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White House Says Hard Drives Were Destroyed
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Mar 23, 2008 06:58 AM
from the just-in-case dept.
from the just-in-case dept.
wanderindiana brings us an update on the White House missing emails mess, which we have discussed before. It seems the hard drives of many White House computers are gone beyond the possibility of recovery. Is it unusual in your experience for, say, a corporate IT department to destroy hard drives by policy? "Older 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."
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Your Rights Online: White House Must Answer For Missing Emails 256 comments
Lucas123 writes "A District Court judge this week ruled in favor of a Washington-based watchdog group, allowing them to question White House officials about missing emails involving controversial issues. The subjects include the release of the identity of a former CIA operative, the reasons for launching the war in Iraq and actions by the US Department of Justice. The group had filed suit [PDF] last May against the White House Office of Administration, seeking access to White House email under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The discovery ruling is bringing to light issues of email retention in businesses and other private organizations. We've previously discussed the White House's difficulties with email."
[+]
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Presto Vivace forwards a link detailing a recent House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the White House missing emails mess. David Gewirtz's report, carried in OutlookPower and DominoPower (in 6 parts, keep clicking), makes for scary reading. "If, in fact, the bulk of the White House email records are now stored in bundles of rotting PST files, all at or above their maximum safe load-level, that ain't good in a very big way... I object to using the inaccurate and inflated claim of excessive cost as a reason to avoid compliance with the Presidential Records Act."
[+]
Your Rights Online: Judge Demands Information About Missing White House Emails 209 comments
Lucas123 writes "A District Court judge has ordered the Executive Office of the President to tell the court by May 5 whether any e-mail server backup tapes were kept for a period from March to October 2003 to cover controversial issues such as reasons for starting the war in Iraq, the release of a former CIA operative's name and the US Department of Justice's actions. The White House has been working for months trying to fend off a lawsuit filed last May in federal court in Washington by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. The judge cited what he called an apparent contradiction by White House CIO Theresa Payton as to whether backup tapes had been preserved. He also recommended that White House employees be ordered to turn over any flash drives or other portable media that may contain e-mails. The White House missing email scandal has been developing for some time now."
[+]
Your Rights Online: Bush Administration's E-Mail Deluge May Overload Archive System 169 comments
Lucas123 writes "The Clinton administration generated 32 million e-mails. Bush's administration has generated 50 times as much data — 140TB, 20TB of which is email — which soon will have to be archived through a new government-built records management system. The new system may not be up to the task because the technology behind it may not be able to handle the sheer volume of data along with the fact that the Bush administration has been slow in providing the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) with needed information about the records, according to a Computerworld story. Questions have also been raised about millions of missing e-mails from between March 2003 and October 2006. 'It wasn't until this summer that an intensive effort began to share information,' said Ken Thibodeau, director of NARA's Electronic Records Archives."
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A way to check... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A way to check... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or following orders.
Parent
Not really the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Or following orders.
The drives should be thoroughly wiped and then recycled or destroyed. That is good IT policy. I run the IT hardware division for my company that supplies and supports customer's computers. When any computer is repaired or replaced the old drive is dated, put into secure storage for a minimum of 30 days, and then DOD wiped, and then recycled or physically destroyed. (The magnets are really good for hanging things on cubical walls.)
The reason our drives are 'aged' for 30 days is because we can't trust our customers to have a good backup. (or ANY backup...) The White House shouldn't have any issues with their backups so they have no reason to retain the drives. This brings us back to the backup question. The rule for a really secure backup methodology is, "Multiple methods of backup, and multiple media". About 10 years ago I saw an article in a trade journal (InfoWorld?) that quoted the statistic that after a catastrophic data loss, 15% of the time the backup method itself is found to be flawed. Having 2 methods of backup would reduce the chance of an unrecoverable flaw to 2.25% which is much more acceptable.
The solution to the White House problem is the judicious use of pink slips. Fire any one who bowed to pressure and allowed this to happen. (or was incompetent enough to allow a flawed backup scheme...)
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Re:Not really the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Read your regulations. HIPPA (medical record) regulations alone require the destruction of any data like that using national-security level tools. Either you break the drive itself, you push it through one hell of a magnetic field a certain number of times, or you use one hell of an overwriting tool that makes 16+ passes on the drive to ensure that traces of previous data are completely gone.
