it, to its personnel. When Chuck Colson left, he left. All the figures in that drama failed to permanently disfigure the edifice of government. They got caught, and their particular brand of mischief ended.
But the IRS scandal is different, because if it isn't stopped-if it isn't fully uncovered, exposed, and its instigators held accountable-it will suggest an acceptance of the politicization of the IRS, and an expected and assumed partisanship within its future actions. That will be terrible not only for citizens but for the government itself.
And the IRS scandal will also have disfigured government in a new and killing way. IRS scandals in the past were about the powerful (Richard Nixon) abusing the powerful (Edward Bennett Williams). This scandal is about the powerful (Lois Lerner, et a.) abusing the not-powerful (normal, on-the-ground Americans such as rural tea-party groups). If it comes to be understood that this kind of thing is how the government now does business, it will be terrible for the spirit and reality of the country.
So many of those who decide what is news cannot, on this issue, see the good faith and honest concern of the many who make this warning. And really, that is tragic.
I was under the impression that political agendas were bad, I was informed of this by many conservatives and liberals in several different contexts.
I'm glad you're finally coming around to the fact that the IRS did in fact improperly targeted Teaparty Group (due to the fact that Progressive groups weren't under the same scrutiny).
Welcome aboard!
Kidding aside... as Frazzled would say... I've been "ghazi'ed" well enough that I'm resigned that nothing will be done to address what really happened in Benghazi. It's simply because it's a concept that foreign policy is a realm of mystery for most Americans, a place where governmental policy & schemes will never be fully revealed. 'Tis why you see "whembly" awfully muted lately on this subject.
However, the possibility of being abused by the IRS, however unlikely, requires no such paranoia. The fear to the general idea that the IRS treats us unequally, in part for political reasons has struck a chord in the mainstream distrust of "government".
After all, the power to tax is the power to confiscate/destroy. If there’s one place we’d expect to find government harassment carried out in front of us, however justified, it’d be the IRS... the Boogeyman™.
Kidding aside... as Frazzled would say... I've been "ghazi'ed" well enough that I'm resigned that nothing will be done to address what really happened in Benghazi. It's simply because it's a concept that foreign policy is a realm of mystery for most Americans, a place where governmental policy & schemes will never be fully revealed. 'Tis why you see "whembly" awfully muted lately on this subject.
I never mentioned Benghazi in any of my comments in this thread, so I'm not sure how that's relevant.
The fear to the general idea that the IRS treats us unequally, in part for political reasons has struck a chord in the mainstream distrust of "government".
Of course it does, that's why different tax classifications exist.
Kidding aside... as Frazzled would say... I've been "ghazi'ed" well enough that I'm resigned that nothing will be done to address what really happened in Benghazi. It's simply because it's a concept that foreign policy is a realm of mystery for most Americans, a place where governmental policy & schemes will never be fully revealed. 'Tis why you see "whembly" awfully muted lately on this subject.
I never mentioned Benghazi in any of my comments in this thread, so I'm not sure how that's relevant.
I know... I'm just trying to impress upon you that the IRS scandal is a "bigger issue" because everyone can relate to a fear of the Tax Man™ compared to some nebulous foreign policy.
The fear to the general idea that the IRS treats us unequally, in part for political reasons has struck a chord in the mainstream distrust of "government".
Of course it does, that's why different tax classifications exist.
But that doesn't give the IRS carte blanche to treat different groups differently for political purposes.
And why are you ignoring the most important question?
whembly wrote: I know... I'm just trying to impress upon you that the IRS scandal is a "bigger issue" because everyone can relate to a fear of the Tax Man™ compared to some nebulous foreign policy.
I'm a US citizen and I'm not afraid of the tax man, and I still don't know how Benghazi is relevant to the IRS.
whembly wrote: I know... I'm just trying to impress upon you that the IRS scandal is a "bigger issue" because everyone can relate to a fear of the Tax Man™ compared to some nebulous foreign policy.
I'm a US citizen and I'm not afraid of the tax man
But that doesn't give the IRS carte blanche to treat different groups differently for political purposes.
The only reason why 501(c)3, 501(c)4, 501(c)5, 501(c)6, and 527 are different tax classifications is "politics".
When it's weaponized... absolutely.
This isn't the DMV dogma...
We are talking about a federal agency whose budget is in excess of 12-11 billion dollars annually, with an IT budget of 1.8 billions..
We are talking about an agency whose lifeblood is all about documentation and email. Speaking of record keeping, they use EMC's Documentum System, which is one of the industry's best.
We are talking about an agency that has 106K employees and contractors in thousands of offices. Which, if my math is right, amounts to approximately $17,000 of "IT stuff" is spent per employee every year.
Either the IT IRS department is massively incompetent, which is a scandal in it's own right... or, they are spitting out complete bs.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Perhaps saying that he had "in depth knowledge" was overstating the relevance of his statement. That being said, on face value the IRS's statement about losing emails seems somewhat flimsy and almost too convenient. Yes, it could all just be a series of legitimate and unfortunate events that caused the IRS to lose emails from people involved in this affair over the time that it was occurring, but when the IRS has already been caught lying about their actions before Lerner went public there is a certain credibility gap that needs addressed.
It is certainly very convenient. Which makes me think that more needs to be done to investigate this, look in to way to recover more of the emails, and learn if what the IRS claimed could actually have happened. But making a political deal out of it before that work has been done is political grandstanding.
And this is not just conservative v liberal. Had it been liberal groups being targeted I would be equally outraged. Anyone who values liberty should be gravely concerned over these accusations that anyone could be investigated apparently on the basis of exercising their right to freedom of speech.
When I first read about the issue I was outraged. But then I learnt more about what actually happened (and that it wasn't just conservative groups targeted, it only appeared that way due to the very dodgy terms put up in the original ROI), I started to think it was just run of the mill bad policy, and not actually an attempt to target political enemies. By that point the Republican machine was in full force, making all kinds of ridiculous claims and substantiating nothing of real meaning.
This was at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy on October 19, 2010, just 2 weeks before the election that brought Republicans significant gains in Congress. During her appearance Lerner was asked about the flow of money from corporations to 501c4 groups.
"Everyone is up in arms because they don't like it" Lerner replied, adding "Federal Election Commission can't do anything about it; they want the IRS to fix the problem."
Lerner goes on to outline the fact that 501c organizations have the right to do "an ad that says vote for Joe Blow" so long as their primary activity is social welfare. However Lerner again emphasizes the political pressure the IRS was under at the time saying:
"So everybody is screaming at us right now 'Fix it now before the election. Can't you see how much these people are spending?'"
I can't view the video but I have seen the quoted text before.
To spell this out - it is absolutely 100% illegal and really dangerous for democracy if one political party uses government agencies to persecute its rivals. No doubt about that.
But there is absolutely zero evidence of that. None. You can't just go from 'Lerner says there was political pressure for the IRS to respond to the flood of corporate dollars post Citizens United' to 'the IRS was used to target Republican groups'.
sebster wrote: It is certainly very convenient. Which makes me think that more needs to be done to investigate this, look in to way to recover more of the emails, and learn if what the IRS claimed could actually have happened. But making a political deal out of it before that work has been done is political grandstanding.
And for many people, on both sides of the political spectrum, the convenient loss of the emails (and the delay in reporting it given that they knew 4 months ago) is disconcerting. Even more so when the emails lost to date appear to affect mainly those involved in the accusations of targeting.
I know that a lot of people I have spoken with have wondered what the IRS's response would be if they were unable to file their tax returns because their hard drive crashed.
sebster wrote: When I first read about the issue I was outraged. But then I learnt more about what actually happened (and that it wasn't just conservative groups targeted, it only appeared that way due to the very dodgy terms put up in the original ROI), I started to think it was just run of the mill bad policy, and not actually an attempt to target political enemies. By that point the Republican machine was in full force, making all kinds of ridiculous claims and substantiating nothing of real meaning.
You are correct, it was not just conservative groups that were targeted. It just so happened that they were targeted in the overwhelming majority of instances. I was about to agree with you concerning the possibility of a policy snafu, but the fact that the IRS apologized for, and admitted to, targeting conservative groups because of certain phrases doesn't really leave a lot of room for maneuver - especially when the IG found that they had deliberately misapplied policy when dealing with conservative groups. Lest we forget they also give misleading information to Senators about targeting before Lerner herself broke the story, and they have been unable to counter the accusations that they passed tax information and donor lists to political enemies of some targeted groups.
When did I mention the DMV? Or the notion that an IRS policy was weaponized?
Did you even read what I typed?
Moreover, how was IRS policy "weaponized" illegally?
*sigh*
I'm convinced that you just don't care anymore. If a Republican administration use any agency to target liberal/progressive groups over conservative... don't complain here then.
We are talking about an agency whose lifeblood is all about documentation and email.
Documentation designated as records, but not necessarily email. This distinction is one that I, and several others, pointed out to you up-thread.
You are are deliberately choosing to ignore it.
It's besides the point.
What we truly need to know, is what was the IRS' backup/retention policy during the time in question. That will answer the probability whether or not Lerner's email could've been restored.
Automatically Appended Next Post: EDIT: and you're wrong what constitutes "a record".
According to 44 United States Code (USC) Section 3301, the term “record” includes all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the U.S. Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the government or because of the informational value of data in them.
Lerner’s emails certainly were “made or received” “in connection with the transaction of public business.” So they were “records” if they were “appropriate for preservation” as evidence of the “policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities” of the IRS, and because they had “informational value.”
The IRS should not be allowed to get away with the suggestion that Lerner’s emails during this timeframe were not “records” and therefore could be destroyed with impunity. Unless... she wasn't doing her job.
According to 44 United States Code (USC) Section 3301, the term “record” includes all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the U.S. Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the government or because of the informational value of data in them.
Your citation is current as of October 2013, and last I checked the solicited Lerner emails were between 2009 and 2011.
Miissing tapes? Abuse of power? It’s 1974 all over again, with one exception – there seems to be no Woodward and Bernstein interested in delving into an abuse of power and a cover-up.
The parallels between the crisis in the Richard Nixon presidency and the current political environment are intriguing, if not entirely dispositive. Forty-two years ago, the targeting of political enemies by the executive branch erupted as one of the worst political scandals in American history, and took almost two years to reach its apex. A national election and the withdrawal from an unpopular war overshadowed the scandal for awhile, but the press kept Watergate on the front burner long enough for the cover-up to fall apart in 1974.
Forty years later, we have another scandal involving abuse of political power that targeted political opponents of the president. We have one IRS official in the executive branch refusing to testify, and now the same agency claims they cannot produce her e-mails during the time of the targeting.
When Congress erupted in outrage, the IRS added that they had also lost the email data for six more figures related to the targeting of conservative groups by the tax-exempt investigations unit. Yet the questions from the media these days largely focus on whether this is a “phony scandal” or an indication of corruption in the federal government’s most powerful agency.
Contrast that reaction to the media interest 40 years ago. Few remember that among the articles of impeachment under consideration by the House of Representatives in 1974 was a charge that the Nixon administration attempted to manipulate the power of the IRS against its political enemies. Article Two, Section One accused Nixon of “acting personally and through his subordinates and agents” to have his political opponents audited and to access their private data. Other allegations in the Watergate scandal eclipsed that particular accusation, but that article passed on a 28-10 bipartisan vote in the House Judiciary Committee.
There are are numerous differences between the two scandals, too. For one thing, no one has tied this to the White House or any of President Barack Obama’s advisers. The closest insinuation between the IRS targeting scandal has been an unusual meeting between the IRS’ chief counsel, William Wilkins, and Obama on April 23, 2012. The chief counsel for the IRS would have no discernible reason for a private meeting with the president; his job would be to brief the IRS commissioner - at the time Douglas Shulman – who met with Obama the very next day.
The day after that, Wilkins sent a revised set of guidelines to Lois Lerner for the tax-exempt unit to use when applying extra scrutiny. To this day, no explanation for this meeting has been made public, even though records show that Wilkins spent hours at the White House with “POTUS” as his host.
Nor was this the first time that Wilkins appears in the targeting narrative. Carter Hull, a retired high-ranking IRS official with 48 years’ experience at the agency, testified that after he approved a Tea Party-related tax-exempt application, it got routed to Wilkins rather than finalized.
After other clashes on approval for these groups, Hull got cut out of the loop in favor of an analyst with less than a year on the job. Hull also described an August 2011 meeting with three of Wilkins’ representatives present in which the extra scrutiny was discussed, a meeting corroborated by the Inspector General report that prompted the exposure of the targeting effort.
