An Incredible Explanation

Thursday, June 19, 2014

An information technology expert lists six reasons the government's claim that the IRS "lost" emails pertinent to its targeting of conservative political groups is ... implausible. After detailing the six reasons, the article concludes:

[Normal] Cillo, who has been working in IT for roughly 16 years and is currently a consultant for a tech company, said it's possible the IRS is telling the truth if the federal agency is "totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever."

Other than that, it's just not "feasible," he told TheBlaze. "If the IRS' email server is in such a state that they only have one copy of data and the server crashes and it's gone, I've never heard of such a thing."

"I don't know of any email administrator that doesn't have at least three ways of getting that mail back," he added. "It's either on the disks or it's on a TAPE backup someplace or in an archive server. There are at least three ways the government can get those emails." [bold added, minor format edits]
Isn't it funny how the question of whether President Obama -- or his minions in the government -- is evil or incompetent keeps coming up? Such a question of a government official would almost always make much less of a difference in our daily lives were voters to demand a government limited to its proper purpose, vice one that runs almost everything.

Of course, perhaps on some gut level, Obama senses that many Americans are content to rely on the government as if it were some sort of autopilot. I am no IT expert, but I personally found the assertion that the IRS (for whom record-keeping would presumably be a fine art) lost the emails an insulting explanation. Furthermore, with the domestic spying cat out of the bag, Obama also sounds like he is practically daring Republicans to do what Steve Stockman has done: request the metadata from the emails in question from the NSA.

The real question about Barack Obama isn't whether he is evil or incompetent or both, but how long Americans will put themselves in a position in which the answer to such a question is so important. Our government clearly has too much power over our daily lives.

-- CAV

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Gus,

One would think that the modern technological equivalent of the high school student's excuse of "the dog ate my homework" would be beneath the dignity of any gov't agency. But given that the head of that executive branch is constantly professing ignorance and being informed of grievous malfeasance in his ranks by "hearing it on the news," it's pretty apparent that Obama still has the same level of moral clarity and capacity for responsibility that he had as a member of the Choom Gang. So is it any wonder that executive branch agencies model their behavior on their CEO? The fact of the matter is that the Obama regime is Evil masquerading as Incompetent. It's a wonderful cover.

I can just imagine the response of the IRS if a mere citizen were to pull a little Timmy "TurboTax" Geithner in the face of an IRS audit. (People are routinely referred for criminal prosecution for 'errors' of Geithner's magnitude - unless you're a politico or connected.) And "the dog ate my homework" excuse cuts no ice for the regular taxpayer; in fact, such loss of records can in itself lead to a criminal referral. I know because I was threatened with such even though it was the Social Security Administration and the IRS that had lost the records. I had legal proof of their receipt twice over and they were still threatening me with CID. Until I threatened to get my Senator involved at which point they suddenly had them in hand.

The fact of the matter is that the GOP doesn't have the stones to prosecute these gov't malefactors as justice requires. Part of it is that they hope that if they don't prosecute the Dems that the Dems will reciprocate. Which is a vain hope given the disparity of treatment meted out to Jon Corazine vis a vis D'Souza (for electoral violations) and Kenneth Lay (for financial malfeasance). In fact, if one were to compare the level of financial crime in terms of monetary amount and illegal practices, between the FannieMae/FreddyMac debacle and the Enron/WorldCom mess and then compare the 'justice' rendered in the aftermath, one would be assured that whatever happened on the gov't side, it wasn't justice. Both Franklin Raines and Jaime Gorelick made millions of dollars by exploiting "Enron Style Accounting" for huge executive bonuses, but neither one was ever threatened with prison time.

Justice requires that Lois Lerner and her ilk be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Which, IIRC, is 10 years and $250,000.00 for each offense of leaking private citizen information to their political adversaries. They should never see the outside of a prison in their lifetime.

Anything less is not justice. To leave things, as the GOP will undoubtedly do, to Congressional hearings will be to encourage the same behavior further down the food chain. If such blatant criminal behavior isn't punished at the top, you can rest assured that local bureaucrats will play the same game to settle personal scores or to look good for bureaucratic advancement.

The GOP can't do anything material at present except to preserve the evidence through hearings. But when they get the White House, they should launch a DOJ investigation and bring the full weight of the Federal Gov't to bear on these criminals. Anything less is an injustice and imprudent as well.

A return to a smaller gov't would, of course, curtail these abuses. But such a return alone is not sufficient for it was smaller instances of such corruption that led to the behemoth we suffer under today. Had draconian action been taken against gov't employees, you can bet that there would have been fewer malefactors in subsequent administrations.

c. andrew

Anonymous said...

Hi Gus,

Just a quick followup on the career of Lois Lerner and why such despicable people in gov't service should be prosecuted early and often. {wry grin}

http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2013/06/lerner-asked-salvi-for-200000-plus-never-run-again-promise.html

http://poorrichardsnews.com/post/58034246710/lois-lerner-in-recently-uncovered-video-we-were-under

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/05/breaking-lois-lerner-told-republican-in-1996-promise-me-you-will-never-run-again-and-well-drop-this-fec-case/

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism...

I don't imagine that the Founders would've thought we'd sit still for this.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

Lois Lerner is almost the Platonic Archetype of this "Officer." And she has apparently abused any number of New Offices as she climbed the political-bureaucratic ladder. Imagine how much better off we'd be if she had ended up sporting a felony conviction from her first such attempt.

c. andrew

Gus Van Horn said...

C.,

As usual, I am pressed for time and as usual, you have a good contribution.

Just looking at that last URL tells me there is some interesting reading in store for me.

Thanks,

Gus