This is a non-story, and the only reason it's being pushed time and again is as a kludge to try to attack Bush. I'll admit there are a hell of a lot of reasons to attack Bush (the bribery and scams over illegal immigration/amnesty alone!), but this one isn't it.
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How they are destroyed (Score:5, Insightful)
The other end of the trade show there was a company showing containers of metal shards. They had a shredder for disk drives. They have security clearances that allow them to shred drives with classified data. I have no direct knowledge of the drive disposal policy at the EOP, but I would expect that the NSA would require this as a matter of course. It is smart IT management.
But the argument over the drives is somewhat irrelevant as we know for a fact that members of the administration were using the RNC mail servers to transact government business, specifically to avoid leaving a paper trail. In the process they directed emails containing the most secret, most confidential government discussions through the machines of a small company that has no security clearance, does not even have a security policy and used the same network resources and mail servers for other customers.
The company concerned received the contract for the 2004 RNC convention. They would therefore have been an espionage target in any case. I would think that it is almost certain that multiple foreign powers have copies of the emails. Why don't we just call up the Iranian embassy and ask them nicely if they will share?
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Re:How they are destroyed (Score:4, Informative)
However, for the average person, it's good enough as it raises the bar for recovery beyond simply plugging it it or simply repairing a part of the drive. Don't know why you need a product for it though, a 1/4" drillbit will go through the aluminum backside of most harddrives like butter.
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Re:How they are destroyed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:How they are destroyed (Score:5, Informative)
It is possible to still retrieve the data. A hard drive never, ever, ever has a zero or one written on it. Instead (if I can accurately sum this up in a non-technical way that doesnt invalidate my answer), it has a close to "0" or close to "1" written. Much like how certain electronic chips (that lets say are +5 = on, 0 = off) arent truly at +5 or zero. A "threshold value" is used to determine on or off.
In the case of hard drives, assuming "0" and "1" are the desired results, a zero gets "written" to the disk (which ends up being a .0020919) or a one gets written (which ends up being a .98298329) - gotta remember it's not an actual number written - it's something that (loosely) corresponds with a voltage/magnetic resistance that indicates 0 or 1 when compared to a threshold... thus .1 or less may be 0, .9 or more may be 1, and anything inbetween indicates errors.
The government (various parts - the requirements vary) mandates multiple wipes, because there are recovery tools out there, that by reading the actual magnetic/electrical value can interpolate what the data was after a single wipe. The reason apparently being, setting from "1" to "0" (or vice versa) leaves enough of the residual one to determine it was a one.
Thats (I can guarantee you) a very poor attempt at explaining it, but the basic theory behind what I am trying to say is correct...
A better idea would be to read up on it for a better explanation...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_remanence
Scroll down the article to the section on "The Gutmann Method" to see why (a format is not acceptable means of wiping a drive).
A key point to this discussion is that "as of Nov 2007, overwriting is no longer a DoD-acceptable sanitization method for magnetic media. Only degaussing or physical destruction is acceptable." (Wikipedia)
This I find interesting timing, since it coincides with many requests for info and/or discovery of such info - that now, the DoD requires to be non-recoverable...
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Re:Not really the point (Score:5, Informative)
This includes the Presidential Records Act [wikipedia.org] of 1978. This states that upon leaving office, white house documents become the property of the government. A different law, the Hatch Act [wikipedia.org], prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities.
In order to address the Hatch Act, about 88 people who work in the White House were given separate computers purchased by the Republican National Committee and given email addresses in the domain gwb43.com, georgewbush.com, and rnchq.org.
It appears that White House staff consciously used the political equipment and email for some official business, presumably so that no "paper trail" would be left behind. Indeed, instead of a paper trail, in each case, the investigators requested relevant emails
but it was found that those emails were handled on the RNC machines and thus were destroyed.
So part of the legacy of the Bush Administration is a blueprint for obstruction of justice.
I disagree that this is a non-story. I worry that this will now be added to the toolkit of future administrations. Every administration will thinks it knows best for the country and some will want to get around all these pesky laws.
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2000 version of the Nixon tapes (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy for ordinary citizens is a right, but our officials that WE ELECT, their job is our business and we should have the right to know what they do. If they've done nothing wrong, then why hide anything. This does not apply to citizens on ordinary, routine matters e.g. we should not have to voluntarily have our cars searched cause we're innocent.