Two different House committees wanted to know more about what instructions Lerner issued in conducting the targeting, and more to the point, who may have instructed Lerner to target conservative groups in the first place. Lerner refused to testify when subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, but the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee both demanded all of her communications from the IRS. Those records could help establish whether this was a “phony scandal,” as the White House has insisted last year, or whether the abuse of power was a coordinated political strategy.
The House Ways and Means Committee pressed the matter for months, while the IRS dragged its feet. In March, new IRS Commissioner John Koskinen reassured chair Dave Camp that the IRS kept solid records of their communications and that collation of the material would only be a matter of time. However, time apparently ran out last Friday afternoon, when Koskinen told Camp that the IRS had lost two years of Lerner’s email data due to a hard-drive failure – and that the IRS only keeps six months’ server data on backup while requiring businesses to store far more.
A few days later, the IRS announced that they had similar two-year gaps for six more IRS officials connected to the targeting effort. While the IRS has been able to piece together the internal-only emails from Lerner and the other six officials, they claim that any emails between these seven IRS officials and outside agencies has been forever lost. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what the House panel wants to see.
Isn’t that rather … convenient? It certainly moves this from “phony scandal” to potential minefield for Barack Obama – or at least it should, if anyone pays attention. The hypocrisy alone is breathtaking: the government’s biggest stickler for accurate records and lengthy archival requirements claiming to have little regard itself for such measures.
Even worse, though, is the sudden change in story about the ability to access the archives. Koskinen’s long delay in informing Ways and Means of what the IRS now claims is a normal limitation on accessing archival data from its email servers doesn’t just look convenient, but very much like the agency has something to hide.
With all of these red flags and roadblocks on transparency, one might think that the media might start getting a little more interested in the scope of this abuse of power. Instead, the only curiosity appears to be whether this all means that the IRS should get even more money in its budget, because tape backups for more than six months apparently breaks the bank in an agency that gets $11.3 billion in the FY2014 budget.
Ironically, the IRS got extra cash a few years ago to modernize their internal systems, Fox reported at the time, while noting that the FY2015 budget request from the White House increased the IRS allocation by over 11 percent. In response to the lack of cooperation with the probe, the Appropriations Committee just trimmed 15 percent off Obama’s budget request for the IRS, and warns that the agency should stick to its “core functions.”
Perhaps the hue and cry over the lost funding will finally start to interest the media forty years after their tenacity over abuse of executive power forced accountability on a corrupt administration.
Unfortunately, a lot has changed since Watergate – and a lot hasn’t.
Exit question: The day after an unusual meeting of a mid-level manager and the President, the mid-level manager issues revised targeting guidelines to the IRS, and we're supposed to believe those guidelines were not the subject of discussion between the President and this manager?
Hmm... not being able to access external communications is a problem. Do we know exactly how many people were affected by this server failure, apart from the seven under investigation?
-Shrike- wrote: Hmm... not being able to access external communications is a problem. Do we know exactly how many people were affected by this server failure, apart from the seven under investigation?
We don't know for sure... we only found out Lerner's destruction last Friday and the other six this Monday.
WASHINGTON -- Taxpayers who do not produce documents for the Internal Revenue Service will be able to offer a variety of dubious excuses under legislation introduced by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX 36) a week after the IRS offered an incredibly dubious excuse for its failure to turn documents over to House investigators.
“The United States was founded on the belief government is subservient and accountable to the people. Taxpayers shouldn’t be expected to follow laws the Obama administration refuses to follow themselves,” said Stockman. “Taxpayers should be allowed to offer the same flimsy, obviously made-up excuses the Obama administration uses.”
Under Stockman’s bill, “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act,” taxpayers who do not provide documents requested by the IRS can claim one of the following reasons:
1. The dog ate my tax receipts 2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction 3. Traded documents for five terrorists 4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon 5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room 6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car 7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords 8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar 9. Was short on toilet paper while camping 10. At this point, what difference does it make?
Stockman’s bill comes a week after the IRS refused to turn over to House investigators emails from former Exempt Organizations Divison director Lois Lerner that would implicate agency personnel in illegal targeting of citizens critical of President Barack Obama.
The IRS claimed a “computer glitch” has erased the hard drives of all incriminating evidence. The IRS further claimed the hard drives are not available for forensic investigation as they had just been destroyed for recycling.
The full text of the resolution follows:
The resolution may be cited as the “Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Resolution.”
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must allow taxpayers the same lame excuses for missing documentation that the IRS itself is currently proffering
Whereas, the IRS claims that convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction is sufficient justification not to produce specific, critical documentation; and,
Whereas, fairness and Due Process demand that the American taxpayer be granted no less latitude than we afford the bureaucrats employed presently at the IRS;
Now, therefore, be it resolved that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that unless and until the Internal Revenue Service produces all documentation demanded by subpoena or otherwise by the House of Representatives, or produces an excuse that passes the red face test,
All taxpayers shall be given the benefit of the doubt when not producing critical documentation, so long as the taxpayer’s excuse therefore falls into one of the following categories:
1. The dog ate my tax receipts 2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction 3. Traded documents for five terrorists 4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon 5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room 6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car 7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords 8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar 9. Was short on toilet paper while camping 10. At this point, what difference does it make?
In any case, IRS can see the NSA for a good, high quality copy.
That seems like a valuable use of time. Wait no, its the other thing. That other thing that all legislation like this is, the world over... oh yeah, that's it. A waste of the people's money and time. If you have a problem with something, make an actual statement, vote against them on an actual bill, do something that you have been elected to do. Don't waste time and money being 'hilarious' and trolling the other side. His annual income should be turned into an hourly rate, then the amount of time he wasted writing this and sending it should be taken off, and he shouldn't be allowed to run on fiscally responsible platforms. Then, any bills which don't get seen because of time restraints in the future need to be rolled up into a tight baton and used to wack him in the head.
God how I hate people wasting time in legislating piss like this. Or, as happens over here, they go into Parliament, in the ridiculously limited time that they actually sit, and waste time 'hilariously' trolling the other side with snide remarks and gak like that. No. They are meant to be grown ups and they should fething act like it.
-Shrike- wrote: Hmm... not being able to access external communications is a problem. Do we know exactly how many people were affected by this server failure, apart from the seven under investigation?
We don't know for sure... we only found out Lerner's destruction last Friday and the other six this Monday.
WASHINGTON -- Taxpayers who do not produce documents for the Internal Revenue Service will be able to offer a variety of dubious excuses under legislation introduced by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX 36) a week after the IRS offered an incredibly dubious excuse for its failure to turn documents over to House investigators.
“The United States was founded on the belief government is subservient and accountable to the people. Taxpayers shouldn’t be expected to follow laws the Obama administration refuses to follow themselves,” said Stockman. “Taxpayers should be allowed to offer the same flimsy, obviously made-up excuses the Obama administration uses.”
Under Stockman’s bill, “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act,” taxpayers who do not provide documents requested by the IRS can claim one of the following reasons:
1. The dog ate my tax receipts
2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction
3. Traded documents for five terrorists
4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon
5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room
6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car
7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords
8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar
9. Was short on toilet paper while camping
10. At this point, what difference does it make?
Stockman’s bill comes a week after the IRS refused to turn over to House investigators emails from former Exempt Organizations Divison director Lois Lerner that would implicate agency personnel in illegal targeting of citizens critical of President Barack Obama.
The IRS claimed a “computer glitch” has erased the hard drives of all incriminating evidence. The IRS further claimed the hard drives are not available for forensic investigation as they had just been destroyed for recycling.
The full text of the resolution follows:
The resolution may be cited as the “Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Resolution.”
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) must allow taxpayers the same lame excuses for missing documentation that the IRS itself is currently proffering
Whereas, the IRS claims that convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction is sufficient justification not to produce specific, critical documentation; and,
Whereas, fairness and Due Process demand that the American taxpayer be granted no less latitude than we afford the bureaucrats employed presently at the IRS;
Now, therefore, be it resolved that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that unless and until the Internal Revenue Service produces all documentation demanded by subpoena or otherwise by the House of Representatives, or produces an excuse that passes the red face test,
All taxpayers shall be given the benefit of the doubt when not producing critical documentation, so long as the taxpayer’s excuse therefore falls into one of the following categories:
1. The dog ate my tax receipts
2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction
3. Traded documents for five terrorists
4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon
5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room
6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car
7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords
8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar
9. Was short on toilet paper while camping
10. At this point, what difference does it make?
In any case, IRS can see the NSA for a good, high quality copy.
motyak wrote: God how I hate people wasting time in legislating piss like this. Or, as happens over here, they go into Parliament, in the ridiculously limited time that they actually sit, and waste time 'hilariously' trolling the other side with snide remarks and gak like that. No. They are meant to be grown ups and they should fething act like it.
Well, what do you expect him to do? He's just a sitting US Congressman, it's not like he can do anything meaningful here!
And you clearly have no interest in this ordeal at all other than providing cover that IRS were in the right to target only conservatives.
No, that isn't true at all. My argument is that the IRS did not necessarily do anything legally wrong by targeting conservative groups; what is legal and what is right are not the same (and in this case what is right is only relevant to changes in the relevant law). I also contend that you, and many conservatives/Republicans, are engaged in a witch hunt designed to discredit liberals/Democrats and the actions they have taken; which cannot end in positive results for anyone but the GOP.
Your stance supports a hypothetical IRS agency during a Republican presidency, whereas the IRS onlyaudits liberal/progressive groups.
No it doesn't, as it wasn't only conservative groups that were audited; they were merely audited at a higher rate. And if there was a massive surge in the number of liberal/progressive organizations during a GOP Presidency which resulted in a higher rate of audits for those organizations I would make the argument that a higher rate of audits for those groups would be acceptable.
That is entirely the wrong attitude to take, and is a major part of the reason that we can't have nice things in the US.
Instead of making an at attempt meaningful reform we get joke legislation.
Few remember that among the articles of impeachment under consideration by the House of Representatives in 1974 was a charge that the Nixon administration attempted to manipulate the power of the IRS against its political enemies.
Yes, but that was in 1974. The laws have changed significantly since then.
Ok, the accusations of IRS targeting have been going on for quite some time now. Just out of curiosity where in the timeline did this alleged hard drive crash occur?
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Ok, the accusations of IRS targeting have been going on for quite some time now. Just out of curiosity where in the timeline did this alleged hard drive crash occur?
The scandal began in early 2013, and the IRS seems to have become aware that the data could not be recovered around April of this year.
Now that doesn't mean that's when the alleged crash occurred, no one seems to know when it may have, or even if "crash" is an accurate description for what occurred; regardless of intention. Basically the IRS's claim is that it attempted to recover data from one of Lois Lerner's hard drives, and was unable to do so. Indeed, given that it was apparently a personal drive, it is likely the only person who could provide information as to when any "crash" occurred is Lerner herself; who will obviously be an unreliable narrator for both cynical and legitimate reasons.
Evidently, the IRS paid an outside firm, Sonasoft, to archive that data for long-term retrieval. What's interesting is that the contract got canceled just weeks after Lois Lerner’s hard-drive failure.
...
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed.
The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year from 2005 to 2010. The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?”
Sonasoft was providing “automatic data processing” services for the IRS throughout the January 2009 to April 2011 period in which Lerner sent her missing emails.
But Sonasoft’s six-year business relationship with the IRS came to an abrupt end at the close of fiscal year 2011, as congressional investigators began looking into the IRS conservative targeting scandal and IRS employees’ computers started crashing left and right.
...
In advance of tomorrow evening’s hearing on the Lost Lois Lerner emails, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has asked the IRS Commissioner to provide answers to 15 technology questions.
On Fri. June 13, the IRS notified Congress that key emails during a two year time frame, January 2009 to April 2011, were irretrievably lost due to a “crash” of Lerner’s hard drive and of a server. The IRS also said that computer crashes affected six other IRS employees who are connected to the investigation.
After the Friday notification, the Oversight Committee requested that the IRS make Thomas Kane, the IRS Acting Deputy Chief Counsel for Procurement and Administration, available for a transcribed interview about the Lerner emails but the IRS declined. The Committee then requested a briefing “to discuss the IRS’s e-mail systems, data retention policies, and document production processes” but the IRS declined that request as well.
“Because the IRS has refused to provide basic information about these matters to the Committee in advance of the hearing, and in the interest of promoting a frank and thorough discussion at the hearing, I ask that you provide answers to the factual questions posed below,” writes Issa in a letter addressed to Commissioner John Koskinen on Saturday.
At a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee Friday, Koskinen testified that there’s been no attempt to intentionally destroy documents. Republicans were skeptical while Democrats apologized to Koskinen and accused Republicans of being obsessed with Area 51-like conspiracies.
