IRS : "Oops we lost all the Lois Lerner emails because our computer crashed"

RPGNinja

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http://news.yahoo.com/irs-computer-crashed-erased-lois-lerner-emails-203605784.html


What an absolute joke. You mean the VERY SAME emails that were between Lois Lerner and the White House that probably would have proved Obama knew about the IRS scandal all along????

Nixon could have only dreamed of abusing this much power. Matter of fact Nixon would worship Obama.


Can you imagine if you guys got in trouble with the IRS and tried to say "Sorry my computer crashed"? They would lock you up and keep you in jail for life.
 
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That would be funny if the emails were really erased due to a technical failure. If I were a hard drive manufacturer I would find out if it was caused by one of my competitor's units. 

 
They need to bury that bitch and fucking Obama under the prison. This is the most corrupt administration in world history.

Hitler was less corrupt.

Stalin was less corrupt.

Putin is far less corrupt.

 
This is the IRS scandal that everyone is outraged for the wrong thing right? That nobody cares that politics is actually a money laundering machine that the mafia has been doing wrong all along?

 
What's there to be outraged about?  The computer crashed.  The IRS provided email chains from 2011 detailing the crash and their attempts to get her emails back off the corrupted drive.  They also retrieved as many emails as possible by taking them other recipient's computers in the same department.

The IRS stored emails on its server for six months on magnetic tape and then would re-use the tape.  People at the IRS had a 500meg limit on the server before they had to offload the stuff to their own system.  This is all documented and provable (or disprovable if someone here wants to show they actually kept emails for 6 years in 2011 or something).

I understand it sounds "convenient" and all but no one is going to prove that it wasn't a conspiracy to anyone who wants to believe it was.

 
not to mention it's a fake scandal to begin with...tea party groups who preach responsibility, transparency and cry about the deficit wanted tax-exempt status (essentially a free ride)...Hypocrite much?. 

No one mentions that progressives groups were investigated as well. In fact, the "investigation" was itself biased because Dan Issa (house oversight chairman) had asked to "to narrowly focus on tea party groups". 

No one mentions that not one conservative groups status was denied.

Using the IRS to intimidate is wrong regardless of who is being investigate but that doesn't mean the IRS shouldn't check the status of groups. And who are we kidding?  conservative groups are more likely to try to skirt the law (for a variety of reason). Talk to your average Tea Party member, they aren't exactly a bastion of knowledge.  

 
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You know what this means? ACORN has infiltrated and taken over the IRS. The CIA is next, but this time, it'll be subverted by the New Black Panthers.
 
Funny how the resident liberal trolls are all silent on this issue.

Selective outrage indeed.
They are trying to come up with replies to the other topics.

How many Liberals does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

None! They sit around and wait for the government to send someone to do it.

 
I'm no IT Professional, but I'm not really sure how this is even possible... Don't all modern servers use some sort of RAID technology to prevent stuff like this? So if one hard drive crashes there's still a couple other hard drives that have the same data? Also given that this is the IRS which has an annual budget of 11.2 billion, I would have assumed that they would have had their servers spread out all across the country to prevent this very thing from happening. 

I mean, if they're still using servers from the 90's and this actually did happen, then I think the IRS needs to be audited to find out where the hell all the money is going.

 
I'm no IT Professional, but I'm not really sure how this is even possible... Don't all modern servers use some sort of RAID technology to prevent stuff like this? So if one hard drive crashes there's still a couple other hard drives that have the same data? Also given that this is the IRS which has an annual budget of 11.2 billion, I would have assumed that they would have had their servers spread out all across the country to prevent this very thing from happening.

I mean, if they're still using servers from the 90's and this actually did happen, then I think the IRS needs to be audited to find out where the hell all the money is going.
Harddrives crash(things need to be stored locally due to server limits) and server limits are needed for an organization this size. If their budget is $11.2bn and there are about 138 million filings that need to be processed per year, we're talking about $82 PER filing. It really isn't that outrageous when you do the math. We're also talking about internal emails; not tax information. Are they important? Sure, but let's be real: the Jersey bridge scandal is way worse than this in terms of malice.
 
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Wow. The IRS actually recycles its stuff, rather than politicial talking points! It's sad that they still use Microsoft Outlook.

But who believes newspapers? They, like reality, is run by liberal craziness.

 
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Wow. The IRS actually recycles its stuff, rather than politicial talking points! It's sad that they still use Microsoft Outlook.

