{"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":"<p>Does anyone at all believe that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/12\/20\/AR2008122002102_pf.html\">the White House isn&#8217;t engaged in a massive erasing binge<\/a> right now?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/related\/topic\/The+White+House?tid=informline\">White House<\/a>&#8216;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<p>It&#8217;s a tradition, you know:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Thomas S. Blanton, the National Security Archive director, said controversy surrounding the last-minute handling of e-mails by retiring presidents &#8212; including intervention by the courts &#8212; is hardly exceptional.<\/p>\n<p>Blanton wrote in a 1995 book that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/related\/topic\/Ronald+Reagan?tid=informline\">Ronald Reagan<\/a> tried to order the erasure of all electronic backup tapes during his final week in office; the current president&#8217;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 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/related\/topic\/White+House+National+Security+Council?tid=informline\">National Security Council<\/a> was not an agency of the government so he could keep its e-mails beyond public reach.<\/p>\n<p>Blanton said last week that &#8220;the situation is exponentially worse&#8221; under the current administration because the volume of electronic records at stake from Bush&#8217;s tenure is higher than in previous administrations. If some of the records are manipulated, even for a short while, he said, &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does anyone at all believe that the White House isn&#8217;t engaged in a massive erasing binge right now? The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House&#8216;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, [&hellip;]<\/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,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2068,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}