Here are the 15 questions the Oversight Committee has submitted to the IRS (including subparts). Answers are due prior to Monday’s scheduled 7pm hearing:
1. Please explain the failure of the hard drive on Lois Lerner’s computer in or around 2011, including the following information:
Please provide the date of the failure of the hard drive.
Please identify the type of failure – hardware or software – of the hard drive.
Please identify all IRS employees who had any responsibility or role in examining or recovering data from the hard drive between January 1, 2011, and August 31, 2011.
Please explain the steps, and provide the corresponding dates, taken by the IRS to attempt to recover data from the hard drive between January 1, 2011, and August 31, 2011.
Please explain whether the IRS issued a new computer or hard drive to Lois Lerner following the hard drive failure in or around 2011.
2. Please explain the IRS’s discovery that the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer resulted in the destruction of documents responsive to the Committee’s subpoenas of August 2, 2013, and February 14, 2014, including the following information:
Please identify all IRS employees who had any responsibility or role in identifying, reviewing, redacting, or producing documents to the Committee in 2013 and 2014.
Please identify the IRS employee who initially discovered the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer in the course of reviewing, redacting, or producing documents to the Committee in 2013 and 2014.
Please provide the date on which you learned of the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer.
Please explain how you learned of the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer.
Please provide the date on which you learned that the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer resulted in the destruction of documents responsive to the Committee’s subpoenas of August 2, 2013, and February 14, 2014.
Please explain how you learned that the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer resulted in the destruction of documents responsive to the Committee’s subpoenas of August 2, 2013, and February 14, 2014.
Please identify the IRS employee(s) who informed you that the hard drive failure on Lois Lerner’s computer resulted in the destruction of documents responsive to the Committee’s subpoenas of August 2, 2013, and February 14, 2014.
3. Please explain the steps, and provide the corresponding dates, taken by the IRS to attempt to recover data from the hard drive(s) on Lois Lerner’s computer(s) between May 10, 2013, and the present, including the following information:
Please identify all IRS employees who had any responsibility or role in recovering data from the hard drive(s) on Lois Lerner’s computer(s) between May 10, 2013, and the present.
Please explain whether the IRS used a clean room or similar controlled-environment facility to attempt to recover data from the hard drive(s) on Lois Lerner’s computer(s).
Please provide the name and location of the clean room or similar controlled-environment facility used to attempt to recover data from the hard drive(s) on Lois Lerner’s computer(s).
Please provide the date(s) on which the hard drive(s) on Lois Lerner’s computer(s) was sent to a clean room or similar controlled-environment facility.
4. Please identify all IRS employees who had any responsibility or role in maintaining or servicing IRS e-mail exchange servers between 2009 and the present.
5. Please identify all vendors and outside contractors used by the IRS for the following purposes:
To develop, service, or maintain the IRS’s e-mail systems.
To develop, service, or maintain the IRS’s e-mail exchange servers.
To recycle or destroy IRS hard drives.
To provide mobile phone and data services.
6. Please identify the IRS employee(s) most knowledgeable about the following information:
The IRS’s e-mail systems.
The IRS’s e-mail exchange servers.
The IRS’s mobile phone devices and service contracts.
The IRS’s document retention policies and procedures.
Digital forensics and data recovery.
The IRS’s asset inventory of computers and mobile phones.
7. Please identify the IRS employee(s) with last known custody or control of the following items:
IRS computer(s) and mobile phone(s) issued to Lois Lerner.
IRS hard drive(s) or external drive(s) issued to Lois Lerner.
IRS e-mail exchange back-up tapes or drives.
IRS mobile phone records.
The IRS’s asset inventory of computers and mobile phones.
IRS “trouble ticket,” “incident ticket,” or “requisition request” A “trouble ticket,” “incident tickets,” or “requisition request” refers to any written record of malfunction, failure, or error relating to IRS electronic hardware. logs or records from January 1, 2011, to August 31, 2011.
IRS back-up logs or records for e-mail exchange servers between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2011.
IRS “trouble ticket,” “incident ticket,” or “requisition request” See supra note 7. logs or records from May 10, 2013, to the present.
8. Please explain the IRS’s document retention policies and procedures, including the following information:
Please identify the IRS document(s) that details the IRS’s document retention policies and procedures.
Please identify the IRS employee responsible for compliance and enforcement of the IRS’s document retention policies and procedures.
9. Please explain the architecture and structure of the IRS’s e-mails systems and exchange servers, including the following information:
Please identify the type of e-mail service used by the IRS.
Please identify the type of e-mail exchange server used by the IRS.
Please explain whether personal storage table (.pst) files are stored on the hard drives of the computers operated by IRS employee or on an IRS network or shared drive.
10. Please explain the architecture and structure of the IRS’s electronic data restoration and archival systems.
Please explain whether the IRS has separate systems for data restoration and data archival.
Please explain the IRS’s restoration and archival back-up policies for e-mail exchange servers between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2011.
Please explain the IRS’s restoration and archival back-up policies for hard drives and shared drives between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2011.
11. Please quantify the number of forensic images of the failed hard drive on Lois Lerner’s computer that currently exist.
12. Please quantify the number of forensic images of the failed hard drive on Lois Lerner’s computer that existed as of August 31, 2011.
13. Please quantify the following for the period January 1, 2011, to June 30, 2011:
The number “trouble tickets,” “incident tickets,” or “requisition requests” See supra note 7. issued for hard drive-related malfunctions on IRS computers.
The number of software malfunctions of hard drives on IRS computers.
The number of hardware malfunctions of hard drives on IRS computers.
The number of successful retrievals of data from hard drive-related malfunctions on IRS computers.
14. Please provide the barcode(s) for IRS computer(s) issued to Lois Lerner.
15. Please provide the barcode(s) for IRS mobile phone(s) issued to Lois Lerner.
Seriously, at this point it's just hilarious to continue seeing the witch hunt ongoing.
Sure... keep on laughing boyo...
Whether Sonasoft gave the backups back to the IRS or not, Sonasoft should be able to prove/disprove the claim that the backups were only kept for 6 months and then destroyed. As a contractor, Sonasoft would have been extremely careful to complying with federal regulations. I find it hard to believe that they would have destroyed any backups themselves.
It's also telling that this didn't appear in any testimony from IRS officials. The IRS commish's opening statement at the hearing spoke of how hard the IRS worked to retrieve that data... but, he didn’t mention any effort to restore the data from a Sonasoft backup, or mention any outside contractor at all for that matter. The existence of this contract appears to have been a better-kept secret than NSA snooping through Internet service providers.
I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
motyak wrote: I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
Um... okay?
Meh...the IRS is an organization that operates on the principle of guilt until proven innocent in its dealings with the taxpayer. We owe the IRS that same standard.
motyak wrote: I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
Um... okay?
Meh...the IRS is an organization that operates on the principle of guilt until proven innocent in its dealings with the taxpayer. We owe the IRS that same standard.
Not true. It operates on the same principle of "innocent until proven guilty". That is why they conduct an audit if there are irregularities, rather than y'know just handing down fines/jailtime.
motyak wrote: I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
Um... okay?
Meh...the IRS is an organization that operates on the principle of guilt until proven innocent in its dealings with the taxpayer. We owe the IRS that same standard.
Not true. It operates on the same principle of "innocent until proven guilty". That is why they conduct an audit if there are irregularities, rather than y'know just handing down fines/jailtime.
And if you can't justify those irregularities... then what happens?
motyak wrote: I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
Um... okay?
Meh...the IRS is an organization that operates on the principle of guilt until proven innocent in its dealings with the taxpayer. We owe the IRS that same standard.
Not true. It operates on the same principle of "innocent until proven guilty". That is why they conduct an audit if there are irregularities, rather than y'know just handing down fines/jailtime.
And if you can't justify those irregularities... then what happens?
I don't know Whembly, you tell me?
What happens? What dark and sinister thing happens when you have unexplainable/unjustifiable irregularities in your taxes?
motyak wrote: I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
Um... okay?
Meh...the IRS is an organization that operates on the principle of guilt until proven innocent in its dealings with the taxpayer. We owe the IRS that same standard.
Not true. It operates on the same principle of "innocent until proven guilty". That is why they conduct an audit if there are irregularities, rather than y'know just handing down fines/jailtime.
And if you can't justify those irregularities... then what happens?
I don't know Whembly, you tell me?
What happens? What dark and sinister thing happens when you have unexplainable/unjustifiable irregularities in your taxes?
You get audit? (I know I know) but if you get subpoena you can like ignore that right? (punchline )
The hearing is 7pm tonight. I'm really interested in the following:
4. Name all IRS employees that worked on agency email servers between 2009 and 2014.
5. Name all IRS contractors that worked on agency email or hard drive systems.
6. Give the names of the IRS employees most knowledgeable about email servers and data retention.
7. Identify the IRS employees that last had possession of Lerner’s computer, cell phones, hard drive, backup email tapes and information about errors in IRS electronic hardware.
8. Give us all relevant information about IRS document retention policies.
9. Name the type of email service the IRS uses and the type of email exchange server and tell us whether any email is stored on an IRS shared drive.
10. Explain in detail the IRS’ electronic data restoration and archival systems.
Also... for levity... I saw this on my twitter feed and was directed to the New York Post's page. The NYP wins:
Dreadclaw69 wrote: And for many people, on both sides of the political spectrum, the convenient loss of the emails (and the delay in reporting it given that they knew 4 months ago) is disconcerting. Even more so when the emails lost to date appear to affect mainly those involved in the accusations of targeting.
Absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's nothing here to suggest a cover up, there's plenty. I'm just saying that this is the second time after Benghazi that Republicans have got their hands on a small thing, then jumped five steps forward in their accusations. In this case the jump from 'there appears to be an attempt to cover up something' to 'therefore they are covering up the deliberate targeting of conservative groups for overtly political purposes'.
I know that a lot of people I have spoken with have wondered what the IRS's response would be if they were unable to file their tax returns because their hard drive crashed.
Try it!
Actually don't try it, they will not appreciate the joke and likely just rip you a new one.
You are correct, it was not just conservative groups that were targeted. It just so happened that they were targeted in the overwhelming majority of instances. I was about to agree with you concerning the possibility of a policy snafu, but the fact that the IRS apologized for, and admitted to, targeting conservative groups because of certain phrases doesn't really leave a lot of room for maneuver - especially when the IG found that they had deliberately misapplied policy when dealing with conservative groups. Lest we forget they also give misleading information to Senators about targeting before Lerner herself broke the story, and they have been unable to counter the accusations that they passed tax information and donor lists to political enemies of some targeted groups.
What the IRS apologised for falls exactly under the description of a policy snafu. The IRS recognised the tax and policy issues surrounding the rapid rise of 501(c)(4) groups and set about ensuring groups weren't exploiting the status (and remember what's been lost in this is that a number of groups were exploiting this, not just in a tax avoidance sense but in an out and out fraud sense - taking in large amounts from donors and spending little of it on their stated purpose).
And yeah, most of the groups targeted were conservative, but most of the new groups formed were conservative - we're talking about the period in which the Tea Party grew rapidly in power.
What actually needs to be established is whether there was any systematic attempt to judge conservative groups more harshly. And we're a mile away from establishing that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: I'm convinced that you just don't care anymore. If a Republican administration use any agency to target liberal/progressive groups over conservative... don't complain here then.
Screw that line of thought. Just don't even fething think that. People get all caught up in politics and trying to score a win for their side, and they don't realise that none of that matters one bit - you're side is up and maybe wins some elections, but sooner or later the other side will be up and win some, and the whole thing will just roll on.
What actually matters is good, effective and honest institutions. If a Republican administration tries to use government bodies to target their enemies, then that has to be completely unacceptable to everyone, no matter what side they cheer for. Just as if any part of the DNC actually tried to use the IRS to target conservative groups for political gain, then it's completely unacceptable.
The only question that matters is what part of any attempted manipulation can be proven. The idea you're suggesting above, that we start thinking 'oh well the other side did it before so this instance is okay' is completely fething unacceptable.
And of course, the other idea that you're actually following in this thread, is that by noticing suspicious elements about this issue, we should then believe that this must be a deliberate, planned act of political manipulation that goes all the way to the President is also completely fething unacceptable.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: that IRS were in the right to target only conservatives.
sebster wrote: Absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's nothing here to suggest a cover up, there's plenty. I'm just saying that this is the second time after Benghazi that Republicans have got their hands on a small thing, then jumped five steps forward in their accusations. In this case the jump from 'there appears to be an attempt to cover up something' to 'therefore they are covering up the deliberate targeting of conservative groups for overtly political purposes'.
