# Computer crash loses 2 years of Lois Lerner emails **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 14, 2014, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759 "2014-06-14T06:51:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/61 "2014-06-17T11:33:26Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I would deny that is incorrect, except perhaps for some obscure case, or in cases where the emails have been purged off the servers and the only remaining copy is in a local PST archive. Email simply does not reside JUST on local computers. Especially in the case of a large government organization which have very specific requirements to back up data. I’m NOT referring here to the current case - fully understanding that govt agencies operate on different requirements than many of us - but could you explain this a bit more for the less tech savvy? 1. Currently I use outlook as my local mail client - it is set such that when a mail is downloaded to my computer it is removed from the server. Are you saying that these emails are not really “removed” - but are still sitting in cyberspace somewhere (setting aside for a moment the senders’ copy) 1. Previously I worked for companies that had fully web-based mail (exchange?) - but we were constantly being chased to “remove” files from the server as our inboxes were too big - what happened when we “removed” these files? I would assume that the servers were backed up regularly - BUT 2a) I would presume that there might be anywhere from 2 - ??? backup files that were constantly overwritten - so once my file was removed from my personal inbox, and the back-up schedule overwrote the “old” copy of my inbox - what would happen? Unless the company is doing a NEW daily backup…meaning over a 7 year period they will have 2100 odd backup files? 1. Presumably - and if I know IT at all, most probably - there are screw-ups or things that are not set-up properly? How likely is it that in this particular case, a server meltdown or an improper set-up could have led to the loss of all outgoing emails? 1 chance in 100? 1 chance in 10? 1 chance in 5000? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/62 "2014-06-17T11:38:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’d say the public is listening. Obama’s approval rating isn’t in the dumps for no reason. THe public believes he’s not honest, not trustworthy, and not competent. You misspelled “republicans”. When you read that Obama has a low approval rating, keep in mind that at this point, the baseline should be treated as 100% minus the percent of Americans who are republicans - because it’d be one hell of a fluke for _any_ of them to treat him fairly. America is bitterly partisan right now - you seriously expect republicans to treat him fairly? 42% means that he’s got around 84% approval among democrats. That’s really not that bad - especially given the popularity of the republican congress - they can’t even get half their _base_ to say that they’re doing a good job. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/63 "2014-06-17T12:06:36Z")
> [@treis](#): > > My very large private company deletes all e-mail after 30 or 60 days on the server. I forget exactly which. Once that time frame is gone, the only copy left is on my HD unless I take steps to back them up. I’m quite certain it has nothing to do with technical difficulties or expenses. Rather, I think it’s to make them more difficult for legal discovery, but I don’t really know. Your employer is going to find itself far up Shit Creek if the government ever comes looking for any of those e-mails. “Sorry, but we delete all a-mails after 30 days, so screw off losers!” won’t go over too well. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/64 "2014-06-17T12:11:44Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Your employer is going to find itself far up Shit Creek if the government ever comes looking for any of those e-mails. “Sorry, but we delete all a-mails after 30 days, so screw off losers!” won’t go over too well. I’m NOT into defending anybody - but WHY? Again, I would assume that there are certain classes of communications that must be kept (tax returns, hiring decisions) or alternatively printed and filed- but why would you need to keep 7 years of (for example) the marketing dept saying that a comma is in the wrong place, or discussing whether they should put an ad into Magazine A or Magazine B? So long as the required factual data is kept, why should there be a requirement to keep every single email? ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/65 "2014-06-17T13:02:07Z")
I work for a technology company that provides Outlook (as a subscription service) to customers, as well as cloud hosting, and a variety of other products that affect how and where, and how long data is stored. You individually may have your Outlook set to download and save all e-mails to your local hard drive. You may keep them in your inbox, or you may save them to a local .pst file. You may save them to a portable hard drive stored in your gun vault inside your bug-out shelter. Doesn’t matter. There is a back-up or copy somewhere in your companies Outlook server, or in a back-up server, or in the cloud. It’s there for one, or all, of these reasons: [ul] [li]Because end users frequently screw up and delete something critical that they should have saved.[/li][li]Local hard drives die, and then you will be wanting all your folders and .pst files back, now won’tcha?[/li][li]The company/organization is going to save them to cover their own ass.[/li][li]Regulations such as HIPAA, SARBOX, GLBA, etc require them to be kept for a specified number of years.