IRS chief defiant on Lois Lerner email loss
Source: Politico
A defiant IRS Commissioner on Friday refused to apologize for the loss of ex-IRS official Lois Lerners emails, and said the agency produced what they could, attributing their disappearance to dated technology.
I dont think an apology is owed, chief John Koskinen told Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp after the Republican lawmaker asked for one at the first hearing since news came of crashed computers of some IRS officials.
It comes a week after the IRS revealed that two years worth of emails of Lerner, the ex-IRS official at the center of the tea party targeting controversy, were lost in a computer crash. Republicans accused the IRS chief of deceit while Democrats said there was no evidence of bad faith.
Camp and other Republicans accused Koskinen of hiding the missing emails from Congress, saying the agency and the White House knew for months there was a problem before they told the Hill, even before he testified before the panel earlier this year.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/irs-emails-lost-tea-party-john-koskinen-108118.html
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)ffr
(22,649 posts)Heck GWB made sure all E-mail communications were deleted immediately. What was it? Something between 6 million and 22 million E-mail destroyed?
BTW, what does n/t stand for? I keep seeing it, but have no idea what it means?
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Saves people a click on the subject of the post, only to find out the entire response was in the subject line.
ffr
(22,649 posts)Hassin Bin Sober
(26,273 posts)Why? I don't know.
N/T
starroute
(12,977 posts)It's for the convenience of people who might be viewing the tree listing of the thread and not "view all" -- it lets them know it's not worth opening that particular post.
Hangingon
(3,071 posts)I would like to see the schedule item for email backup. Since email is so often one of the first records requested in an investigation, I would think the retention would be much longer.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Incompetence. Or cover up.
I do this shit for a living - the excuses don't measure up.
n/t stands for no text to follow - so you don't waste time opening the msg - or a subtle exclamation point
hughee99
(16,113 posts)as well.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/14/bush-emails-found-22-mill_n_391557.html
Yavin4
(35,357 posts)This is my line of work. Hardly any company keeps backup tapes from 2011 unless required to by law. Don't know if the IRS, or any other govt agency, is required to keep backup tapes nor for how long. I imagine that they are not under such a directive.
lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)alp227
(31,962 posts)I hope you're not repeating Republican talking points.
lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)This absolutely does not pass the smell test.
It will never be proven one way or another
alp227
(31,962 posts)lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)Time by the IRS, and nothing is save, and that is the real problem. No one should be targeted because of their political beliefs. They should be targeted because there is a questionable deduction or something else on their tax return, not because of their personal beliefs
alp227
(31,962 posts)Since the IRS knows that Issa will make all sorts of shit up to manufacture scandal?
lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)Problem is that the repukes present it like they are the ONLY ones being targeted, which is a gross misrepresentation of the facts, and which the MSM is only too happy to oblige
Keying words which have "blue" in the names should not be a criteria to trigger an audit, which is one example of their profiling of progressive s
Simply put, Issa is an idiot who is not trying to improve the audit process, but play political games
I would not know if the missing emails were intentional or not, but I would have no doubt there are emails which indicate a policy to specifically target certain groups, progressives included, hat the IRS would not want to mak public
All of this is speculation on my part of course
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Tech departments rarely get the funding they really need, and people get sloppy about things they don't consider important. The small IT company I worked for lost a lot of mail over the decade+ I worked there, and we actually were all tech people.
LittleGirl
(8,261 posts)Backups are rarely if ever tested and they fail ALL OF THE TIME. Backups are so last century too. Mirroring drives is how it's done these days and if your business or company doesn't throw down the cash for the extra hardware, these things will happen. And if I remember correctly, Gov't contracts are lowest bid and there it is right there. LOWEST BID.
(former email administrator)
joc46224
(62 posts)I have been in IT for over 25 years now, during those years I've always been involved with data backup--either as the primary backup administrator or someone else on my team had that role. Every single company I worked for never wanted to invest enough money in backups to make sure the backups were reliable, that we had enough backup capacity to for a reasonable retention period, and that we had a comprehensive DR strategy. Every year some new manager would come in an wail about the fact that our backups were so woefully inadequate. We'd go out and look at the latest technology, talk to vendors, and craft a proposal to present to the same management on what would be required to beef up the backups. Every. Single. Time. when management saw the cost they'd drop the issue.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)"To coordinate with forthcoming auditing standards concerning the retention of audit documentation, the rule requires that these records be retained for seven years after the auditor concludes the audit or review of the financial statements, rather than the proposed period of five years from the end of the fiscal period in which an audit or review was concluded."
ffr
(22,649 posts)Audit retention is an audit standard.
"The auditor must retain audit documentation for seven years from the date the auditor grants permission to use the auditor's report in connection with the issuance of the company's financial statements..."
How an auditor is expected to retain electronic records pertaining to audits from a seven year period seems to be less clear.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)My understanding here in my corp is 5 years, for full compliance. That's how long I know my stuff stays around. My company might be over-conservative on that though. Hard to say. I couldn't find the non-audit records retention requirement.
Todays_Illusion
(1,209 posts)lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)Todays_Illusion
(1,209 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)had less-than-desirable dealings with the IRS, or known someone that has. The torture thing is something that happens overseas, and is far removed from our every day life. Anyone that gets a letter from the IRS has a sinking feeling before they open the envelope.
Garion_55
(1,914 posts)i can absolutely believe it.
LittleGirl
(8,261 posts)hughee99
(16,113 posts)I'd find it hard to believe they still had an 80's computer system.
itsrobert
(14,157 posts)but using them to access DOS type programs.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)I'd be shocked if they were using any DOS or VAX based systems or even programs anymore. The software has to be newer since no one wants to program or maintain anything large-scale (like an email system) for that shit anymore (and they haven't in some time).
If I understand correctly, the IRS uses Microsoft Outlook running on Exchange servers.
Here's an article I just found a few minutes ago, suggesting that if the IRS is telling the truth, the IT department must be "profoundly incompetent", which I guess is possible. Then they compounded their issues by being incredibly cheap, too.
http://www.zdnet.com/is-the-irs-lost-email-story-plausible-7000030684/
TheBlackAdder
(28,076 posts)Then, they were caught either sending out the HDDs to a reclamation service at $1K per drive or the people abandoned their data and started over... with no history. Much like if your home PC's HDD fails and you didn't have a backup of it.
Since then, millions were spent on keeping emails in a centralized recoverable repository and other processes to routinely back up workstation drives at night.
===
So, yes... this is quite believable. Especially so, when you hear about the VA's old computers and that the U.S. Nuclear Strike Force still uses 8-inch floopy disk computers to launch missiles.
mahatmakanejeeves
(56,904 posts)I'll just put this here and run.
Records Management by Federal Agencies
elleng
(130,156 posts)while noting this is 'records,' haven't studied it, but 'e.mails?'