Politicians over egging something to get their base fired up before the mid-terms and keep the pressure on an Administration that has terrible approval ratings? Say it isn't so
The problem is that if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, most people don't think it's a flamingo;
- First accusations
- statement before Congress that no targeting is occurring
- Head of the group that was accused of targeting admits it
- Apology followed by claim it was low level staff in one office
- Evidence shows that it was multiple offices and senior staff involved
- Claim made that targeting was non-partisan
- Documents show that applications with "Tea Party" and/or "Patriot" were flagged
- Evidence shows that IRS overstepped their authority when auditing certain individuals
- Evidence that confidential tax documents leaked to political opponents
- Lerner called to testify
- Lerner pleads 5th
- Lerner's emails for the period in question lost with an excuse that many people call into question (including those in the tech field)
- Emails from others also involved in this investigation are also lost
Folks are trying to excuse the IRS for losing Lerner's email, because emails were lost during Bush's ordeal over the DA firings. In the classic "the other guy did it too!" argument. Those emails were disclosed as “lost” but then were found.
The difference with the IRS, is they said they had them all and now report them as “lost.”
FYI... still trying to catch up to last night's fireworks.
whembly wrote: And there's another point I want to bring up...
Folks are trying to excuse the IRS for losing Lerner's email, because emails were lost during Bush's ordeal over the DA firings. In the classic "the other guy did it too!" argument.
The classic "the other guy did it too" argument is your playbook, so don't try to pin it on others.
I posted the link to the Bush emails and spend multiple posts trying to explain to you why I linked to them. The fact that you now claim it was a "the other guy did it too" argument just makes it clear that talking to you about anything politics is a waste of time since you clearly don't read what others are saying.
Because if you can turn page after page of my saying this:
"This excuse is bs and everybody knows it is bs. But it is just plausible enough to make sure that there is enough reasonable doubt to keep any of them from getting into trouble. The Republicans are going to use it to fire up their base and scream and shout, but in the end they will not do anything because they want to be able to do the same in the future. Just like the Democrats screamed and shouted when Bush "lost" emails but they didn't change anything because they want to be able to do the same. But the only important thing is to get their base fired up and pretend that they are outraged so that voters will flock to them, but they have to do it in a way that lets them continue to do that when it is their turn. There is no iron-clad case here and there are so many areas where this could have happened that no charges will ever get filed because they were careful enough to present a scenario where losing the emails could somehow just be considered an "honest mistake" which will prevent any judicial actions against them. Again, it's bs and we all know it's bs. But the Republicans will not to anything about it, just like the Democrats will not do anything about it. They want to pay lip service to us, but want to be able to keep on doing it. It's bs, but no amount of us bitching about it is going to change that."
Into this:
"the other guys did it too!"
Then there is really no point not to ignore you in any future OT posts.
Then there is really no point not to ignore you in any future OT posts.
Have at it bro.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think *anything* will change except for some token rule change (ie, moving tax-exemption determination to different agency).
But that doesn't mean, we as voters, sweep these things under the rug because some previous administrations got away with it.
motyak wrote: I hope the irs bloke/gal gets the same level of treatment as whoever got investigated when the last administration did something similar with their emails, and that they give the same level of detailed answers
Um... okay?
Meh...the IRS is an organization that operates on the principle of guilt until proven innocent in its dealings with the taxpayer. We owe the IRS that same standard.
Not true. It operates on the same principle of "innocent until proven guilty". That is why they conduct an audit if there are irregularities, rather than y'know just handing down fines/jailtime.
And if you can't justify those irregularities... then what happens?
I don't know Whembly, you tell me?
What happens? What dark and sinister thing happens when you have unexplainable/unjustifiable irregularities in your taxes?
Sigh, tried to stay out of this thread since I get to hear this garbage all day anyway... Even from taxpayers who think we target them because they are Republican (no, we target you when you don't do your taxes right, or don't pay withholding/estimated taxes like the law requires) there is no special alert on our screen that pops up with flashy lights saying you are a Republican or Democrat, I only know this information when you tell me this information, AND I DONT CARE.
For those that don't know, I work for the IRS, as a collections rep.
Here what happens when you have an irregularity on your taxes:
For the sake of simplicity, since every case is different as to the reason, we will go with Suzie claiming her bedroom as a home office and taking tax credits for it.
1. Suzie files her taxes.
2. IRS randomly flags tax returns with certain audit risks, such as EIC or other credits that are often abused, but many are simply random.
3. Suzie's return gets flagged, oh noes! This can happen up to 3 years after the original filing date, we process MILLIONS of returns so yeah this can take some time.
4. IRS sends Suzie an audit report, along with a publication with instructions on how to prove the that Suzie can claim the credit.
5. Suzie typically will have 45 days to produce proof that she can claim the credit. This amount of time can be variable depending on the complexity of the situation, Exam will work with taxpayers if additional time is needed, to an extent.
Now here's where things can go wrong or right for Suzie.
Scenario 1: Suzie shows proof
1. Suzie responds to the letter and provides the requested documentation.
2. IRS receives and processes Suzie's correspondence
3. IRS agrees and exam is closed, all is well.
4. If IRS needs further information, they will request it, then see step 1, or scenario 2.
Scenario 2: Suzie ignores the letter
1. IRS doesn't receive a response and after 45 days, assesses a balance to Suzie's account.
2. IRS sends a notice to Suzie, saying "hey you have a balance, call us."
3. After another 45 days if no response the IRS sends a second notice, a bit stronger wording and advising that if no response they may be levied or other things.
4. After ANOTHER 45 days the IRS sends the certified letter called an LT11, or Final Notice of Intent to Levy, basically call us before the next 45 day period is up or be levied.
5. If still no response levies are issued and possible liens are filed.
This is where I come into play, calling one of the numbers on the above notices of balance will get you in touch with my department, Automated Collection Systems, where I will happily assist you in setting up a payment plan, placing you in CNC, or assisting with extensions to pay etc.. At this point if you want to have an audit reconsideration done you certainly can, but given the time already granted for the original reconsideration noted above, collection action will continue until you prove the balance is not valid (we gave you plenty of chances).
So there you have it folks, we don't send out black suburbans to come take your children to labor camps or throw you in jail because you claimed your girlfriends cousins kids on your return.
People love to blame the IRS when they screw up their taxes, the IRS is the bad guy when you claim dependents that are not yours and the IRS says no, or go exempt at your work so your check is bigger but have no taxes to cover your liability in April, or forget to include income on your return or the countless other ways people, either wilfully or not, screw up their taxes. Notice I use "you/your" on all of this, because none of this is the IRS doing, its YOUR signature on the bottom of that 1040, not ours.
I am not some IRS loving tree hugger, but if statements are going to be thrown around as though they are fact, please be sure that they are indeed factual, and not an off the cuff remark about an agency you don't happen to like.
** Note, in case for whatever reason one of my supervisors stumbles across this: I speak on no official authority granted by the IRS, the above views are my own and simply an account of my job.
It's the leadership of the IRS that we're focusing on, not the bulk of the IRS' staff.
To be fair, I don't envy what you do... no one likes paying their taxes.
It's the fact that, with the apparent targeting to conservative groups, the belated discovery and admission to Congress that it lost a chunk of Lerner’s e-mails is inexcusable. Just as inexcusable as similar e-mail gaps that were discovered during investigations of the Clinton administration’s fundraising practices, the Bush administration’s firing of the DA, and his memos on Enhanced Interrogation policy (which were eventually found).
Unfortunately, given how partisan John Koskinen is... I believe the IRS' credibility is at stake here.
Kanluwen wrote: The only coincidence is your appalling grammar.
Seriously, at this point it's just hilarious to continue seeing the witch hunt ongoing.
While I do think that the Republicans are using this as a political hammer, I don't think it matters because even a bad tool can sometimes be used to do a good job. I think there are legitimate concerns and I think those are good questions. "We lost all the emails" has been the go-to excuse for 2 administrations now, and it's time that we finally put a stake through that; because although there are lots of reasons and excuses for why it could legitimately happen, there aren't really any for why it should happen.
Emails disappearing is only possible through truly poor IT policy or intentional malfeasance, and with the level of spending the IRS does on IT infrastructure, neither explanation is satisfactory, not in 2014. The timelines alone are so suspicious that an investigation truly is warranted.
Of course we also have "whoever was responsible for making sure there are backups should be fired" followed by "the people responsible for making sure there are backups have been fired. That's really suspicious...".
Kanluwen wrote: The only coincidence is your appalling grammar.
Seriously, at this point it's just hilarious to continue seeing the witch hunt ongoing.
While I do think that the Republicans are using this as a political hammer, I don't think it matters because even a bad tool can sometimes be used to do a good job. I think there are legitimate concerns and I think those are good questions. "We lost all the emails" has been the go-to excuse for 2 administrations now, and it's time that we finally put a stake through that; because although there are lots of reasons and excuses for why it could legitimately happen, there aren't really any for why it should happen.
Emails disappearing is only possible through truly poor IT policy or intentional malfeasance, and with the level of spending the IRS does on IT infrastructure, neither explanation is satisfactory, not in 2014. The timelines alone are so suspicious that an investigation truly is warranted.
Yeah... I'll admit that my zeal to fight that this is a big deal can get out of hand...
I just hope that the partisan attackers/defenders step back and consider the implications here...
It's not about who was targeted. I realize some of you don't care it was the tea party, and frankly I'm not going to lose any sleep over the tea party being targeted for anything either... *shrug*
But that's not what's at stake here. What's at stake is that ANY group was targeted for what appears to be political reasons.
This sets a dangerous precedent for future administrations.
Now we don't know for sure it was political......but that's because we can't see what was in the emails.
Nope. I just find it hilarious that in the same post you try the whole 'appeal to reason' and then act as though you are somehow the only person being objective in this instance.
It's also hilarious how you say "I don't care that this is the Tea Party" but then you talk about how "What's at stake is that ANY group was targeted for what appears to be political reasons."
Of course a group with political leanings is targeted "for what appears to be political reasons".
Kanluwen wrote: Nope. I just find it hilarious that in the same post you try the whole 'appeal to reason' and then act as though you are somehow the only person being objective in this instance.
Que I'm not the only one.
It's also hilarious how you say "I don't care that this is the Tea Party" but then you talk about how "What's at stake is that ANY group was targeted for what appears to be political reasons."
Are you telling me that you're okay with what happened... and if a Republican administration does this same thing to progressive groups, you'd be okay with it as well?
Of course a group with political leanings is targeted "for what appears to be political reasons".
Kanluwen wrote: One side wasn't advocating that "income tax is illegal".
Erm... what?
You're missing the point. Let me try again.
Only conservative groups were targeted in an apparent political attempt to mitigate these groups impact during an election cycle. Arguments were made that Progressive groups received the same sort of scrutiny as the conservative groups, which is a patently false: Treasury IG: Liberal groups weren't targeted by IRS like Tea Party
... “Our audit did not find evidence that the IRS used the ‘progressives’ identifier as selection criteria for potential political cases between May 2010 and May 2012,” George wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill.
The inspector general also stressed that 100 percent of the groups with “Tea Party,” “patriots” and “9/12” in their name were flagged for extra attention.
“While we have multiple sources of information corroborating the use of Tea Party and other related criteria we described in our report, including employee interviews, e-mails and other documents, we found no indication in any of these other materials that ‘progressives’ was a term used to refer cases for scrutiny for political campaign intervention,” George wrote to Levin, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee…
George’s letter says that the “progressive” identifier on BOLO lists was not in a section used for selecting potential political cases, and that the IRS had developed inappropriate criteria to flag Tea Party applicants as potentially political. ...
So here's my simple question to you: During a Republican administration, would you be okay if the IRS exclusively performed extra scrutiny to progressive groups?
Here's my simple question to you:
During a Republican administration, would you be okay if the IRS exclusively performed extra scrutiny to progressive groups that advocate income tax evasion?
Kanluwen wrote: Here's my simple question to you:
During a Republican administration, would you be okay if the IRS exclusively performed extra scrutiny to progressive groups that advocate income tax evasion?
Kanluwen wrote: Here's my simple question to you:
During a Republican administration, would you be okay if the IRS exclusively performed extra scrutiny to progressive groups that advocate income tax evasion?
A) you're deflecting.
B) are you actually arguing that all those groups the IRS looked at advocated tax evasion?
Kanluwen wrote: Here's my simple question to you:
During a Republican administration, would you be okay if the IRS exclusively performed extra scrutiny to progressive groups that advocate income tax evasion?
A) you're deflecting.
B) are you actually arguing that all those groups the IRS looked at advocated tax evasion?
It's not deflection, Whembly. It's called CONTEXT.