[/li][/ul] A few months back, my company laptop died. As in blue screen of holy fuck I haven’t backed up my hard drive in weeks. Lost all my desktop folders, which contained my current work. Shit. IT was not able to pull a damn thing off the hard drive. Nothing. Zip. Okay, two days later, new corporate laptop arrives, my local IT guy is setting me up. Rebuilds my Outlook, all the stuff that was still on the server, of course, is now back in my inbox. I ask if my personal Outlook folders (.pst folders which are in theory only on my laptop’s hard drive) are gone for good. “Oh, you had personal folders?” Tap, tap, tappity tap. 10 minutes later all my supposedly gone personal folders were back. Ain’t nothing ever really gone in the world of the cloud, we just can’t always find it. But it’s still floating aound somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/66 "2014-06-17T13:27:48Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > You individually may have your Outlook set to download and save all e-mails to your local hard drive. You may keep them in your inbox, or you may save them to a local .pst file. You may save them to a portable hard drive stored in your gun vault inside your bug-out shelter. > > Doesn’t matter. There is a back-up or copy somewhere in your companies Outlook server, or in a back-up server, or in the cloud. If you have not deleted them from the server. If the company hasn’t demanded that you remove email from the server to meet an arbitrary storage limit. I flat out guarantee that my company is not imposing a storage limit, threatening my ability to send and receive email if I don’t fix it, just to maintain a copy of the crap I delete on a Cloud that they’re still paying for. They may do dumb things from time to time, but not THAT dumb. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/67 "2014-06-17T13:49:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Uh, no–it was your claim that if something similar happened when a Republican was in office, the thread would have thousands of posts. My claim is that’s not true, and in fact I’m now claiming there’s no such thread at all about the Bush attorneys general emails. Oh, brother. But I’ll play. First, please _quote_ me where I made such a claim. I’ll wait. Next, please explain how you’d expect anyone to count the posts of a thread that doesn’t exist. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’m too ignorant of technology to have much thought on the particulars, so I’ll mostly confide myself to reading the thread and learning, as I do in most threads where I’m ignorant. But if you or anyone makes another stupid Bizarro claim, I’ll pop back in to ridicule it. Again, let’s see a cite for that claim. Now, you may want to keep your finger off that trigger. One little knee jerk and you see what can happen? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/68 "2014-06-17T13:53:38Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > You misspelled “republicans”. When you read that Obama has a low approval rating, keep in mind that at this point, the baseline should be treated as 100% minus the percent of Americans who are republicans - because it’d be one hell of a fluke for _any_ of them to treat him fairly. America is bitterly partisan right now - you seriously expect republicans to treat him fairly? 42% means that he’s got around 84% approval among democrats. That’s really not that bad - especially given the popularity of the republican congress - they can’t even get half their _base_ to say that they’re doing a good job. Conversely, we can discount any positives that go into the approval rating, as they can be attributed to Obama fan boys and apologists. Glad we could join forces to clear that up. ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/69 "2014-06-17T14:15:06Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > If you have not deleted them from the server. If the company hasn’t demanded that you remove email from the server to meet an arbitrary storage limit. > > I flat out guarantee that my company is not imposing a storage limit, threatening my ability to send and receive email if I don’t fix it, just to maintain a copy of the crap I delete on a Cloud that they’re still paying for. They may do dumb things from time to time, but not THAT dumb. Cheesesteak, don’t know what company you work for, but I promise you, with a high degree of confidence, that if you work for a Fortune 500 company, they do keep a copy somewhere. Long term storage, either in their own data center, or in the cloud (implying someone else’s data center) is cheap. Dirt cheap. A lot cheaper than a SARBOX violation. While different regulations overlap, and some businesses may be subject to stricter regulations from HIPAA or GLBA, even SARBOX says e-mails should be saved for a minimum of 5 years in a fully indexed searchable e-mail retention solution. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/70 "2014-06-17T14:25:16Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Something I recommend to my clients is that they remove the attachments from the email, but leave the email itself. That way they still have a record of the email, but it doesn’t take up much space. The problem is that I’d have to cut-and-paste (or worse, transcribe if cut-and-paste won’t work on whatever weird format they use) the actual message from the gee-whiz graphic presentation, and then how would I prove that the result is the actual message if somebody disputes it? (That’s not an issue likely to actually arise in my job, but that just means that saving this stuff is 99.9% likely to be a waste of time and space. To be sure, the worst offenders, such as the half-dozen 2 MB office-picnic announcements that unfortunately conflict with a subsequent engagement, is already 100% likely to be irrelevant, so I can just delete it without worrying about the details.) ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/71 "2014-06-17T14:52:40Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > Cheesesteak, don’t know what company you work for, but I promise you, with a high degree of confidence, that if you work for a Fortune 500 company, they do keep a copy somewhere. Well, it would be nice for this particular Fortune 50 technology company to tell us worker bees about the double secret mail copies, since I know multiple people who have lost email history due to their insistence on limiting our mail file size. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/72 "2014-06-17T15:14:09Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Oh, brother. But I’ll play. First, please _quote_ me where I made such a claim. Oh FFS. > [@you](#): > > I have a question: if this had happened during a republican administration, would this thread now be 10,000- or 50,000-posts strong. Do you seriously expect us to consider that to be an honest question, not a stupid claim masked as a question? > [@](#): > > Next, please explain how you’d expect anyone to count the posts of a thread that doesn’t exist. Zero. That’s the number of posts in every thread that doesn’t exist. Zero. Your turn: show us the thread with 10,000 or 50,000 posts about the attorneys general. Or, y’know, pretend that you were JAQing, and convince **everybody**. