re: IRS emails - is it accurate that they could all be lost and not recoverable?

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I'm sure the NSA has a list of people she sent emails to during that span of time...

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hell, just ask the NSA for copies of HER emails

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So is the IRS saying they have zero emails from that time period or just don't have hers?

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Part 11

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As part of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act, in 2003, the Agency drafted a guidance document (Guidance for Industry Part 11, Electronic Records; Electronic Signatures — Scope and Application1). This guidance was intended to describe the FDA’s current thinking regarding the scope and application of part 11 of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations; Electronic Records; Electronic Signatures (21 CFR Part 11).

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wtf this only applies to the FDA?

eta my company had to undergo this to deliver medical training to government employees.

it is a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE hassle. nice that the IRS doesn't have to follow any procedures for electronic record archiving.

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Many government agencies and big corporations still use older email systems that, unlike Gmail, are not in the “cloud” — a name for services that store information so that it is always available and backed up. They may have tens of thousands of employees, as the I.R.S. does, making them slow to modernize.

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that whole statement is meant to mislead the public^^^

of course they are using exchange...

How about this section?

1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011)
Emails as Possible Federal Records

All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules.

The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are:

Created or received in the transaction of agency business

Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or

Valuable because of the information they contain

If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at LINK or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 LINK ).

An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone.

Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

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Gmail uses tape backups too

I bet they don't overwrite theirs every 6 months though (if that old policy is to be believed)

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even if you overwrite them, they can still be recovered.

the other thing that amazes me about this is emails almost always have two parties. And it sounds like there were multiple emails and multiple recipients.

But I do not underestimate gov't incompetence.

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If this administration has done anything, they have proven that they will do what they want and make up some stupid shite if/when people find out about it

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This.




The deal is they know they are lying, you know they are lying, they know that you know that they are lying, and they don't care because you can't do anything about it anyway.

I must have missed the fact that the administration is claiming 6 (!!!!) other hard drives crashed in the same time frame. Given that info, their scenario is absolutely impossible. You'd have a better chance at winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning in the same day than that happening.

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I wonder if we can get away with saying to the IRS if we're audited, I don't have the records from those months because I only keep my stuff 6 months before it's overwritten.

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something tells me the rules that apply to us dont apply to them