This recent A/P story describes new information provided to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier today:
A computer expert who worked at the White House provided the first inside look at its e-mail system Tuesday, calling it a "primitive" setup that created a high risk that data would be lost.
High risk indeed.
First, some credit: Citizen92 has done an excellent job monitoring this story in a series of diaries, including one earlier today: Missing WH E-Mails - An Important Waxman Hearing Liveblog. I expect that citizen92 will follow-up with a more subtantial review of the situation; just wanted to get this out there for the late-night and post-debate crowd.
It seems that the written statement described in the story was entered into the public record and perhaps not discussed in the hearing.
By itself, the information is not shocking...at least not for the skeptically-inclined.
McDevitt's statements detailed shortcomings that he said have plagued the White House e-mail system for six years. He declared that:
_The White House had no complete inventory of e-mail files.
_Until mid-2005 the e-mail system had serious security flaws, in which "everyone" on the White House computer network had access to e-mail. McDevitt wrote that the "potential impact" of the security flaw was that there was no way to verify that retained data had not been modified.
_There was no automatic system to ensure that e-mails were archived and preserved.
In rebuttal, the GOP issued its usual no-accountability lame excuse:
"A substantial portion of the so-called 'missing' e-mails appear not to be missing at all, just filed in the wrong digital drawer," said Rep. Tom Davis, the [House Oversight and Government Reform] committee's ranking Republican.
A digital drawer. Hmmm...about par with Senator Steven's description of the Internet as a series of tubes.
Here's the kicker and perhaps the smoking gun in McDevitt's statement:
McDevitt told the committee that a new e-mail archiving system that would have addressed the problems was "ready to go live" on Aug. 21, 2006.
Payton [chief information officer at the White House Office of Administration] told Waxman's committee she canceled the new system in late 2006 because it would have required modifications and additional spending. An alternative system is under way, she said.
Solari, Payton's predecessor, told the House committee that he was puzzled that the new system had been rejected and that he had "absolutely" believed that the system Payton rejected would be implemented.
I've worked on a lot of government IT projects; in my experience, most of them live and die depending on how much political patronage they have. That this system was necessary to ensure conformance with a Federal law should have given it utmost priority and funding. But it was killed.
The usual question arises: Incompetency or conspiracy?