From the article: “As John Hinderaker points out on his Powerline blog, it makes sense that Sonasoft might have deleted records it was no longer obligated to keep and that indeed it may have felt it was required to do so.”
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Not so. Under normal circumstances, it would not make sense.
Most government contractors have clauses that require the contractor to turn over all data like this. Just imagine if each federal contractor (and there are thousands upon thousands of them) simply deleted the information they were contracted to collect and store for the government? No, the federal government almost always WANTS the data they paid for and there are standard FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) contract clauses included in contracts for that purpose.
If its one thing the government is good at, its collecting data. All that data is used to justify a lot of jobs and defend budgets. Also, as we’ve seen, information is power.
>>Most government contractors have clauses that require the contractor to turn over all data like this.
There is an interesting field for some research.
How easy would it be to get the IRS - Sonasoft contract? Theoretically, it should be easy to get via FOIA, right? It would be interesting to see how the contract terms read on that issue.