But who believes newspapers? They, like reality, is run by liberal craziness.
I like Outlook? The client is pretty decent and can search for terms within attached documents unlike gmail, which is something I kinda need. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd go back to the client instead of using web-based gmail for work. :rofl:
 
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Wow. The IRS actually recycles its stuff, rather than politicial talking points! It's sad that they still use Microsoft Outlook.
A lot of large organizations use antiquated systems until they can literally no longer function (then scramble for a replacement). A combination of not wanting to retrain a thousand people and fearing a major disruption by updating. You know, "If it works today, let's not worry about changing it until tomorrow".

A good friend of mine was hired right out of college in the mid 90's by a major insurance company and still works for them because he is the only guy who knows how to run their legacy mainframes (which I think are programmed in some 70's version of Fortran).

 
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HoTMaiL has been around for something close to 20 years, has millions of accounts, gives users unlimited storage (supposedly, but I've never tested it. Although I do have emails going back to 2004 - when I failed to log in for something like a month and they suspended my account - in there...)

Meanwhile, I work for a private corperation with a data network that's said to be second only to the US Military and my email box is limited to 50MB and attachments are limited to 5MB... and I have a mailbox 10 times the size of virtually everyone else in my building.).

As pathetic as this IRS story sounds - I'd say it's all possible. But it's also scary to think such a large and powerful component of our government is ran so poorly. Not surprising, just scary.
 
Harddrives crash(things need to be stored locally due to server limits) and server limits are needed for an organization this size. If their budget is $11.2bn and there are about 138 million filings that need to be processed per year, we're talking about $82 PER filing. It really isn't that outrageous when you do the math. We're also talking about internal emails; not tax information. Are they important? Sure, but let's be real: the Jersey bridge scandal is way worse than this in terms of malice.
That New Jersey bridge isn't even close to this.

The IRS is about groups being discriminated against because of their political beliefs. The bridge deal was about a traffic study. The IRS was Obama's orders, Chris Christie knew NOTHING about the bridge being closed. So how is the bridge an act of malice?

 
A concern about abusing the tax system for political funding vs shutting down the biggest bridge in New Jersey and New York because the mayor of that town didn't want to become a crony. How quick we are to say "KNEW NOTHING."

 
its pretty nice that they lost the emails that were on the computer that sent them.  it probably would take to much to subpoena the likely recipients computers. 

'Murica.

 
its pretty nice that they lost the emails that were on the computer that sent them. it probably would take to much to subpoena the likely recipients computers.

'Murica.
f you had read the previously posted article, you would have seen your concerns addressed. Her computer crashed back in 2011 which was documented at the time and they attempted to recover the data, which they could not. They then went to the computers whom the emails were sent to and were able to retrieve some, but not all, of her emails.

Or you could just call it all one big liberal conspiracy... Your choice.
 
tl;dr the random wash post article, reading yours was more than enough.

2bY9hT4.jpg


all a witch hunt and waste of my tax dollars looking in to them wasting my tax dollars.

 
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They then went to the computers whom the emails were sent to and were able to retrieve some, but not all, of her emails.
Oddly, that same article also mentions they were only able to retieve emails sent to other computers within the IRS.gov network - nothing external. I'm sure everyone here can imagine how handy that would be *if* there was external direction behind the actions.

Someone should just get with the NSA. They surely have all these emails backed up somewhere.

On an aside, it's come out that there's actually a structure in place to prevent the loss of this data, should hard drives crash... they're supposed to have already printed and retained hard copies. While a seeming crazy law, it is there. Wonder if they'll be able to produce the hard copies of these e-mails.

What a lot of folks seem to be ignoring is the precident this sets. I guess any large company that has a computer "error" and loses several years of data that is being audited by the government will be treated exactly the same as the IRS after this...
 
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Oddly, that same article also mentions they were only able to retieve emails sent to other computers within the IRS.gov network - nothing external. I'm sure everyone here can imagine how handy that would be *if* there was external direction behind the actions.

Someone should just get with the NSA. They surely have all these emails backed up somewhere.

On an aside, it's come out that there's actually a structure in place to prevent the loss of this data, should hard drives crash... they're supposed to have already printed and retained hard copies. While a seeming crazy law, it is there. Wonder if they'll be able to produce the hard copies of these e-mails.

What a lot of folks seem to be ignoring is the precident this sets. I guess any large company that has a computer "error" and loses several years of data that is being audited by the government will be treated exactly the same as the IRS after this...
The directive to store hard copies seems to have been largely left to the discretion of the individuals as to what qualified as needing hard storage.