We elect our officials - they work for us, and therefore need to have accountability.
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Re:2000 version of the Nixon tapes (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely, just not while they are still valid. As a matter of historical record, they should be preserved and the citizens should have every right to see them so they can judge how well the military and administration did their job during a specific period. I'd be pretty disappointed to find out that anyone with access to a particular console in 1962 could have initiated a first strike on the Soviet Union because all they had to do was guess the code "123456".
You can find out all sorts of incredibly sensitive military operation details after the fact. Anyone with a library card can tell you exactly how many troops were in a specific location on a specific date in 1942, even though ON THAT DATE it would have been a gross violation of national security for them to know.
Everything the government does certainly should be a part of the record, and not destroyed just because partisans feel it will make them look bad, or it is more convenient. Strangely enough, that's exactly what the law says, the White House just didn't care.
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Re:2000 version of the Nixon tapes (Score:5, Informative)
(Obligatory) Damn... Now I have to change the locks on my luggage.
Seriously, though. You're right. Even if things are 'secret' now doesn't mean that they should always be. I'm politically agnostic (I've had a fair share of dislike for both Republicans AND Democrats) so this shouldn't come off as a slam against any one party, but our elected officials at the highest levels need to understand that they are held accountable. It is particularly true for the current administration. To provide the excuse that the backups were lost (or any other lame excuse that I couldn't get away with in elementary school) is insulting. There are procedures for these things and multiple records are kept ABOUT the records that are kept (ever fill out a form in triplicate?). Tracking the media for the backups - without the need to know what that data was, exactly - is easy. Unless someone intentionally deleted those records (and perhaps including the actual backup data, itself), there should be a paper trail showing what happened to the backup media after is was used to take said backup. No secrets need be revealed. Then we'd know who accessed those media and when.
Seeing as how those records don't seem to exist anymore, something smells like rotten fish.
I'm insulted, personally, that this administration can't or won't keep track of it's backup media. For an organization to have so little control over something as simple as backup procedures indicates the people involved are either incompetent to even serve in office or have so little regard for the laws governing both them and the rest of us (depending on if they're truly lost or whether it was ordered destroyed).
While it's entirely plausible that the federal government is just that bad at keeping records, it's unlikely that data backups completely vanished without a trace. I'm guessing that someone at a high level in the administration (definitely not the President, but someone close to him) ordered the destruction of the media and all records associated with them. Quietly. And that's what I find so insulting.
Solution? Get Jack Bauer on it with Chloe feeding him instructions on recovery via his awesome cell phone. Oh, wait... There's no time! (or 2008 season, but I digress)
--Me, ending on a high note.
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Re:Not really the point (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.hipaadvisory.com/regs/recordretention.htm [hipaadvisory.com]
Disclaimer: I am a document specialist for a company that itself specialized in business processes for major Part C and Part D health providers. So I know this stuff.
So having you say this is a non-story, based on you citing that records must be adequately destroyed without first stressing that those destroyed records had to be on file, and available at a moment's notice, for YEARS, is disingenuous at best.
It's a story PRECISELY because of th amount of time the records HAD to be retained.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/21/AR2008012102070_pf.html [washingtonpost.com]
So what happens if a probe is launched? Well, thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley (and the fuck up that was Enron, with BushCo's friend Kenneth Lay), Chapter 73 of USC18 (United States Code 18, Obstruction of Justice) was beefed up. Specifically Section 1505.
1505. Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committee
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Presidential Records are Public Records (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that this is a huge issue is that the destruction of presidential records is illegal. The Presidential Records Act [wikipedia.org] mandates that all records from the President and Vice President are owned by the public, and that the President is not allowed to destroy any records without specific authorization from the Archivist of the United States stating that the records do not have any historical, informational, or evidentiary value.
There is a great desire on the part of many Americans to impeach Bush for his part in prosecuting the disastrous $2 Trillion+ debacle, the Iraq War, which is currently sinking our economy. Nixon wss easy to impeach because he left a lot of evidence in the form of tapes for his prosecution, but Bush and Cheney are not making that mistake -- they have both had very "convenient" situations where their records regarding among other things the Iraq War planning that have been "accidentally" destroyed.
