White House switching to private email.
White House switching to private email.
Via Muckraker, U.S. News reports that “just a week after E-mails in the U.S. attorneys case became a main focus of congressional Democrats probing the firings, several aides said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence.” But rather than use RNC accounts, “they have subsequently bought their own private E-mail system through a cellular phone or Blackberry server. When asked how he communicated, one aide pulled out a new personal cellphone and said, ‘texting.’”
UPDATE: Josh Marshall: “[T]his may have been too clever by half. If the president’s aides were using RNC emails or emails from other Republican political committees, they can’t have even the vaguest claim to shielding those communications behind executive privilege.”
UPDATE II: A Laura Rozen reader notes that other federal agencies have apparently banned this practice over security concerns.
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why not just write it down in invisible ink?
March 28th, 2007 at 10:54 amJeesh, as every right wing asshat used to say about the Bush domestic psying….If they have nothing to hide……
A pack of common, petty crooks.
-Boggis
March 28th, 2007 at 10:55 amNow they can text their little gay boy toys in the Intern pool.
How convenient.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:56 amGood move!
March 28th, 2007 at 10:56 amSo…they’re circumventing the Presidential Records Act, and bragging about it?
I wonder what CREW is going to think of this…
March 28th, 2007 at 10:57 amAnd how much of this activity was subject to federal laws and regulations? How much was on my dime?
March 28th, 2007 at 10:58 amBWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH~!~~
March 28th, 2007 at 11:06 amWhite House appointees are paid by the government.
Any records they create while “working” regardless of medium of transmission are “Presidential Records.” This is mandated and directed by law.
It’s not ambiguous. Private e-mail, texting, whatever, that’s the property of the government.
As the saying goes, ignorance of the law is not justification for breaking it.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:10 amYou idiots…..
Texting and private emails are not encrypted. Anyone with a little bit of know how, can spy on the white house now.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:15 amYou just compromised the secrets of our Nation, to protect the GOP.
Good move!
Comment by Cynicon Implant
I can’t wait until hackers access these accounts, and post what they find on the ‘net. The White House system would be more secure, and as members of goverment, their communications protected by criminal statute. Not so much with outside systems.
Yeah; real good move, Exlax.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:15 amBBBBWWWAAAAHHhahahahahahahaaa!
March 28th, 2007 at 11:22 amSo now we can spy on their communications!
March 28th, 2007 at 11:27 amAnd another aspect that I overlooked (from the Left Coaster):
claims of executive privilege go out the window if the White House was conducting the allegedly protected communications in a nonsecure, purely political manner through outside cut outs.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:29 amYa think these numnutz ass clowns woulda looked here first
March 28th, 2007 at 11:31 amSo much for security, morons! These people are getting dumber and more incompetent by the day.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:34 amAnd they thought they where smarter than the average bear!!! boo boo
March 28th, 2007 at 11:37 am#4 Cynicon Implant
Good move!
Yeah, it sure was a good move, because everyone knows that commercial service providers don’t keep backups of their servers…er…uh…well I mean they can’t be forced to make those backups available…oh…um…well anyway it seemed like a good idea at the time.
And they can’t claim executive privilege.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:38 am#4 Cynicon Implant
I just love it when trolls say stuff this stupid. Absolute freakin’ morons.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:51 amAre thses private email and text messaging accounts now going to show up on expense reports? Between the Blackberries and the price of texts we’re talking some real money. Should be good for laughs when that gets out.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:58 amHeck, all they have to do is buy stacks throwaway plastic credit card phones. Use and loose. Move on to the next one in a day or so. Drug dealers have had the good sense to do this for years. Given the level of criminal corruption in the White House, I am frankly amazed they have not already moved to this tactic.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:01 pmSo how are these alternate methods of communication protected from an internatinal hacker?
March 28th, 2007 at 12:02 pmThey are compromising security with their personal systems, they are mightily trying to escape scrutiny in future investigations – but, as the Bushies are so wont to tell Americans: “if you have nothing to hide, what are you afraid of?”
March 28th, 2007 at 12:04 pmThere they go again, acting as if what they do with our government is their own business. Let’s not forget they “derive their powers from the just consent of the governed.”
