E-mail Controversy Prompts Many (wh) Aides To Stop Usage

[babylonsister]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/blogs/news_blog/070327/email_controversy_prompts_many.htm

Morning Buzz: March 28, 2007 »

E-mail Controversy Prompts Many Aides To Stop Usage
March 27, 2007 | 5:18 PM ET | Permanent Link

This comes from Whispers editor Paul Bedard:

The growing controversy over the firing of federal prosecutors and what administration officials knew about it is renewing concerns among Bush aides over the less-than-secret aspect of E-emails. Those concerns were elevated this week when a House chairman asked that all aides retain their E-mails.

But just a week after E-mails in the U.S. attorneys case became a main focus of congressional Democrats probing the firings, several aides said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence.

"We just got a bit lazy," said one aide. "We knew E-mails could be subpoenaed. We saw that with the Clintons but I don't think anybody saw that we were doing anything wrong."

But the release of White House emails to the Democrats and the expanded request for more from Rep. Henry Waxman has iced the system. At least two aides said that they have subsequently bought their own private E-mail system through a cellular phone or Blackberry server. When asked how he communicated, one aide pulled out a new personal cellphone and said, "texting."

[northzax]

1. guess what, jerky?

texts are supoenable as well...

[peacetalksforall]

2. They don't work for us. They have their own government. We just

have to admit it. And decide if we will accept it. The truth hurts.

[gratuitous]

3. Running governmental communications through non-governmental servers

Government business is supposed to be conducted on government servers and through government domains. If these aides are using their own private e-mail accounts to do their jobs, they're in violation of the law. On the other hand, of course, whatever is in those private e-mails, it can be argued, are not official Executive Office communiqués, and are therefore not subject to any claims of executive privilege.

I'd say they're in quite a pickle!

[Artem85]

4. re

I agree with you
kudapoyti.com.ua

[babylonsister]

5. From Josh Marshall:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

There's your answer. White House personnel appear to have been systematically avoiding using their government emails on the job because they knew they might some day be subpoenaed.

But as we noted earlier with Karl Rove, this may have been too clever by half. If the president's aides were using RNC emails or emails from other Republican political committees, they can't have even the vaguest claim to shielding those communications behind executive privilege.

[L. Coyote]

6. PLUS, if you use a non-gov server for gov business, it can be subpoenaed

So, a false sense of privacy may prove more incriminating than the Nixon tapes. Especially the e-mails with the felons that are already serving time.

More on this DU thread:

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

[underpants]

7. "lazy" my ass

they were clearly trying to get around the accountability law. I would be willing to bet that they were all told to do this by Rove Libby and Card.