If the American people were to have more evidence about White House activities, there would be many more people joining Scooter Libby in jail, and we would find out more about things like "ex" gay prostitute Jeff Gannon's entries and exits at the White House [rawstory.com].
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Re:Not really the point (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Not really the point (Score:5, Funny)
What works best for hanging things on tetrahedral walls?
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Wrong, they should not be destroyed. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the congress is gonna let them slide again, when they should impeach the bastards.
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Re:A way to check... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no change in the law needed. Title 44 of the US Code contains explicit laws regarding the proper storage and disposal of government records. Just a couple of examples:
In other words, this is just like Bush's "signing statements"; he has made it clear all along that he'll follow only those laws that allow him to do exactly what he wants.
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FTFA (Score:4, Informative)
That's standard practice, and required by law, for ANY government computers.
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Re:FTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:A way to check... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most admins in most companies, including the white house, follow their orders from PHBs. I bet the admins in place are rather competent and following orders rather well. As in most things, follow the money and you find the culprit.
Given that so much of the current administration is involved in cover ups and lies to the American public, how could this be viewed as surprising. These guys are very good at what they really do, and no, running a country is not it. The Presidency and the houses are merely tools for these people to get what they want accomplished. Be it laws that benefit them or an ego trip. I am not talking about Republicans or Democrats. Think about where the money comes from. Who backs these people?
I know plenty of people who have gotten into politics because they wanted to serve their communities. I do not know anyone who has progressed beyond the local level without becoming tainted. As they go higher up into politics, they tend to pick up more debts. They make compromises. Name the last independent President.
Politics is dirty. Power abuse is dirty. They go hand in hand for a very good reason. Most people who want power want it for a personal reason. They believe they are right, they are better, they can do better. Whatever the reason, they in their heart know they deserve it and are normally unwilling to accept hindrances they can secretly get past. They understand that to get what they want, they have to break the rules and lie sometimes. They become very good at getting away with it, or they never make it to the top. If you doubt this, take a look back at all of the politicians who have made it to the houses or the presidency.
Look at work. Who makes it to the top without doing something along the way? Not to the first or second level, but to the top. Many people who want the job bad enough do what it takes to get the job and do unsavory things along the way. They like to keep those things secret. They get very good at it. Period. Or they would not be at the top.
That is why transparency in politics is critical. That is why no communication or meeting in the government should ever be unrecorded. Maybe kept classified in a very few cases, but always permanently recorded. Let them sweat with the fear of impropriety as opposed to the fear of discovery. There will always be people who can go back in time to read or listen to transcripts. It is much more difficult to uncover hidden secrets.
In case you can not tell, I inherently do not trust officials. Even those I know well. I know all to well about the hidden lives and deals many of them have. Even those with a golden heart get trapped. It is inevitable for most. They are trying to accomplish things they believe in (assuming they are of a good hear tin the first place) and little compromises are needed to get the job done. Little compromises beget bigger compromises. It is how politics works. Compromise. Unfortunately, some of these compromises are nasty little secrets, and they cause more nasty little secrets and bigger nasty secrets. Like a snowball. You can not tell the difference until they are discovered. It is what they do. Like actors, they put on a face and do not show their true will or fear. Most would never be elected if they did.
So, the current group destroyed the evidence before it was asked for. They knew what was there. They knew what it could cause and they knew how to manipulate the rules to cover it up. Makes them pretty damn good at what they do. Yeah, the bosses knew what they were asking for. Did they break any laws? I do not know, but rest assured, this activity is completely in line with the rest of the actions of this administration and many other administrations. Secrets are the name of the power game.
InnerWeb
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Re:A way to check... (Score:5, Interesting)
Dumped by his handlers when he refused to be a typical President and was replaced by Woody Wilson who blessed us with the Federal Income Tax, the Federal Reserve and after running as "The President who kept us out of war", gave us World War I.
It's very sad that we have to go back a hundred years to find an honest President and I guess that proves your point.
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Re:A way to check... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be honest: I look at the current administration and I'm quite sure I could do better - and I'm an anonymous troll typing this post with my dick.