Kanluwen wrote: Here's my simple question to you:
During a Republican administration, would you be okay if the IRS exclusively performed extra scrutiny to progressive groups that advocate income tax evasion?
A) you're deflecting.
B) are you actually arguing that all those groups the IRS looked at advocated tax evasion?
It's not deflection, Whembly. It's called CONTEXT.
And again, phrasing.
Okay... show me that the groups that the IRS scrutinized (ie, truth to vote, Albuquerque Tea Party, etc...) advocated tax evasion.
Unfortunately, given how partisan John Koskinen is... I believe the IRS' credibility is at stake here.
How does being a donor to a particular political party invalidate an official decision, if said decision was within the scope of the law?
Being a donor to your favored party isn't a bad thing in a general sense... however...
When the head of the exempt organization plead the 5th and resigned...
AND, when the commissioner during the time in question resigned...
There's a credibility issue...
The logical thing would be to nominate a non-partisan commish.
You see... credibility is everything for this agency. It absolutely depends on trust, and of course the threat of an audit to get Americans to file their taxes on time and honestly.
You see... credibility is everything for this agency. It absolutely depends on trust, and of course the threat of an audit to get Americans to file their taxes on time and honestly.
No, it depends on the authority of the Federal Government. And I don't think that sort of authority has been abrogated en masse, at least as a result of this case.
The logical thing would be to nominate a non-partisan commish.
Such a thing does not exist within the narrative you have expressed across several threads.
All I'm saying is that if the IRS/White House believes that this is a phoney scandal, then they could've found someone else who didn't contribute nearly $100,000 to Democratic candidates and groups over his career.
You see... credibility is everything for this agency. It absolutely depends on trust, and of course the threat of an audit to get Americans to file their taxes on time and honestly.
No, it depends on the authority of the Federal Government. And I don't think that sort of authority has been abrogated en masse, at least as a result of this case.
All I'm saying is that if the IRS/White House believes that this is a phoney scandal, then they could've found someone else who didn't contribute nearly $100,000 to Democratic candidates and groups.
That contribution would not be significant to any party, or Party running in the current climate.
In other news related to IRS wrongdoing: (complete with the perp taking the 5th, the IRS withholding documents, and Eric Holder’s DOJ refusing to prosecute)
Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit.
The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM's chief political rival.
"Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter for a reason," NOM Chairman John D. Eastman told The Daily Signal....
In February 2012, the Human Rights Campaign posted on its web site NOM’s 2008 tax return and the names and contact information of the marriage group's major donors, including soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney....
HRC's president at the time, Joe Solmonese, was tapped that same month as a national co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.
A gay rights activist named Matthew Meisel apparently delivered the leaked tax forms to HRC. He wrote in a discovered email that he had a "conduit" who passed him the information. However, when asked about this under oath, he invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination (sound familiar?), and also refused to say who his "conduit" was.
NOM is demanding that Eric Holder grant Meisel immunity so that he can be compelled to reveal the name of his "conduit."
For some reason, Eric Holder is refusing to take the steps necessary to find the actual lawbreaking parties at the IRS.
d-usa wrote: They also tell you what you owe, because they already get a copy of (most) your income before you even file your taxes.
They get a copy of your W2 from your employer, so the IRS knows if you claimed all your income on your tax forms without having to audit you.
This is incorrect, we do not receive income information until around May/June, most returns are accepted after they pass some scrutiny for obvious frivilous returns. This is why some audits can take 6 months, like one from AUR, where you forget income on your return, we come along after and correct the return for you to include the forgotten income (arnt we nice?).
d-usa wrote: They also tell you what you owe, because they already get a copy of (most) your income before you even file your taxes.
They get a copy of your W2 from your employer, so the IRS knows if you claimed all your income on your tax forms without having to audit you.
This is incorrect, we do not receive income information until around May/June, most returns are accepted after they pass some scrutiny for obvious frivilous returns. This is why some audits can take 6 months, like one from AUR, where you forget income on your return, we come along after and correct the return for you to include the forgotten income (arnt we nice?).
More to come, dont know how to multi-quote..
Just press the multi-quote button on each post you want, and than press the post reply button on the bottom. All the quotes should be already in the typing area then.
It's the manner in which people submit their own taxes.
The Federal/Treasure don't tell you exactly what you owe (unless you're audited).
I still do not follow. People are legally compelled to follow Federal tax laws according to a series of regulations.
Simply because a person is not audited does not make the law subject to voluntary compliance.
This is true. There is a legal obligation to file taxes and claim your earned income, stemming from the 16th Amendment:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
So Congress passed law for taxes, which are not voluntary.
Audits are not used to "force" people to file, if we see a return thats not filed and it shows as a refund when calculated at single/1 then we dont care, your loss after 3 years when the refund statute expiration date runs up. If we see a missing return that shows a potential for a balance, then we file it for you. Only thing is, when we do it, its Single/1 and thats it, no credits no itemized deductions, nothing, single with 1 exemption because legally all we can be sure of is that you are a person. (Yes you can file your own later to replace ours)
d-usa wrote: They also tell you what you owe, because they already get a copy of (most) your income before you even file your taxes.
They get a copy of your W2 from your employer, so the IRS knows if you claimed all your income on your tax forms without having to audit you.
This is incorrect, we do not receive income information until around May/June, most returns are accepted after they pass some scrutiny for obvious frivilous returns. This is why some audits can take 6 months, like one from AUR, where you forget income on your return, we come along after and correct the return for you to include the forgotten income (arnt we nice?).
More to come, dont know how to multi-quote..
It is automatically figured out though.
I found out the hard way a couple years after my job switched payroll processor and I only got one W2 instead of two. I didn't even know that my second one was missing until 3 years later when the IRS had it and I didn't and they send me an updated "by the way, this was your correct income so you owe us $X,XXX in taxes".
d-usa wrote: They also tell you what you owe, because they already get a copy of (most) your income before you even file your taxes.
They get a copy of your W2 from your employer, so the IRS knows if you claimed all your income on your tax forms without having to audit you.
This is incorrect, we do not receive income information until around May/June, most returns are accepted after they pass some scrutiny for obvious frivilous returns. This is why some audits can take 6 months, like one from AUR, where you forget income on your return, we come along after and correct the return for you to include the forgotten income (arnt we nice?).
More to come, dont know how to multi-quote..
It is automatically figured out though.
I found out the hard way a couple years after my job switched payroll processor and I only got one W2 instead of two. I didn't even know that my second one was missing until 3 years later when the IRS had it and I didn't and they send me an updated "by the way, this was your correct income so you owe us $X,XXX in taxes".
Yep, that's the AUR I was referring to in my other post, they send you a CP2000 (cool name for a crappy notice to get). Yes our systems do match your income to what is reported, within certain criteria, but this can happen anywhere from 6 months past your filing date to 3 years, when we are no longer able to review returns by law. I apologize, I should have been more specific to which part of your post I was referring to, mainly the part where we know your income when you file before April 15th
Fun part is that you guys apperantly switched to the same system that we did during the same time (DFAS).
The IRS lady that I spoke to wanted to know how I can just "forget" to file part of my W2 and sounded pretty skeptical at first. I explained to her that we switched to DFAS and I was mailed my W2 at the end of the year like the year before, but I didn't realize that I had to download the other half of my W2 from the payroll site.
She heard "switched to DFAS" and said that they had to do the same thing and it was a bit of a clusterfeth and then she understood.
Had to spend many times on the phone setting up payment plans and figuring stuff out. Everybody was very nice and professional though, it probably helps when the person calling isn't a dick either though.
whembly wrote: @IronWarLeg: I meant that we have obligations to file taxes and that the process is voluntary.
It's like we know we're supposed to obey traffic lights, but some folks choose to ignore them at their own peril.
Yes, no one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to file, but by law you are supposed to, the consequences of not filing are commensurate to your income and the amount of taxes potentially owed. The income you report is voluntarily reported when you are self employed (w2 earners are different as d-usa noted, the IRS knows), as are the credits you claim, but you better be able to back up what you put on a return, hence why the "guilty until proven innocent" saying doesn't work here. If you put something on a tax return, you have to be able to back it up. We don't accuse you of taking a credit, you filed a return claiming you qualify for that credit, we only ask for proof.
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d-usa wrote: Fun part is that you guys apperantly switched to the same system that we did during the same time (DFAS).
The IRS lady that I spoke to wanted to know how I can just "forget" to file part of my W2 and sounded pretty skeptical at first. I explained to her that we switched to DFAS and I was mailed my W2 at the end of the year like the year before, but I didn't realize that I had to download the other half of my W2 from the payroll site.
She heard "switched to DFAS" and said that they had to do the same thing and it was a bit of a clusterfeth and then she understood.
Had to spend many times on the phone setting up payment plans and figuring stuff out. Everybody was very nice and professional though, it probably helps when the person calling isn't a dick either though.
We hear this all the time, "Man I thought you guys were all a-holes and this call was gonna suck but you guys have been great!". Ill be the first to admit that we have some bad apples who are indeed a-holes, but honestly the caller sets the tone. I take a whole different approach to people calling looking for help than I do people who want to call in and argue tax law for frivolous crap, like saying I don't have to pay taxes because I live in the "Republic" of California... sir I am going to put you on hold while a smash my forehead against my keyboard.
Edit: And now we are paid by the Dept. of Agriculture...
whembly wrote: Factually true. Even the IRS' own IG confirmed it.
Nope, it's false. 16 groups were identified for greater scrutiny based on having the word 'progressive' in their name.
Now, you can argue that groups with conservative flags like 'Tea Party' were more likely to be flagged purely on that word search, and that argument has a basis on the limited stats we've been given so far (30% of groups with progressive were sent for further review, 100% of 'Tea Party' were flagged for further review). That isn't conclusive, because we can't just assume all groups are equally likely to be needing further scrutiny - it could well be that 70% of progressive groups were clearly engaged in greater charity, while none of the Tea Party groups were - that can only be established with a case by case review.
But what you absolutely, completely cannot say is that only conservative groups were considered for further review. That is absolutely, definitively incorrect.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Politicians over egging something to get their base fired up before the mid-terms and keep the pressure on an Administration that has terrible approval ratings? Say it isn't so
Of course, the irony that a politically motivated inquisition is making lots of noise about a government resource being used for political purposes shouldn't be lost on anyone.
And I agree that there's a credibility gap. My point is simply that lurching from that credibility gap to concluding the wildest theories are established is a really bad way to go about this... unless of course the objective is just to score media headlines.
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whembly wrote: J. Russell George[/url], Treasury’s own inspector general for tax administration?
Well now I know you're even pretending to read anything posted here.
Your link says "Liberal groups weren't targeted by IRS like Tea Party". I have already said "Now, you can argue that groups with conservative flags like 'Tea Party' were more likely to be flagged purely on that word search, and that argument has a basis". So, if you're actually reading this, you'll see I've already recognised what you tried to argue with that link.
Where the disagreement lies is with your claim that only conservative groups were targeted, which is absolutely 100% false. Progressive groups were targeted, making your claim simply wrong.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Politicians over egging something to get their base fired up before the mid-terms and keep the pressure on an Administration that has terrible approval ratings? Say it isn't so
Of course, the irony that a politically motivated inquisition is making lots of noise about a government resource being used for political purposes shouldn't be lost on anyone.
And I agree that there's a credibility gap. My point is simply that lurching from that credibility gap to concluding the wildest theories are established is a really bad way to go about this... unless of course the objective is just to score media headlines.
You may claim that it is politically motivated, but the fact that there is substantial evidence to suggest that a government body targeted groups based on their political leanings should be chilling. The fact that Watergate happened once is once too often. People should be able to express their political beliefs free from fear of government reprisal.
What wild theories are you talking about specifically? Lest we forget the IRS just settled a case yesterday where they admitted to leaking a conservative groups confidential details (including a donor list) to their rivals. The IRS paid a fine and it remains to be seen if anyone will be prosecuted for the leak, which is a felony. The conduct of the IRS has been evasive at best; lies, obfuscation, silence. They are doing themselves no favours.
Washington (CNN) -- To the pile of accusations against the IRS, now add one of the first opinions by a nonpartisan official that the agency went outside the law.
That conclusion on Tuesday from the official responsible for managing historically important U.S. records came at a congressional hearing during which Republicans also tried to widen the spotlight of IRS scandal to include the White House.
David Ferriero, who heads the National Archives and Records Administration, told a House panel that the IRS "did not follow the law" when it failed to tell his agency about the loss of emails belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner.
The Lerner emails are of particularly high-interest because she was the most senior manager so far connected to IRS targeting of tea party and other political groups.
Lerner retired last year and has refused to testify before Congress, exercising her constitutional right not to do so.