March 28th, 2007 at 12:05 pmI’d love to see those messages and emoticons.
Iran took brit hostages. Ahmadinejad >:-[
March 28th, 2007 at 12:14 pmThis is the same government that would throw me in prison if I were to “lose†my companies e-mail if it were under investigation.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:20 pmJebus, you are so right on with #9. Let’s just set up a little listening post across the street…
March 28th, 2007 at 12:23 pmI guess it depends on what “purely professional communications” means. IF I knew my personal emails would be made public, I’d like a backup. Although they already had that in the RNC.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:29 pmIF all inter- and intra-office communication prior to a finalized policy decision is going to be considered “personal” then we’ve got a problem.
Bush wants to give terrorist hackers access to vital information pertaining to national security, so he can better cover his own ass. That’s what courage really means, people!
March 28th, 2007 at 12:34 pmTom – I don’t thing this regime is sending any e-mails about national security since that does not seem to be their focus. When they say “the enemy†they don’t mean Al-Qaeda, they mean Democrats or anyone else in opposition.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:37 pmOh, delicious irony, how I love thee.
Gee whiz, it sure sucks when your own Nazi jackbooted thug legislation comes back to bite you in your own corrupted little asses.
If you can do it to US, we can do it to YOU, and you better believe that we will subpoena every single last document.
As for the private email, this needs to stop. We are the employers of those bastards, every last one of them, and we need to stand up and say NO.
(Oh, and my husband does tech…he says it would be the matter of a couple of keystrokes for an experienced hacker to gain access to everything. Compromising national security for the sake of partisan politics and hiding their own corruption…maybe their domain can be valerieplame.com.)
March 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm#20,
March 28th, 2007 at 12:44 pmDisposable phones are called “burners” by the unscrupulous among us.
Though it does make sense that criminals in the government are stupider than street criminals.
Hackers will do their thing which is expose/exploit WH communications hacked from insecure servers.
kinda hard to call every email ‘confidential’ when you’re using a blackberry. Some 10 year old computer wiz is going to make the members of this administration look as stupid as they really are.
Sounds like a blogger bonanza to me! Can’t wait to read all about it.
March 28th, 2007 at 12:52 pmAnother fine example of this transparent govt. If they didn’t know before, they do now. Every hacker with an itch will be lurking. Brilliant you asshats. A poster above said it so well that our national security is now in danger to save the GOP.
Trolls, this is on your shoulders. Congratulations for backing a back stabber.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:05 pmUm. As an IT person… WTF.
Making sure that Congress cannot investigate your official business years after the fact has now taken precedence over enterprise IT security for the White House?
I can’t express how stupid this is. The Secret Service must be crapping cinder blocks over this.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:12 pm#30 – More than a few keystrokes but probably doable. One common e-mail scenario is that there is a senders copy of the e-mail, a receivers copy, and a log copy on both the senders and receivers servers that the sender or receiver cannot delete. If there are CCs or BCCs or the ISP has logging enabled, or the FBI is “listening†the number of copies of any given e-mail could be very large.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:44 pmI cannot believe Clinton and his cronies were this stupid. He should be sent away for high crimes and misdemeanors! I’m so sick of democrats enabling terrorists and not caring about the security and the integrity of our government. Oh, this was done recently, under the bush administration? Ohhh. In that case, why are libs making a federal issue out of this? It’s another lib witchhunt! Leave bush alone!
March 28th, 2007 at 6:50 pm“Hey TURD-BLOSSOM, Bring Me Here That Lemon Juice…I Got Me A Secret Message I Has To Write…Make Sure Gannon/Guckert GETS IT, HEAR?” “Tell ‘Em To Have A Candle Ready….NO, NOT TO SHOVE UP OUR ANUSES!!!!! LIGHT THE F*CKER SO THE SECRET MESSAGE APPEARS, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS!!!! WEREN’T YOU EVER A BOY SCOUT?????” From THE NOT-SO-SECRET CHIMPya TAPES, VOL. 3 NO. 4
March 28th, 2007 at 11:10 pmhair styles kid crazy styles hair
April 8th, 2007 at 1:37 pm