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Re:Privacy? On Government networks? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's exactly why we are having this conversation because Cheney et. al. did exactly that. They used outside email servers against the law and got caught. They were using the RNC servers and when handed a subpoena for their email claimed it was all lost. It turns out they weren't all lost much to the chagrin of the administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402404.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1362 [house.gov]
Of course, nobody will be punished in the least for violating The Presidential Records Act.
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No it is not usual (Score:5, Informative)
I worked on some projects involving email at the white house. The system tracks other things includuding gifts and snail mail.
There are very specific rules and laws that must be followed and the million dollar consultants the white house pays to manage this stuff is very aware of those rules and laws.
Any destruction of email by the white house is purely intentional, period.
Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Interesting)
During my employ as a contractor with the Canadian Department of National Defence, it was standard for decomissioned (read: hellishly outdated) systems to be stripped of RAM and HD, by policy, before being sold off as a lot as surplus/scrap. The RAM and HD would then be sent to an industrial grade metal shredder at a larger nearby base for destruction.
Granted, this was for workstation systems where no personal or private data was to be stored. Again, by policy. I'm unsure what the policy would be for servers where email was stored. Probably still destroy the physical hard drive, but the final backup tapes are more than likely to be kept under lock and key for eternity.
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Wrong question (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think this is asking the right question as some other posters have alluded to. We're talking corporate IT departments versus a branch of the Federal Government. We're also talking about destruction of the only copy of a given piece of data rather than destruction of one of several means of storing it.
It is absolutely usual for my corporate IT department to destroy hard drives by policy; but I work for a bank. I don't work for the government where I'm required by law to archive anything and everything. After a person no longer needs a workstation, the workstation is kept in a locked room for about 90 days just in case anything pops up (oh crap, I forgot to copy my personal folder over to my new machine!). After that, the drive is securely erased. If the machine is going to be redeployed to a new user we then load a fresh install of the OS onto it and it's put in another secured room and marked as "Available for Redeploy" in the asset database. If it's not going to be redeployed then the hard drive will be removed and run through a degaussing machine and then put in a pallet box to be picked up by our secure shredding company. The company will shred the drives on site and take the materials to be recycled.
Servers are much the same way, except that by policy, we back servers up at least once a day. While the drive that originally contained the information may be long gone, the data lives on for whatever the normal retention policy is. For email I believe it's a year, unless there's a reason for that box to be kept indefinitely (e.g. if a notice of discovery has been received).
So to answer the question posed in the story posting, yes it is normal for corporate IT departments to completely destroy hard drives, but that's not germane to the discussion. A better question would be "Is it normal for corporate IT departments to destroy hard drives by policy without any suitable forms of backup or other mechanisms to make sure any retention policies mandated by law or policy are enforced." Of course that's a lot longer than the original question and the Slashdot eds probably would have gotten lost and not posted the article!
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Insightful)
My believability barrier just snapped.
I believe the word "criminal" is all to apt for this administration.
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:4, Interesting)
The last few US administrations, both Democleptopopulist and Repunepotiauthoritarian, criminal? Who wuda thunk it?
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Insightful)
This offered excuse does not hold water and should finally put an end to the question about whether or not to prosecute the executive. This is no simple 'mistake.' It was willful and intentional destruction of evidence. And let us not lose sight over what this ultimately comes down to. If you consider yourself to be a patriotic citizen of the U.S., you should be outraged and infuriated at the thousands of U.S. lives wasted at the hands on this administration brought on by an illegal and deceitfully based war. It is no trivial matter to send even a single soldier to face his or her death. And it is certainly no trivial matter when even a single person dies because this president has lied to congress and entered us into a war. Forget that this war has harmed the global economy and the U.S.'s standing in the world and all other fall-out.
If there were justice to be had, it would be in the form of "demoting" our commander-in-chief down to a foot-soldier, put a rifle in his hand and let HIM fight his damned war in person.
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Funny)
I don't have anything to add, I just felt that that comment needed to be posted again. As a back up, just in case the hard drive was destroyed.
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Re:No it is not usual (Score:5, Insightful)
When the next administration need something to distract the public from their own nefarious deeds.
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Awesome! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so fast... (Score:5, Insightful)
Much better to wait a year, when a new administration is in office, and then go after the lawbreakers.