The House has charged her with contempt as a result and her lack of testimony has frustrated Republican investigators.
Over a week ago, the IRS revealed that Lerner's hard drive crashed in 2011, destroying thousands of emails and documents. The agency insists it has retrieved some 24,000 of the missing emails by checking the accounts of other IRS employees who corresponded with Lerner.
Republicans have pounced on the technical aspects of the crash as well as on whether the IRS followed federal records keeping law by not having a better backup system to retain electronic information. Those laws also require agencies to notify the archives of any loss of official records.
Tuesday's hearing before the House Oversight Committee followed a contentious session on Monday night during which the panel grilled agency commissioner John Koskinen.
In questioning before the panel on Tuesday, Ferriero told lawmakers that Lerner's emails were certainly federal records -- either temporary or permanent. And he said the IRS has yet to report the loss of the hard drive and the emails to his agency.
"Did they break the law?" Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, asked.
"I'm not a lawyer," Ferriero answered.
"Can we safely assume they broke the law?" Walberg followed.
"They did not follow the law," Ferriero concluded.
White House official testifies
The IRS has maintained that it did not realize the full extent of the hard drive crash until late April or early May.
Koskinen testified the IRS waited to tell Congress because it was trying to retrieve and reconstruct what information it could at first.
The same hearing included testimony from White House attorney Jennifer O'Connor, who worked at the IRS from May to November of 2013.
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa subpoenaed O'Connor after the White House initially said that she left the IRS before the agency knew about the hard drive crash and could not offer any meaningful testimony. She agreed to appear following the subpoena.
That set up immediate tension, as the California Republican opened his questioning by accusing O'Connor of being a hostile witness, demanding quick yes or no answers.
"I'm definitely not hostile," she answered in an almost gentle voice, stressing that she was eager to cooperate and ultimately sparking Issa to say the term "hostile" was not accurate.
As the White House foretold, she shed no light on the Lerner hard drive crash. But O'Connor did give one of the most detailed public descriptions yet of how the IRS initially responded to the congressional investigations into the tea party targeting.
Tedious process
She laid out a tedious five-step process to find and collect tens of thousands of emails, for which the agency was unprepared at first.
"The IRS' material is protected with careful encryption," O'Connor said. "So it needs to be processed before it can be reviewed. They have to load it and flatten it and then decrypt it. ... Then, they would run the (search) terms that the congressional committees had identified over the material and once that was done and the material was viewable, they would move it over into a review tool."
O'Connor said that then acting IRS Commissioner Dan Werfel was emphatic in directing that the agency turn over documents as fully and quickly as possible in response to congressional requests.
But when she arrived, O'Connor saw an IRS that did not have the resources in place for such an operation.
"We (needed) to add people because the IRS had never encountered anything like this," O'Connor told the panel. "We didn't have the staff in place to do this kind of document review production."
She added that the agency also had to add significant server capacity to handle the requests.
"I think the record of the IRS reflects very very hard work to produce the documents," O'Connor concluded.
whembly wrote: In other news related to IRS wrongdoing: (complete with the perp taking the 5th, the IRS withholding documents, and Eric Holder’s DOJ refusing to prosecute)
That article does not indicate Holder is unwilling to prosecute.
It also doesn't feed into the general "issue" of conservative targeting, given that it has been well established that leaks occurred.
Is bad enough. Those destroyed emails must be pretty darn bad.
My first thought was "AOL still exists?"
But my second thought was "Wow, Whembly is reaching." as none of the quotations from the emails noted in your article are especially bad. Indeed, the article itself refers to a lack of clarity:
It was unclear from the emails whether Lerner was suggesting that Grassley or the group be audited - or both.
Is bad enough. Those destroyed emails must be pretty darn bad.
My first thought was "AOL still exists?"
Heh... my first thought too! It was the first one on my twittah feed. There's more on AP, CNN, etc...
But my second thought was "Wow, Whembly is reaching." as none of the quotations from the emails noted in your article are especially bad. Indeed, the article itself refers to a lack of clarity:
It was unclear from the emails whether Lerner was suggesting that Grassley or the group be audited - or both.
Think about it man... she's the head of the Tax Exempt Division.
Evidently, both Grassley and Lerner were invited to the same tax event, but somehow Grassley’s invite ended up in Lerner’s envelope. No biggie...right?
That’s how she knew he’d been invited. And because Grassley’s wife was included on the invite, Lerner jumped to the conclusion that the event organizers were offering to “inappropriately” pay for his wife.
What’s wrong with her raising the alarm about that? (a) there was no reason yet to think Grassley had accepted the invitation. She wanted to “examine” the guy (or the c3/c4 organization) on the mere possibility that he would. (b) per her e-mail exchange with her deputy on this, she seems … not to understand the law at all. It falls to the deputy to explain to her that it’s not illegal for event organizers to pay for his wife so long as he reports the income on his 1040.
In other words, not only did she assume without knowing that Grassley and his wife would attend, she assumed without knowing that they’d end up lying about it on their next tax return.
That's the mindset we're dealing with. And giving the sensitivity of this, this adds fuel to the fire.
Is bad enough. Those destroyed emails must be pretty darn bad.
My first thought was "AOL still exists?"
Heh... my first thought too! It was the first one on my twittah feed. There's more on AP, CNN, etc...
But my second thought was "Wow, Whembly is reaching." as none of the quotations from the emails noted in your article are especially bad. Indeed, the article itself refers to a lack of clarity:
It was unclear from the emails whether Lerner was suggesting that Grassley or the group be audited - or both.
Think about it man... she's the head of the Tax Exempt Division.
Evidently, both Grassley and Lerner were invited to the same tax event, but somehow Grassley’s invite ended up in Lerner’s envelope. No biggie...right?
That’s how she knew he’d been invited. And because Grassley’s wife was included on the invite, Lerner jumped to the conclusion that the event organizers were offering to “inappropriately” pay for his wife.
What’s wrong with her raising the alarm about that?
(a) there was no reason yet to think Grassley had accepted the invitation. She wanted to “examine” the guy (or the c3/c4 organization) on the mere possibility that he would.
(b) per her e-mail exchange with her deputy on this, she seems … not to understand the law at all. It falls to the deputy to explain to her that it’s not illegal for event organizers to pay for his wife so long as he reports the income on his 1040.
In other words, not only did she assume without knowing that Grassley and his wife would attend, she assumed without knowing that they’d end up lying about it on their next tax return.
That's the mindset we're dealing with. And giving the sensitivity of this, this adds fuel to the fire.
@IronWarLeg: do you find that unusual?
I find it to be a bit premature, if the emails in question were during the same tax year, then the IRS would have nothing to audit until after the return had been filed the following year to see if the "income/gift" of the dinner supplied to his spouse had been claimed. These are functions that are WAY above my head so things do operate differently I am sure. For the regular citizen that I deal with everyday exams (audits) are chosen at random if no probable cause is given to scrutinize the return.
(a) there was no reason yet to think Grassley had accepted the invitation. She wanted to “examine” the guy (or the c3/c4 organization) on the mere possibility that he would.
Yes, and?
The IRS administers campaign fundraising laws, as threads of this "scandal" go this is a thin one.
(a) there was no reason yet to think Grassley had accepted the invitation. She wanted to “examine” the guy (or the c3/c4 organization) on the mere possibility that he would.
Yes, and?
The IRS administers campaign fundraising laws, as threads of this "scandal" go this is a thin one.
For something that hasn't happened...yet. What it suggest is that Lerner had what you might call an itchy trigger finger syndrome, particularly when it comes to conservatives.
These emails themselves are not especially damning, but they do support the central narrative surrounding the IRS scandal. Which is thusly: that political considerations came into play in the application of tax law.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is in the spotlight as he is set to further testify to Congress regarding the IRS targeting of conservative groups. It is important to remember that Koskinen has shelled out nearly $100,000 to Democratic candidates and groups.
Koskinen has been contributing to Democrats for four decades, starting with a $1000 contribution to Democratic candidate for Colorado Senate candidate Gary Hart in 1979.
Koskinen has been a reliable donor over the years, contributing a total of $19,000 to the Democratic National Committee from 1988 to 2008. He has made a contribution to the Democratic candidate for president in each election since 1980, including $2,300 to Obama in 2008, and $5000 to Obama in 2012.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has received $3,000 from Koskinen since 2008, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee received $2,000 from 2004 to 2006.
Hillary Clinton has received $3,800 for her various political campaigns from Koskinen.
Koskinen’s most recent contribution was $2,500 to Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) in February of 2013.
These emails themselves are not especially damning, but they do support the central narrative surrounding the IRS scandal. Which is thusly: that political considerations came into play in the application of tax law.
And the end result is?
Of course political considerations came in to play. I mean, we're talking about regulations that may as well be campaign finance law.
These emails themselves are not especially damning, but they do support the central narrative surrounding the IRS scandal. Which is thusly: that political considerations came into play in the application of tax law.
...
Mr. Walters had not been told of Nixon’s other job requirements, as revealed in a White House conversation recorded on May 13, 1971. “I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do what he’s told, that every income-tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends,” the president said.
Mr. Walters failed to follow this script — which was unknown to him — when John W. Dean III, the White House counsel, summoned him to his office on Sept. 11, 1972. Mr. Dean handed him the “enemies list” of 200 people, most prominent Democrats, whom he wanted investigated.
“I was shocked,” Mr. Walters said in a 1997 interview with The Washington Post. “John, do you realize what you’re doing?” he remembered saying. “If I did what you asked, it’d make Watergate look like a Sunday school picnic.”
But Mr. Dean was emphatic, he recalled, saying, “The man I work for doesn’t like somebody to say ‘no.’ ”
Several days later, Mr. Walters went to his immediate boss, Treasury Secretary George P. Shultz, showed him the list and recommended that the I.R.S. do nothing. Mr. Shultz told him to lock the list in his safe.
...
whembly wrote: Now you're just playing the semantic war here.
"Targeting" in the sense that one side received different treatment than the other.
But, you know that.
I'm not playing a semantic game, but it seems like you're playing to get out way over-stating your case.
Here's what you said; "that IRS were in the right to target only conservatives"
But it wasn't only conservatives targeted, left wing phrases like progressive and medical marijuana were also searched, and groups picked up under those terms were referred for greater examination.
Your statement was simply not correct.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: You may claim that it is politically motivated, but the fact that there is substantial evidence to suggest that a government body targeted groups based on their political leanings should be chilling.
Chilling is more than bit dramatic.
And your claim that there is substantial evidence to suggest is pretty far off the mark. At this stage we have evidence of a scheme that impacted both sides but one more substantially than the other, and insufficient evidence at this point that that unequal impact was unintentional. That's it. That's what we've got.
That doesn't mean the investigation should stop - exactly what happened and why needs to be established. But it does mean that all the claims that this is a 'chilling' targeting of political enemies is highly fanciful and mostly just political pointscoring.
Is bad enough. Those destroyed emails must be pretty darn bad.
"The emails show former IRS official Lois Lerner mistakenly received an invitation to an event that was meant to go to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The event organizer apparently offered to pay for Grassley's wife to attend the event. In an email to another IRS official, Lerner suggests referring the matter for an audit, saying it might be inappropriate for the group to pay for his wife."
Yeah, that's damning. This is really getting very Benghazi - the more I see people pretending to be shocked and scandalised by the most minor nothing, the more I suspect there really is nothing to this.
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whembly wrote: That’s how she knew he’d been invited. And because Grassley’s wife was included on the invite, Lerner jumped to the conclusion that the event organizers were offering to “inappropriately” pay for his wife.
In claiming Lerner jumped to a conclusion you are, ironically, jumping to a conclusion. From your own article "The event organizer apparently offered to pay for Grassley's wife to attend the event." It may we be that the offer to pay for the wife was clear from the invite, as it almost would be.
What’s wrong with her raising the alarm about that?
(a) there was no reason yet to think Grassley had accepted the invitation. She wanted to “examine” the guy (or the c3/c4 organization) on the mere possibility that he would.
(b) per her e-mail exchange with her deputy on this, she seems … not to understand the law at all. It falls to the deputy to explain to her that it’s not illegal for event organizers to pay for his wife so long as he reports the income on his 1040.
And now we get to the nub of the issue - you're trying to find scandal in someone asking a question and then being told not to worry about it. Maybe the absurdity of that isn't readily apparent to people outside of finance, but talking through issues is what happens all the time. You get a document, you notice what might be an anomaly, and you raise the issue with other staff, and either someone knows that issue specifically or you talk it out and reach a final conclusion.
And almost all the time you end up deciding that this is okay, or its a really minor thing that's not worth bothering with. Which is exactly what happened here.
