White House Wins Ruling On E-mail Records 243
An anonymous reader writes "The White House Office of Administration is not required to turn over records about a trove of possibly missing e-mails, a federal judge ruled Monday. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found the agency does not have 'substantial independent authority,' so it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act."
When did this change? (Score:5, Interesting)
From everything I've heard, it applies to all government agencies. Does this mean if a government office can make itself appear harmless enough, it doesn't have to cooperate?
"Sorry, I'm only the FBI director's SECRETARY. I don't have substantial independent authority."
In case you are missing the context here (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you are missing the context here, the emails in question are interesting for a whole slew of reasons. The probably contain evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors (most likely by Cheney, but who knows [firedoglake.com]) and pretty much have to contain evidence of perjury (with the morass of statements that have been made under oath, someone is surely lying, we just don't know who). And them there's the Hacth act violations, the Abrimoff issues [wikipedia.org], the election tampering, and on and on.
These are the missing 18 minutes gone gonzo,
--MarkusQ
Re:The Microsoft connection (Score:4, Interesting)
Involvement with FISA should disbar anyone - the court violates the 4th amendment by being a secret court.
Re:When did this change? (Score:0, Interesting)
Plus, didn't the White House -- ahem, "Executive Office" unit -- lose all the relevant emails in a catastrophic data loss event during an upgrade to a mainstream commercial email server system?
And, if the emails were lost, why did the judge who formerly ruled in Microsoft's favor (after being appointed to her position by George Bush) bother ruling on this matter.
I mean, the White House lost the emails, so why does it matter if the people of the United States would like to see what their government is up to or not?
Re:Judge Kollar-Kotelly is a Fascist (Score:3, Interesting)
Aren't you mad about all that too?
Re:Cue the Bush bashing (Score:3, Interesting)
My guess is that these earlier e-mail screw ups were partially responsible for the decision to move from Lotus Notes to MS Exchange. It would seem that this transition has been a disaster.
Never ascribe to malice what can be more easily blamed on incompetence. Or something like that.
But know that the media has biases, and they quite frequently bury a story earlier if it adversely affects someone or something they like. I won't go so far as to say they universally favor one party or another, but I think if you pay close attention you will see a pattern.
Tell the judge what you think! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wrong way around (Score:3, Interesting)
The gained authority of the whitehouse is going to carry over to the administration of the next pinko commie liberal that gets elected. You've screwed yourselves.
Publicise this in KY and wreck his career. (Score:4, Interesting)
Three Branches (Score:1, Interesting)
Now when you play with the executive branch, you get to see a lot more of what is going on. Congress passes a law and delegates authority to say, the Secretary of the Treasury. The secretary determines how to enforce the law and proposes a regulation. The regulation then is reviewed by *us*, and we send our comments in. The secretary must take our comments into consideration when promulgating a regulation.
Guess who sends in those comments and hangs out at the hearings for the regulations? Us? Nope. We're too busy working our tail off for that big house in PV. Corporations with their paid shills are there, giving testimony and making suggestions about how everyone would benefit if the regulation were written their way.
Unfortunately, the name of the game is to know the rules and use them. If they don't suit you, buy new rules.
Oh, and don't forget that if you don't know how an agency operates, you can get their organization and staffing manuals and their procedure manuals - if they are subject to FOIA.
What would our country be like with a large army of people making FOIA requests?
Every kid should know this stuff before they leave high school!!!
There. I'm done.
Re:Wrong way around (Score:2, Interesting)
Come November I am personally voting for the Constitution Party candidate by the name of Charles Baldwin even if it doesn't matter much it will at least ease my conscience by voting for a good candidate, in my opinion, as opposed to the lesser of two evils.