IRS: So… Our Computer Crashed And Erased All Of Lois Lerner’s Emails

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

http://news.yahoo.com/irs-computer-crashed-erased-lois-lerner-emails-203605784.html

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.”

Some high class, grade A bull gak

**Jihadin**

Agreed

**djones520**

I don't think my level of disgust with this administration can get to much higher at this point.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

I guess by "The Most Transparent Administration" they meant their gak would be so poorly concealed that you can see right through it

**Jihadin**

DJ...prepare to see new levels

**IronWarLeg**

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

**Jihadin**

The current Admin have done great things though

**d-usa**

Can't they just ask the NSA for the backup copies?

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

d-usa wrote:
Can't they just ask the NSA for the backup copies?

They wouldn't know where to look

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/09/nsa-our-systems-are-so-complex-we-cant-stop-them-from-deleting-data-wanted-for-lawsuit/

**Jihadin**

Share drives maybe. Mirroring I think they can pull up a previous one.

**d-usa**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Can't they just ask the NSA for the backup copies?

They wouldn't know where to look

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/09/nsa-our-systems-are-so-complex-we-cant-stop-them-from-deleting-data-wanted-for-lawsuit/

But I'm sure they could find every silly thing I posted on Dakka while at work during the last 6 years!

**Commissar-Danno**

djones520 wrote:
I don't think my level of disgust with this administration can get to much higher at this point.

Wait till the next scandal in a few days to a couple of weeks.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Jihadin wrote:
Share drives maybe. Mirroring I think they can pull up a previous one.

I'm sure The Administration has fully exhausted all possible methods at their employ, and they are truly, truly, sorry.

Spoiler:

**djones520**

d-usa wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Can't they just ask the NSA for the backup copies?

They wouldn't know where to look

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/09/nsa-our-systems-are-so-complex-we-cant-stop-them-from-deleting-data-wanted-for-lawsuit/

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.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

**Jihadin**

Deleted

**Ouze**

The exact same thing happened under the Bush administration, to a much greater degree.

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.

**d-usa**

Ouze wrote:
The exact same thing happened under the Bush administration, to a much greater degree.

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...

**Jihadin**

CC
BCC
Ghost

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"

**Ouze**

d-usa wrote:
Plausible deniability is just so awfully convenient...

It's the one thing Republicans and Democrats can both agree on, apparently.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jihadin wrote:
Then. Now. IT Tech certifications from a cereal box?

good enough for my employer

Don't you have a gardening & home improvement thread to start?

**d-usa**

Ouze wrote:

Jihadin wrote:
Then. Now. IT Tech certifications from a cereal box?

good enough for my employer

Don't you have a gardening & home improvement thread to start?

He is talking about server farms now. Isn't that close enough

**Jihadin**

Server farms that you are familiar with

Edit

Deleted

**Ouze**

Hah, I see what you did there.

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.

**d-usa**

We are angry at the other guy, until next time, then the other guys get angry at us, rinse and repeat.

**Jihadin**

Deleted

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Jihadin wrote:
Deleted

Gotta watch out for the NSA

Or whoever it is

**Jihadin**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
Deleted

Gotta watch out for the NSA

Or whoever it is

CYA

**dogma**

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

This SIDPER?

If so I cannot find any evidence that the IRS uses such a system outside its interactions with members of the military.

**Ahtman**

Jihadin wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Jihadin wrote:
Deleted

Gotta watch out for the NSA

Or whoever it is

CYA

YMCA?

**Dreadclaw69**

Yeah.... not buying that excuse in a month of Sundays. Far too convenient.

**-Shrike-**

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...