Were Lois Lerner’s allegedly lost emails actually destroyed? An Ohio-based trade association, the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM), isn’t so sure, and they don’t find IRS commissioner Koskinen’s explanation of their loss very plausible.
IAITAM administers internationally accepted certifications for information technology professionals. According to the group’s standards, if Lerner’s supposedly malfunctioning hardware was properly destroyed, there would be records of it.
Dr. Barbara Rembiesa, president of IAITAM, questions whether there is documentation of the destruction of the files. Who performed the work, says Rembiesa, is important because not all IT professionals are IAITAM certified.
“The notion that these emails just magically vanished makes no sense whatsoever. That is not how IT asset management at major businesses and government institutions works in this country. When the hard drive in question was destroyed, the IRS should have called in an accredited IT Asset Destruction (ITAD) professional or firm to complete that process, which requires extensive documentation, official signoffs, approvals, and signatures of completion. If this was done, there would be records. If this was not done, this is the smoking gun that proves the drive or drives were destroyed improperly – or not at all.”
In hearings this week before the House of Representatives, Koskinen testified that the IRS tried to reconstruct the information from the hard drives but didn’t outline the details of their destruction.
Many of the missing Lerner emails exist on the hard drives of other IRS employees with whom she corresponded, but the IRS has not outlined a plan to find those to comply with subpoenas from the House of Representatives.
And your claim that there is substantial evidence to suggest is pretty far off the mark. At this stage we have evidence of a scheme that impacted both sides but one more substantially than the other, and insufficient evidence at this point that that unequal impact was unintentional. That's it. That's what we've got.
That doesn't mean the investigation should stop - exactly what happened and why needs to be established. But it does mean that all the claims that this is a 'chilling' targeting of political enemies is highly fanciful and mostly just political pointscoring.
What other words do you think are appropriate when the agency admits to breaking the law and paying $50K settlement to one group after they deliberately leaked confidential documents including a donor list to their rivals? What's more is that the IRS admitted that they targeted right leaning groups, that point can no longer be disputed. An organ of government singled out groups because of their political views, applied pressure to them during a fiercely contested election, and broke policy and procedure to do so.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/10/irs-apology-conservative-groups-2012-election/2149939/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/irs-apology_n_3253001.html The point they are trying to argue is that it isn't politically motivated and that is what is being investigated.
Dreadclaw69 wrote: What other words do you think are appropriate when the agency admits to breaking the law and paying $50K settlement to one group after they deliberately leaked confidential documents including a donor list to their rivals?
At a first run, the words I used would be "A different issue than this one."
What's more is that the IRS admitted that they targeted right leaning groups, that point can no longer be disputed.
Did they also target liberal groups? If picking up groups because they have the word 'Tea Party' in their name, investigating them and then forwarding them on for further investigation is targeting, then is it also targeting liberal groups when you pick up groups with 'progressive' in their name, investigate them further, and forward them on for further investigation?
Anyhow, like always this is just so fething stupid. I mean, just read your own fething links. See what the IRS actually fething said - that they wrongly applied too much scrutiny to Tea Party groups, but deny any political motivation? See how that's exactly what I've been saying - that this was certainly bad policy that was mostly felt by one side of politics, but anything more than that has to be proven.
And then you go and post a link that repeats back to me what I've been saying, as evidence of who knows what.... maybe you just read apology, and assume that means they're guilty of everything anyone has ever accused them of.
Anyhow, in case you're actually reading this, at this point what is commonly claimed by Republicans, but absolutely unproven in any way, is the idea that there was some deliberate system in place to target only conservative groups, in order to advantage democrats politically. That's what needs to be established for any of this 'threat to democracy' stuff to be anymore than hot air and political opportunism.
Grey Templar wrote: They disproportionately targeted conservative groups is the point, not that they exclusively targeted them.
That is what is so wrong here.
And when stop and search laws affect mostly black people, it might make the policy wrong, but it doesn't automatically make the people who designed the laws racists who designed racist policy purely for racist purposes.
Were Lois Lerner’s allegedly lost emails actually destroyed? An Ohio-based trade association, the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM), isn’t so sure, and they don’t find IRS commissioner Koskinen’s explanation of their loss very plausible.
IAITAM administers internationally accepted certifications for information technology professionals. According to the group’s standards, if Lerner’s supposedly malfunctioning hardware was properly destroyed, there would be records of it.
Dr. Barbara Rembiesa, president of IAITAM, questions whether there is documentation of the destruction of the files. Who performed the work, says Rembiesa, is important because not all IT professionals are IAITAM certified.
“The notion that these emails just magically vanished makes no sense whatsoever. That is not how IT asset management at major businesses and government institutions works in this country. When the hard drive in question was destroyed, the IRS should have called in an accredited IT Asset Destruction (ITAD) professional or firm to complete that process, which requires extensive documentation, official signoffs, approvals, and signatures of completion. If this was done, there would be records. If this was not done, this is the smoking gun that proves the drive or drives were destroyed improperly – or not at all.”
In hearings this week before the House of Representatives, Koskinen testified that the IRS tried to reconstruct the information from the hard drives but didn’t outline the details of their destruction.
Many of the missing Lerner emails exist on the hard drives of other IRS employees with whom she corresponded, but the IRS has not outlined a plan to find those to comply with subpoenas from the House of Representatives.
sebster wrote: Did they also target liberal groups? If picking up groups because they have the word 'Tea Party' in their name, investigating them and then forwarding them on for further investigation is targeting, then is it also targeting liberal groups when you pick up groups with 'progressive' in their name, investigate them further, and forward them on for further investigation?
This round about again? I never said that liberal groups were not caught up in this. What I said was that the overwhelming majority of those targeted and had further action (in violation of IRS policy and procedure) were conservative groups.
sebster wrote: Anyhow, like always this is just so fething stupid. I mean, just read your own fething links. See what the IRS actually fething said - that they wrongly applied too much scrutiny to Tea Party groups, but deny any political motivation? See how that's exactly what I've been saying - that this was certainly bad policy that was mostly felt by one side of politics, but anything more than that has to be proven.
And then you go and post a link that repeats back to me what I've been saying, as evidence of who knows what.... maybe you just read apology, and assume that means they're guilty of everything anyone has ever accused them of.
Somehow you got that from
Dreadclaw69 wrote: The point they are trying to argue is that it isn't politically motivated and that is what is being investigated.
That is impressive
sebster wrote: Anyhow, in case you're actually reading this, at this point what is commonly claimed by Republicans, but absolutely unproven in any way, is the idea that there was some deliberate system in place to target only conservative groups, in order to advantage democrats politically. That's what needs to be established for any of this 'threat to democracy' stuff to be anymore than hot air and political opportunism.
You mean doing something like admitting to a felony of leaking confidential tax documents including donors before a Court and being fined $50K? That sort of fact which is clearly established and a matter of record?
And yes, the accusations are currently unproven as the investigation (hampered by lies, pleading the 5th, and lost documents) is still continuing.
sebster wrote: And when stop and search laws affect mostly black people, it might make the policy wrong, but it doesn't automatically make the people who designed the laws racists who designed racist policy purely for racist purposes.
Do you get the distinction?
If you're going to make such a comparison just remember that Stop & Search in NYC was rejected by a Federal Judge as unconstitutional
The IRS under the Obama Administration has spent over $4 billion on contracts labeled under information technology and software despite IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testifying this week that budgetary restraints prevented the agency from spending $10 million to save and store emails.
Koskinen said “declining budget resources” at the IRS caused the agency decided to reject spending the $10 million needed to ensure emails were properly secured.
A review of IRS spending by the Free Beacon shows the agency has spent a massive amount on what it labeled as IT/software and data processing contracts in the past five fiscal years. The official government’s spending website shows the IRS spent $4.4 billion during this time period.
A total of 12,543 contracts were awarded under this product code.
Records show the IRS under President George Bush spent a total of $5.3 billion in eight years for the same contractive services. If the IRS spending trends continue as they have thus far, the IRS under Obama is on track to far exceed what was spent during the Bush presidency.
Koskinen also said “continuing financial constraints have meant that this fiscal year, the IRS is spending minimal amounts supporting its $1 billion IT infrastructure.” Records show the agency has already spent $642 million on IT contracts this fiscal year.
The IRS commissioner said Lois Lerner’s emails could not be retrieved due to a hard drive crash. However, records show his agency has spent tens of millions of dollars in contracts with at least two companies for information retrieval systems and a forensics program touted as securing and maintaining the integrity of data.
The IRS contracted with Unisys Corporation for $11.8 million, which included $4 million for “critical operation and maintenance of the files informational retrieval system” and $4.9 million for what the contract describes as “critical-exercise files information retrieval system (Exfirs) Operations and Maintenance.”
The agency also awarded a total contract worth $5.9 million to Immixtechnology Inc. in 2010 for what was described as an “encase enterprise forensics suite.”
The company website says the “EnCase® platform provides the foundation for government, corporate and law enforcement organizations to conduct thorough and effective computer investigations of any kind, such as intellectual property theft, incident response, compliance auditing and responding to eDiscovery requests—all while maintaining the forensic integrity of the data.”
The Free Beacon found other government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have hired Immixtechnology for its expertise.
Records show several IT contracts awarded run in the tens of millions of dollars. They include a $47 million contract for an IBM ESSO order that was signed in December 2013 and a $44 million contract for what was described as “critical functions/IBM software subscription.” Another contract for $27.6 million was awarded for IT/telecom, and still another contract awarded for IT for $58.5 million.
The IRS also contracted with Chicago-based Softchoice Corporation for ADP software; that contract amounted to $108 million. Records show the contract was signed in March of 2010 and completed in December 2012—the time frame during which Lerner’s emails were lost.
Softchoice is a leader in electronic storage. This year the company was named as “Top US Storage Growth Partner of the Year.”
The IRS explains on its website requirements for taxpayers to maintain records, including electronic records—which includes “databases, saved files, email, instant messages, faxes, and voice messages.”
“It’s important to note that the same timeframes that apply for keeping paper records apply to electronic records. Generally, that’s until the statute of limitations for the tax return the records relate to has expired. It’s normally three years from the due date of the return, or the date the return was filed—whichever is later,” the IRS states.
That's a whole lotta benjamins for IT infrastructure and crew...
So, were the files approved, or the organizations?
Moreover, how are "Conservative", "Tea Party", Patriot, and "9/12" being defined such that they can all be classified under "...Conservative Organizations", a term which recruits a (previously) capitalized form of a word it refers to?
whembly wrote: Just so that this doesn't get buried, this chart brings it all into focus:
Anyone still wanna argue that there's no issue here?
Just to play DA and underscore Dogma's question here, are there organizations that are not mentioned that would fall under the various Dakka poster's definition of progressive that were audited but are not included, also?
Just to play DA and underscore Dogma's question here, are there organizations that are not mentioned that would fall under the various Dakka poster's definition of progressive that were audited but are not included, also?
Good question... lemme see if I can find more info.
...
The IRS’s job is to collect taxes, and historically it’s been pretty darn good at that. But over the years, Congress has tasked the Service with many things that really have nothing to do with collecting revenue. ... So let’s have the IRS administer the healthcare system. Anybody want to hazard a guess about how that’ll go? ...
And that brings us back to section 501(c)(4), through which the IRS has been charged with regulating a part of the political fundraising process. This involves making precise calculations of the amount of political activity engaged in by social welfare organizations seeking tax-exempt status. How is the IRS supposed to determine that? And now added to this paradigm, apparently, is the political pressure being put on the IRS. So if a Democrat is in the White House, all conservative organizations are bad. And when a Republican is in the White House, I’m betting the heat will be on the IRS to determine that all liberal organizations are bad. Is that how this works?
I don’t know if the IRS has been politicized. Until recently that possibility would have been unthinkable. But the potential of the 501(c)(4) rules to be a setup for the politicization of the IRS is enormous. You simply can’t have the tax collector refereeing the people who provide it with its budget. It’s understandable – although, I think, shortsighted – that the Republicans want to starve the beast for its lack of transparency in the investigation of how it handled social welfare organizations. But the beast (and I don’t believe the IRS is a beast) is in real trouble now.
Section 501(c)(4) should be repealed immediately, and the IRS should be tasked with doing its job: collecting taxes. What are the odds that politicians will do that? Nil, because they’re the only ones benefiting from this mess.
But we are where we are, and I am truly worried. If this agency has been politically corrupted, it will not be able to function. And that leaves us with a question. Who's going to collect the revenue?
...
Even more interesting is this quote from the NPR article about said chart:
A Bit About The Methodology
The majority staff dug into the applications of both conservative groups and progressive groups given extra scrutiny by the IRS, but for the purposes of the analysis looked only at groups with names that included terms the IRS used for flagging. The terms included "conservative," "Tea Party," "patriot 9/12" and "progressive."