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Re:Not so fast... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're joking, right? I certainly hope so. You really think that a Clinton or McCain administration will do anything different from the current one? HAH. You are living in Candyland or something. No one makes it to that kind of power without toeing the line. Not anymore. We're poised for another 8 years of the Bush-Clinton dynasty. Things like this are only going to become more common and punishments less common...for those in power. The rest of us will continue to foot the bill, just as we always do. Let's all welcome the new boss, same as the old boss.
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Re:Not so fast... (Score:5, Insightful)
When he says he stands for change, he's not talking about just the last 7 years.
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Re:Not so fast... (Score:5, Insightful)
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what a bloody coincidence !!! (Score:5, Funny)
This is not a normal IT shop. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is why secure backups of email aren't part of the IT infrastructure.
Alternatives to the hard drives (Score:5, Funny)
SNL Pathological Liar (Score:4, Interesting)
Smashing hard disks pisses off judges, and they write things like this:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20041021131512626 [groklaw.net]
113. Late in the evening of April 29, 1997, Merkey returned a laptop computer to Novell. Upon inspection Novell discovered that the hard drive in the computer was smashed. That same computer and hard drive were offered as an exhibit and the court has personally inspected the computer.
114. The hard drive of the laptop is a modular unit, easily removable from the computer.
115. At trial the hard drive was removed and inspected by the court. It had the appearance of having been smashed with several blows from a hard object like a hammer.
116. Merkey has offered no less than four different explanations of how the hard drive came to be smashed, pointing most of the blame to his children.
117. One of his explanations is that he was so angry at the replevin that he threw the computer at Novell's door when he returned it. This explanation does not fly (like the computer allegedly did) for neither the computer carrying case nor the laptop bear any evidence of physical abuse or damage, though the hard drive, which ordinarily is mounted within the plastic shell of the computer, clearly has been smashed.
The dog ate it! No, my KIDS smashed it...no...IT IS WHITE HOUSE POLICY! (Jon Lovitz Voice) Yeah, That's the ticket!
--
BMO
Not unusual at all (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't speak for the White House, but I did work for a pharmaceutical company and they are very paranoid about information security.
Any time we replaced a hard drive in anyone's computer, the old drive was wiped according to US Department of Defense clearing standard DOD 5220.22-M. This is a rather intensive operation, and plenty of old hard drives didn't survive it. Any drive that failed got chucked into a 55-gallon drum that sat next to the wiping station. When the drum was full it was taken to a scrap yard and two company employees watched as each drive was fed into a metal shredder, one drive at a time.
I'm sure that anything capable of shredding a hard drive is very impressive to watch, but it's probably much less impressive after the 200th time you've seen it.
Been there done that (Score:4, Insightful)
Now for the physical destruction of hard drives, yup did it all the time. Granted 99% of those were workstation drives and not server hardware unless all of the data had been migrated. Our general policy though was that no drive ever left us intact. Equipment that was later donated came sans hard drives. The drives were usually disassembled and the platters destroyed. It was much more easy on the man hours than sitting there watching a drive over write to Government specifications. The same was done for backup tapes that had physically failed, those were melted down, others stored in vaults untile the data expired and then they were destroyed.
Re:Heads MUST roll! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Heads MUST roll! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem: The people who would be doing the prosecuting are the very same people who told the guy to press the button.
We're unfortunately in a bit of a bind. The branch of government designated to enforce our laws has no regard for them, and the only other branch of government that could do something about it is too spineless and fractured by party politics to lift a finger.
The current administration is trying real hard to out-do Nixon as the most criminal Presidency in our nation's history, and if anyone were to actually do some investigation into it, we may even find that it has been a success.
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Re:Heads MUST roll! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Investigation will not happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it any wonder that Americans are picking up on a man who says that he will change things while the old timer dems and nearly all of the pub party dislike him.
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Re:Banking (Score:5, Informative)
1: Destroy hard drives comprehensively.
2: Ensure that any data on them of a sensitive/clinical nature is kept on a secure backup (in clinical data, for 25 years).
So, yes, destroying hard disks is a common thing. Now destroying DATA.. That's something else altogether.
For sensitive government documents, there is no excuse. Destroying the data can be arrived at through two ways:
1: Incompetence of the IT staff (with the amount of change control in a high profile environment such as high government/clinical, you'd have to be REALLY incompetent, and probably picked up way before this).
2: Someone said "This data is embarrassing. Make it go away.".
I'd say 2 was the most probable.
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