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White House Email Controversy
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-02-03
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Most people have heard of the special investigation into the Bush administration's apparent leak of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. While one could write volumes on the politics and the legalities involved, for our purposes, we will discuss email archival or in this case, the apparent lack thereof.
Email can be a glorious thing because it's a written record and often can be retrieved with the proper tools long after it's been deleted. Important information can be recovered. Things that were lost become found. There's also one big problem with email and that's all the reasons we mentioned above.
Currently, there's a bit controversy surrounding the recovery of emails from 2003. The controversy stems from the Presidential Record Act, passed in 1978. The AP explains the act:
The law says records generated in the conduct of official duties did not belong to the president or the vice president but were the property of the government.
There were apparent problems with the email because i a letter back in January said not all of the email was archived in 2003.
Fitzgerald sent a letter back saying, "We are aware of no evidence pertinent to the charges against defendant Libby which has been destroyed," Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to the defense team. In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
Lewis Scooter Libby's team suggested the special prosecution team led by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was withholding evidence Libby's side says it needs to mount a defense. Libby served as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff up until the indictments. Libby's been charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI regarding and what he knew in the Valerie Plame leak issue.
The big question is what to do now. It's easy enough for political opponents to suggest this is a setup by the administration. At the same time, it could be a mistake on someone's part. Accidents happen. At the same time, this is no ordinary accident either. This is tied to the President of the United States.
Some of those emails be retrieved, it's difficult to say at this point. This does show though that emails have become an increasingly important venue for forensic investigation at a number of levels, including the executive levels of government. Corporate executives also have to deal with emails. Employees get fired over emails. Now email is being used to investigate a presidency.
Will the emails break this whole thing wide open? It's possible. The point is, if companies or government employees in this case are going to get rid of emails, be careful. It may come back to haunt you.
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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