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/73 "2014-06-17T16:52:56Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Oh FFS. So, you cannot cite the claim you CLAIM that I made. Perhaps you should consult your dictionary. Or perhaps one of your students. Perhaps you should not make bullshit claims. Tip 1) If a sentence begins with "I have a question:, and that is followed by a colon, what follows that colon is (drumroll), A QUESTION! Pretty cool, huh? Yay for learning. Tip 2) When the words that follow that colon, or begin a sentence, start with the letters “i” and “f”, in this sequence: “if” what follows is NOT a _CLAIM_ (feel free to refer back to your dictionary or students). It is either going to be a question or a hypothetical. Tip 3) When you see something squiggly like this—?—at the end of a sentence, the words leading up to it do not constitute a _claim_. For reals! What we call that is a _question_. Homework for you: research the difference between a _question_ and a _claim_. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Do you seriously expect us to consider that to be an honest question, not a stupid claim masked as a question? Love the “us”, an admission of weakness. Didn’t know you were speaking for people other than yourself. Oh well. What I wrote was both a hypothetical and a question, with a sprinkle of hyperbole thrown in. Fell free to consult that dictionary again. It can be your friend. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Zero. That’s the number of posts in every thread that doesn’t exist. Zero. Then why did you suggest that it fell to me, :rolleyes:, to count posts in a thread that does not exist. Just because you thought it might exist? And if it did…magic, you win the internets? Please. I made no claim. YOU did. And your claim was and is 100% bullshit. Glad we could clear that up. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Your turn: show us the thread with 10,000 or 50,000 posts about the attorneys general. Or, y’know, pretend that you were JAQing, and convince **everybody**. Convince _everybody_? That weakness is showing again. The fact that you cannot fathom how cheap this tactic is speaks volumes about you. But to address this latest bit of nonsense: my hypothetical contemplated what might had happened on this board IF the current IRS scandal happened under a republican administration. Now you intimate that not only did I make a _claim_, but also that my claim (which I did not make) had to do with something I did not bring up at all, and a thread that does not exist. :rolleyes::rolleyes: Perhaps this is a good time for you to take stock how you wove yourself into this latest bit of absurdity. I’ll even help you. Here: ease off on the knee-jerk bullshit. You might lose that last tooth. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/74 "2014-06-17T16:56:30Z")
You asked whether the thread would be 10,000 posts or 50,000 posts. You offered two possibilities. You did not offer the possibility that it would be 0 posts. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/75 "2014-06-17T17:07:57Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > Your employer is going to find itself far up Shit Creek if the government ever comes looking for any of those e-mails. “Sorry, but we delete all a-mails after 30 days, so screw off losers!” won’t go over too well. My understanding is that this is actually NOT true. The requirement is that if they have a policy and they have a history of following it, they’re okay. When you have a reasonable expectation that a lawsuit is about to be filed, you are expected to begin preserving evidence (in spite of your policy). Arthur Andersen got in trouble because they had a policy, but weren’t following it _until_ they realized that Enron trouble was coming, then they suddenly tried to “catch up” and deleted/destroyed a bunch of stuff. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/76 "2014-06-17T17:12:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You asked whether the thread would be 10,000 posts or 50,000 posts. You offered two possibilities. You did not offer the possibility that it would be 0 posts. You mean in the hypothetical thread that never existed about the hypothetical event that never happened? Hmmm. I see that I also did not allow for posts in the nonexistent hypothetical thread totaling 10,001. Devastating. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/77 "2014-06-17T18:21:16Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > The public believes the same things about Republicans. [Only in greater numbers.](http://www.gallup.com/poll/165317/republican-party-favorability-sinks-record-low.aspx) No question that the only reason the Democrats remain politically viable right now is because Republicans are viewed even worse. However, my point was simply to rebut that the public doesn’t care about these scandals. While they may not believe every wild Republican accusation made about them, they see enough smoke and enough lack of transparency and enough overspin to recognize that the President is far from keeping his promise to change the way business is done in Washington. Plus there’s the competency issue, which wasn’t a problem in polls during his first term, but is a big problem now. that’ll make it hard to build support for legislation, like immigration reform, that requires a good deal of executive competency to execute properly. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/78 "2014-06-17T18:42:07Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The only way this could have happened is if the IRS actually does not use an email server. I’m not actually sure how this would be possible. No company just has emails on a person’s computer. Ya think? The VA is still using DOS-based computers from the '80s. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/79 "2014-06-17T19:55:35Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You mean in the hypothetical thread that never existed about the hypothetical event that never happened? Hmmm. I see that I also did not allow for posts in the nonexistent hypothetical thread totaling 10,001. Devastating. Sure, champ–very convincing. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759/80 "2014-06-17T20:12:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Ya think? The VA is still using DOS-based computers from the '80s. What else do you expect from government-run healthcare? 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-crash-loses-2-years-of-lois-lerner-emails/690759.md?page=5)