I would assume any company would be treated the same way. If you can't provide something and can document why then so it goes. If the government investigates and finds you're intentionally obstructing then they'll act accordingly within their power. If the House committee wants to insist that the emails exist and wants to file obstruction charges, that's certainly something they can try although I doubt they'll be able to prove it before a judge.

 
Why can't the NSA just get the emails off of their servers that have like a million petabytes and monitor the entire internet? 

 
I would assume any company would be treated the same way. If you can't provide something and can document why then so it goes. If the government investigates and finds you're intentionally obstructing then they'll act accordingly within their power. If the House committee wants to insist that the emails exist and wants to file obstruction charges, that's certainly something they can try although I doubt they'll be able to prove it before a judge.
You might want to read up on your Sarbanes-Oxley a bit. "Oops" doesn't sound much like it would cut it, no matter how honest that "oops" is.
 
You might want to read up on your Sarbanes-Oxley a bit. "Oops" doesn't sound much like it would cut it, no matter how honest that "oops" is.
But the IRS emails in this case wouldn't apply under Sarbanes-Oxley. You can't just start grabbing random "But if THIS agency was after THIS then..." examples. Sarbanes-Oxley mandates that you keep and properly maintain certain financial records and if you fail to, you're in violation of the law. As far as I can tell, the regulations for keeping IRS records were internal policies rather than legislated mandates. Failing to keep the proper financial records is a violation of the law. Failing to have some internal company emails is not.

If the government investigates a company that has no legislative requirement to keep certain records and that company reports that the records were lost, then there isn't a whole lot the government can do. They can try to prove the company engaged in obstruction if they suspect the company destroyed the records to prevent the investigation but that's about it.

 
That's kinda the point though - we hold private companies to a higher standard than our own government.
For completely different things? Unless we're arresting people for not having internal e-mails unrelated to financial records, how is there a "higher standard" or how is Sarbanes-Oxley remotely relevant?

If you want to same standard people are trying to hold the IRS up to in this instance, you would criminalize ANY company that can't produce all of its internal emails from 2009-2011 on a dime regards of computer crashes, data loss, etc.

 
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Wait... are you saying that emails related to the ongoing duties of the IRS are *not* financial? Because it's my understanding that finances is kinda the IRS's thing.

Under the old retention system, the retention procedures for digital records were no where near the requirements of S/O. Any company using that kind of retention policy for financial records (for instance, tax documentation) would be raked through the coals for it.
 
Wait... are you saying that emails related to the ongoing duties of the IRS are *not* financial?
I'm saying that Lois Lerner's job position, responsibilities and the contents of the desired emails were not financial. Because they weren't. Saying that "finances are kinda the IRS's thing" is like saying an internal email at Citibank asking employees to turn off the coffee machine each night must be financial because "that's kinda Citibank's thing".

Really, your entire argument revolves around unrelated legislation and just saying some variant of "You know it's true". You've yet to show any sort of direct double standard. I doubt you can either but then you're not the only one out there making this logically unsound (but emotionally appealing) argument.

 
We all know the hard drives were destroyed to protect Obama.

It's cool. The government is corrupt. Let's just agree that this is all Liberal politics trying to attack someone with a different opinion. 

Next topic please.

 
What, exactly, do you think Ms. Lerner's position at the IRS was? She wasn't exactly housekeeping or a maid, getting coffee for the men in power.

Due to the poor retention system in place by the IRS (which would effect *all* IRS employees using official irs.gov e-mail addresses), ALL of her e-mails from 2009-2011 were lost. Are you trying to say that the head of Exempt Organizations did not send a single e-mail using her official work address that dealt with any financial transactions during this time? Sure, it's possible, she sent e-mails like "Happy birthday!" or such - but really, over three years, not one e-mail sent regarding financial records? Because, if not, then I really have to question the necessity of her position at all.
 
We all know the hard drives were destroyed to protect Obama.

It's cool. The government is corrupt. Let's just agree that this is all Liberal politics trying to attack someone with a different opinion.

Next topic please.
Still waiting for them to finally admit its an actual scandal. And if they won't then fine, the next time we get power we will use all the excuses they did and see how it feels.

Seriously people were outraged over a third rate burglary with Nixon? But they just want to ignore this and Benghazi scandals because it is "inconvenient" for them?

What a joke.
 
