{"id":2067,"date":"2008-12-22T14:05:54","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T18:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2008-12-22T14:05:54","modified_gmt":"2008-12-22T18:05:54","slug":"down-the-memory-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2008\/12\/22\/down-the-memory-hole\/","title":{"rendered":"Down the Memory Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does anyone at all believe that the White House isn’t engaged in a massive erasing binge<\/a> right now?<\/p>\n

The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House<\/a>‘s electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a tradition, you know:<\/p>\n

Thomas S. Blanton, the National Security Archive director, said controversy surrounding the last-minute handling of e-mails by retiring presidents — including intervention by the courts — is hardly exceptional.<\/p>\n

Blanton wrote in a 1995 book that Ronald Reagan<\/a> tried to order the erasure of all electronic backup tapes during his final week in office; the current president’s father struck a secret deal with the U.S. archivist shortly before midnight on his final day in office to seal White House e-mails and take them with him to Texas; and Clinton asserted in 1994 that the National Security Council<\/a> was not an agency of the government so he could keep its e-mails beyond public reach.<\/p>\n

Blanton said last week that “the situation is exponentially worse” under the current administration because the volume of electronic records at stake from Bush’s tenure is higher than in previous administrations. If some of the records are manipulated, even for a short while, he said, “the problem and the cost to the taxpayers is going to be exponentially worse, [as well as] the delay and the lag time before journalists and historians are going to be able to see this.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does anyone at all believe that the White House isn’t engaged in a massive erasing binge right now? The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House‘s electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-society","category-tech"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t