White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005. The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.
"When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired … the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola. It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration "refresh program" to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration. Some, but not necessarily all, of the data on old hard drives is moved to new computer hard drives, the declaration added.
In proposing an e-mail recovery plan Tuesday, Facciola expressed concern that a large volume of electronic messages may be missing from White House computer servers, as two private groups that are suing the White House allege. Facciola proposed the drastic approach of going to individual workstations of White House computer users after the White House disclosed in January that it recycled its computer backup tapes before October 2003. Recycling — taping over existing data — raises the possibility that any missing e-mails may not be recoverable.
At a House committee hearing last month, a computer expert who previously worked at the White House called the e-mail system "primitive" and said it was set up in a way that created a high risk that data would be lost from White House servers where it was being archived…
Pennsylvanians are rushing in record numbers to sign up as Democrats so they can vote in the April 22 presidential primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many are lured by the historic drama of two U.S. senators vying to be the first black or female president. But the two campaigns also are busily recruiting independents, disgruntled Republicans and those who weren’t previously registered at all.
Obama’s effort has generated the most fanfare as his campaign has laid down a steady drumbeat of radio ads and e-mails leading up to the deadline for switching or joining parties. "For real change, register as a Democrat by Monday, March 24," advise Obama ads airing throughout the state.
Only registered Democrats can vote for their party’s candidates in the state’s April 22 primary, and Obama is hoping the recruits will help him overcome Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s solid lead — 12 points in one poll taken last weekend. At stake are 158 delegates to this summer’s Democratic national convention — the biggest bloc of delegates still to be awarded.
Since last fall’s election, statewide Democratic enrollment has swelled by more than 111,000 — an increase of about 3 percent in less than six months that state elections Commissioner Harry VanSickle said is apparently unprecedented. With days to go, Democratic registration is barely 5,000 votes shy of a record 4 million…
Now, I wake up this morning into a Kafka-esque world. I don’t believe that the disappearance of the White House emails is some happenstance of a poorly designed system – just an unmotivated error. I read about the record number of Democratic Voters registering in Pennsylvania, and I don’t feel good. I feel crazy. Are these new Democratic Voters? Or are they Republicans spurred on by Rush Limbaugh and his handlers – Operation Chaos – trying to screw up the Democratic Primaries? Is this our system, or some machine behind the system manipulating it? Is this Hillary Clinton against Barak Obama? Or is this "dirty tricksters" against America?
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