Due to the poor retention system in place by the IRS (which would effect *all* IRS employees using official irs.gov e-mail addresses), ALL of her e-mails from 2009-2011 were lost. Are you trying to say that the head of Exempt Organizations did not send a single e-mail using her official work address that dealt with any financial transactions during this time? Sure, it's possible, she sent e-mails like "Happy birthday!" or such - but really, over three years, not one e-mail sent regarding financial records? Because, if not, then I really have to question the necessity of her position at all.
It's not up to me to prove that there isn't a double standard (which would be impossible to prove the negative) it's up to you to prove that there is. So far, the best you have is bringing up unrelated legislation for an unrelated sphere (banking & securities). Can you point to the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley that would directly relate to Lerner's emails?

 
Still waiting for them to finally admit its an actual scandal. And if they won't then fine, the next time we get power we will use all the excuses they did and see how it feels.
You mean like the Bush administration already did when they "lost" all those emails that were made via private accounts instead of federal email accounts as the law demands? Man, you already went back in time to use all the excuses! That's amazing! :lol:

 
It's not up to me to prove that there isn't a double standard (which would be impossible to prove the negative) it's up to you to prove that there is. So far, the best you have is bringing up unrelated legislation for an unrelated sphere (banking & securities). Can you point to the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley that would directly relate to Lerner's emails?
S/O requires corporations to retain financial records (which includes e-mails and other electronic data relating to) for five years.
IRS only retained financial records for as long as they felt like it (until the user deleted it) or six months (when the back up was recycled).

I'm simply unsure how you would consider that anything but a double-standard.

And I'll leave this here, for anyone who wants it: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-17/missing-e-mail-is-the-least-of-the-irs-s-problems
The very least you can say is that the timing looks awfully suspicious: The sudden destruction of Lerner's archived e-mail seems to have occurred on or around June 13, 2011, just 10 days after Representative David Camp sent a letter to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman asking whether conservative groups were being targeted.
 
S/O requires corporations to retain financial records (which includes e-mails and other electronic data relating to) for five years.
We don't know (and I doubt) that IRS financial records were kept via Lerner's emails. Or that those weren't printed and kept (since no one is asking for/cares about those). Unless you're taking a ridiculously liberal definition of "financial records".

Was that the best you had?

Regarding McArdle's column, she herself says:

Is this plausible? Unfortunately, yes. I have worked for organizations that used these sorts of restrictions on hard drive space.
...and in her next column on the topic writes...

I am inherently suspicious of any suggestion of a conspiracy, particularly one involving civil-service employees. Not because I think especially highly of civil servants, but because conspiracies are hard to get together, and hard to keep together -- someone is likely to blab. Civil servants have a lot to lose by helping political appointees pursue their partisan agendas and no particular reason to be helpful. If it turns out that the IRS engaged in wrongful conduct, I will be inclined to credit complex sociology-of-organizations explanations (where everyone at the IRS shares an unspoken and perhaps unrecognized belief that people who campaign against taxation are clearly political ideologues, while people who campaign for more environmental spending are just swell, public-spirited folks trying to save the planet). It will take a lot to convince me that career employees at the IRS sat down and deliberately and knowingly engaged in illegal targeting of conservative groups for the purpose of helping Democrats win elections. It will take even more to convince me that they blatantly coordinated with the White House, which would obviously be a ticket to loss of job, pension and benefits, plus maybe a side trip to the pokey.
It's potentially worth mentioning that McArdle is a Republican and libertarian, if only to preemptively dismiss the "liberal media!" hand-waving that usually goes along.

 
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My first post in this topic was stating that I believed this story to be possible - so I agree with McArdle.

And I agree with McArdle that this, regardless of any kind of conspiracy or otherwise, is a bigger indication of how screwed up the government is. The fact that this could happen, at all... data that Ms. Lerner herself (whom is either a fine, outstanding citizen or an evil criminal mastermind) described as important and irreplaceable could just up and disappear... Well, that's troublesome to me.

Conspiracy? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll probably never know.

Further proof that those in power are inept idiots who shouldn't be trusted running an automated token dispenser at Chuck E. Cheese's? Yup.
 
That's kinda the point though - we hold private companies to a higher standard than our own government.
Well...who do you think is pointing the finger most of the time? And has all the media attention to do it freely and without much, if any consequence? Society's sort of bought into this story that corporations are the biggest evil in the country, while the Government is the white knight, and the truth is that they are really one and the same nowadays.

Also, bringing the NSA into this, despite how hilariously awesome it would be to see the Government be forced to admit guilt over spying anything and everything, won't happen, because "on the record" they don't do that sorta thing.

 
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