The committee opted not to make any judgments about the political leanings of other groups given extra scrutiny by the IRS, sticking only with those listed on IRS "Be on the Lookout" watch lists.
The analysis is the closest so far to an objective numerical accounting of how the groups were treated by the IRS. Still, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee insists the study is flawed.
"The Republican analysis makes no mention of the time period of applications reviewed, no mention of whether they were the same applications reviewed by TIGTA [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration] in connection with the audit, and no mention of the fact that there are terms that reflect liberal organizations other than 'progressive.' What's more, it doesn't disclose the overall number of conservative groups — compared with liberal groups — who applied for tax-exempt status. This is a recurring problem in this investigation — the release of incomplete information. Indeed, that is exactly what led to fundamental flaws in the TIGTA report," Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., said in a statement.
For Camp, the committee's chairman, these numbers validate ongoing Republican concerns that conservative groups were singled out.
"Conservative groups were treated differently and were given more questions," he said in an interview with NPR. "[They] were denied their ability to get approved and had their applications delayed. That means that they were targeted."
Dreadclaw69 wrote: This round about again? I never said that liberal groups were not caught up in this. What I said was that the overwhelming majority of those targeted and had further action (in violation of IRS policy and procedure) were conservative groups.
Which is as meaningless as claiming that a disproportionate number of prisoners are black proves racism... You first have to establish that there were as many progressive groups as liberal groups, that those liberal groups were as likely to fail to meet the 501 criterias, and from there you can start to build a case that the over-representation has happened.
None of that has happened. All we have is accusations that have assumed it. It's Benghazi all over again.
If you're going to make such a comparison just remember that Stop & Search in NYC was rejected by a Federal Judge as unconstitutional
Sure, and that's a key part of why I picked it. I mean, if you'd actually read anything I'd posted here you'd have learned I think the IRS policy was very poor law... I'm a little sympathetic because they got dumped with a very subjective piece of law to try and administer, but the way they tried to approach it was hopeless.
So damn straight the IRS process should get thrown out and the people who attempted it be rightly called idiots, but that doesn't make them partisan hacks. Just as stop & search was rightly rejected by a court of law and rightly criticized by all and sundry for its uneven racial impact... but that doesn't mean it would make any fething sense on any level to conclude the people who designed and passed the law were racists who intentionally designed an unconstitutional law just to spite black people.
And that's the point. The IRS had a really bad policy, but the jumps in logic from the Republicans to conclude that it must have been part of an organised, deliberate process of victimisation is incredible. You actually have to fething prove that stuff.
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whembly wrote: Anyone still wanna argue that there's no issue here?
Yes.
Thing is, I could make up a chart for people in some random area, split down by racial group, and see how many were accused of a crime, and if so how many were convicted. If I picked my area well it'd look like black people were getting a really racist deal, but it'd be really misleading because, well, black people are committing more crimes in the first place.
To actually establish if the process itself is racist, you have to look at the specifics of the population. You have to find cases where a progressive group was asked a handful of questions and then approved, while conservative groups with very similar cases were given a number of very difficult questions and maybe even denied their application. Unless you do that, you haven't established that the difference in end result is the product of an unfair process, because it might be the result of a difference in the various parts of the population.
In this case, it may well be that many, or even most of the conservative groups were set up by the Tea Party and were almost entirely focused on campaigning, while the liberal groups actually were more likely to be established based around a single issue, and more likely to have most of their money committed to education on the issue instead of campaigning.
I'm not saying that is true, I'm just trying to clarify what you actually have to prove before leaping to any conclusions.
sebster wrote: Which is as meaningless as claiming that a disproportionate number of prisoners are black proves racism... You first have to establish that there were as many progressive groups as liberal groups, that those liberal groups were as likely to fail to meet the 501 criterias, and from there you can start to build a case that the over-representation has happened.
None of that has happened. All we have is accusations that have assumed it. It's Benghazi all over again.
The IRS inspector general said this week that while some liberal groups were given extra scrutiny by the tax agency, they were not subjected to the same invasive queries as tea party groups — a finding that seems to confirm a political bias was at play.
In a letter sent late Wednesday and released Thursday, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George said that just 30 percent of groups with the word “progressive” in their name were put through special scrutiny for tax-exempt applications, but 100 percent of groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their name were subjected to invasive questioning.
SEE ALSO: Crisis at IRS tied to lack of funding, National Taxpayer Advocate says
“TIGTA concluded that inappropriate criteria were used to identify potential political cases for extra scrutiny — specifically, the criteria listed in our audit report. From our audit work, we did not find evidence that the criteria you identified, labeled “Progressives,” were used by the IRS to select potential political cases during the 2010 to 2012 time frame we audited,” Mr. George said.
That finding contradicts claims by congressional Democrats who said liberal groups were targeted too — and, they argue, that suggests the scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service didn’t have a political bias.
As I have said before and will say again- there cannot be any doubt that the IRS targeted conservative groups. Especially when the IRS admitted to it. The only real question, and the one currently being investigated is whether it was being done out of political bias.
sebster wrote: Sure, and that's a key part of why I picked it. I mean, if you'd actually read anything I'd posted here you'd have learned I think the IRS policy was very poor law... I'm a little sympathetic because they got dumped with a very subjective piece of law to try and administer, but the way they tried to approach it was hopeless.
So damn straight the IRS process should get thrown out and the people who attempted it be rightly called idiots, but that doesn't make them partisan hacks. Just as stop & search was rightly rejected by a court of law and rightly criticized by all and sundry for its uneven racial impact... but that doesn't mean it would make any fething sense on any level to conclude the people who designed and passed the law were racists who intentionally designed an unconstitutional law just to spite black people.
So to substantiate your point that the IRS did not target conservative groups, you selected a police practice that was struck down for disproportionately targeting minorities....
sebster wrote: And that's the point. The IRS had a really bad policy, but the jumps in logic from the Republicans to conclude that it must have been part of an organised, deliberate process of victimisation is incredible. You actually have to fething prove that stuff.
Jumps in logic that include admitting targeting conservative groups? Admissions in court to a felony by leaking documents? Lying from the get go to Senators? Claiming that it was only in one branch? Claiming that it was limited to low level employees? Refusing to testify? Not complying with Federal law on record keeping? The 'dog ate my homework' excuse that the computer crashed? No, nothing there at all that would make someone suspicious
That is an awful tall hurdle to say that those were just unfortunate circumstances, or mis-speaking. And most people have a mind to keep digging until people stop lying and obfuscating.
Well, judging by the chart it seems that conservative groups didn't meet criteria for the classification they were seeking and were rejected a lot. So maybe they were right in paying more attention to them...
Dreadclaw69 wrote: Yup. All accusations. No findings that the IRS targeted conservative groups;
Just please read the text of your own links, fething please.
"The IRS inspector general said this week that while some liberal groups were given extra scrutiny by the tax agency, they were not subjected to the same invasive queries as tea party groups — a finding that seems to confirm a political bias was at play."
That's what the IG has confirmed, no more and no less. A recognition that one side was more heavily impacted than the other. We can look for motivation in that finding, but it would be our interpretation, and certainly not a finding that the IG has found.
As I have said before and will say again- there cannot be any doubt that the IRS targeted conservative groups.
No, there is no doubt that the brunt of the policy was felt by conservative groups. Exactly what caused that is still completely and utterly undetermined.
The only real question, and the one currently being investigated is whether it was being done out of political bias.
That is a very important question, and one I hope is settled clearly one way or the other.
So to substantiate your point that the IRS did not target conservative groups, you selected a police practice that was struck down for disproportionately targeting minorities....
Yes, to establish the difference between intentionally targeting and a policy that targeted one group more due to elements of the base population.
A point which appears to have gone completely over your head. But hey, I'm nothing but a sport so let's try again - would it be sensible to state that stop and search was designed in order to target minorities and teach them a lesson out of spite? Or was the policy designed for other reasons, but ended up having an unacceptably heavy impact on one group?
sebster wrote: Just please read the text of your own links, fething please.
"The IRS inspector general said this week that while some liberal groups were given extra scrutiny by the tax agency, they were not subjected to the same invasive queries as tea party groups — a finding that seems to confirm a political bias was at play."
That's what the IG has confirmed, no more and no less. A recognition that one side was more heavily impacted than the other. We can look for motivation in that finding, but it would be our interpretation, and certainly not a finding that the IG has found.
Sebster, before you go and start telling other people to read you may wish to heed your own advice. If you had actually read you might have discovered that the IRS and the TIAG have admitted that they targeted conservative groups. That cannot be disputed. It is a matter of record. The only question is whether there was political bias - and I have said consistently that is what this investigation is looking at, the TIAG's report which you quoted "seems to confirm" bias was at play. The investigation will answer whether it did or did not.
sebster wrote: No, there is no doubt that the brunt of the policy was felt by conservative groups. Exactly what caused that is still completely and utterly undetermined.
So when the IRS admitted to targeting conservative groups and apologized for it they weren't really admitting to targeting conservative groups?
sebster wrote: That is a very important question, and one I hope is settled clearly one way or the other.
I agree
sebster wrote: A point which appears to have gone completely over your head. But hey, I'm nothing but a sport so let's try again - would it be sensible to state that stop and search was designed in order to target minorities and teach them a lesson out of spite? Or was the policy designed for other reasons, but ended up having an unacceptably heavy impact on one group?
Still trying to talk about motivation while the investigation is attempting to establish it doesn't seem productive.
You're still trying to justify what the IRS did on the basis of something that was ruled to be unconstitutional. Have you any idea how ludicrous the point you are trying to make is?
The IRS inspector general said this week that while some liberal groups were given extra scrutiny by the tax agency, they were not subjected to the same invasive queries as tea party groups — a finding that seems to confirm a political bias was at play.
In a letter sent late Wednesday and released Thursday, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George said that just 30 percent of groups with the word “progressive” in their name were put through special scrutiny for tax-exempt applications, but 100 percent of groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their name were subjected to invasive questioning.
As I have said before and will say again- there cannot be any doubt that the IRS targeted conservative groups. Especially when the IRS admitted to it. The only real question, and the one currently being investigated is whether it was being done out of political bias.
I love the implication that any group with "Patriot" in its name absolutely 100% MUST be a conservative group. There can be no liberal groups with the word "Patriot" in their name.
I also wonder if there were any other "democratic" or "liberal" keywords looked at. I mean, we looked at "tea party" (who I would argue deserve extra scrutiny given their entire "taxes are illegal" nonsense), "patriot" () and "9/12" for "Conservative" groups. Did we only look for "progressive" groups? What about "green", "energy", or whatever-the-crap buzzwords tend to be in progressive names. (I honestly have no clue.) This isn't meant as a slam on the IG report, I'm just curious how deep and wide the net was actually cast for comparitive purposes.
streamdragon wrote: I love the implication that any group with "Patriot" in its name absolutely 100% MUST be a conservative group. There can be no liberal groups with the word "Patriot" in their name.
I also wonder if there were any other "democratic" or "liberal" keywords looked at. I mean, we looked at "tea party" (who I would argue deserve extra scrutiny given their entire "taxes are illegal" nonsense), "patriot" () and "9/12" for "Conservative" groups. Did we only look for "progressive" groups? What about "green", "energy", or whatever-the-crap buzzwords tend to be in progressive names. (I honestly have no clue.) This isn't meant as a slam on the IG report, I'm just curious how deep and wide the net was actually cast for comparitive purposes.
In the overwhelming majority of cases "patriot" corresponds with a right leaning group, the same way that "progressive" corresponds with a left leaning group.
Seeing as the IRS would have had an out and avoided a lot of the unpleasant focus it has received since this news broke I'd imagine that had there been targeting of liberal groups they would have been tripping over themselves to inform the investigation and the public.
In the overwhelming majority of cases "patriot" corresponds with a right leaning group, the same way that "progressive" corresponds with a left leaning group.
How many liberal NPOs can you think of that have the word "progressive" in their name? Conversely, how many conservative NPOs can you think of that have the phrase "tea party" or the word "patriot" in their name?
Not many in the former case, and as such the analysis is flawed on its face.
Seeing as the IRS would have had an out and avoided a lot of the unpleasant focus it has received since this news broke I'd imagine that had there been targeting of liberal groups they would have been tripping over themselves to inform the investigation and the public.
Again, this has been well established; IRS officials even admitted to it. Indeed, that's a huge part of why Lerner resigned.
Does anybody know what percent of all progressive/liberal and conservative/reactionary groups were targeted. A number doesn't mean much out of context (there may be a lot more Progressive/liberal groups that applied, or vice-versa).
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