IRS has ‘no excuses’ for latest twist in email saga, says IT expert

Fox News ^ | July 23, 2014 | James Rogers

[McGruff]

The IRS has “no excuses” for the latest twist in the saga of its missing emails, says an expert in electronic discovery.

“Whether it’s incompetence or deliberate obstruction, the IRS has no excuses for having handled this so poorly,” said Bruce Webster, partner at Provo, Utah-based IT consulting and expert witness firm Ironwood Experts.

House investigators said Tuesday that a hard drive belonging to Lois Lerner, the former agency official at the center of the department’s targeting scandal, was just “scratched,” not irreparably damaged. The IRS had described the hard drive’s data as “unrecoverable.”

[Stentor]

The Republicans in Congress will see to it.

So the "Republican Congress" is blocking the use of the Congressional swat team? How are they going to apprehend the criminals so that the Congressional judge can send them to the Congressional penitentiary?

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

An Emperor cannot be impeached.

[uncommonsense]

"Do they use Microsoft OSes in government?"

Yes, mostly XP on the desktop that's long been sunset by Microsoft. They don't do maintenance patches anymore (our illustrious fedgov is probably paying MSFT $millions to keep patching security holes to XP).

[Lexinom]

Makes perfect sense. XP was the last really stable, fast, reliable Windows (with a due hat tip to Windows 7 in second place.)

Gov't employees probably lack the gumption and intellectual horsepower to move to Ubuntu or XUbuntu...

[Jumper]

Everything belonging to an individual in government, e.g, the desktop computer is handled in two ways.

First, mapped drives that redirect everything the user thinks they are putting onto their hard drive is stored on the servers in Personal Folders. Standard Government practice in the US Department of State.

Secondly, many users are finding their entire desktop is only a platform to allow their User Profile to boot from a virtual server - so nothing actually resides on the desktop. As virtual servers become more widespread, this technology is also being implemented just because of the Security and Complete Control it allows both System's Administrators and those who perform as Information Systems Officers and Security Officers; the Network Admins also love it because it is difficult to hack or damage virtual servers or disrupt the networks - everything is running on a different machine from the one with the IP address.

Team Obama was stupid to Diss the Systems Administrators and Systems Security Officers.

[mmichaels1970]

Everything belonging to an individual in government, e.g, the desktop computer is handled in two ways. First, mapped drives that redirect everything the user thinks they are putting onto their hard drive is stored on the servers in Personal Folders. Standard Government practice in the US Department of State.

But not standard government practice at the IRS according to sworn testimony before congress. The IRS claims the PST files were stored on the local hard drive (which failed). If their standard practice actually matched US Dept of State, we would have a perjury charge to pursue.

[airborne]

The Democrats won’t do anything about it, so that leaves only the Republicans in Congress.

And what will they do?

Hold more hearings until it’s gone on long enough for them to “move on”.

How about hold Lerner in contempt and have her arrested? How about seize some hard drives and serve warrants on people who are in contempt?

No, by all means, let’s wash our hands of it - since we can’t call out the Congressional swat team. Go along to get along. You bet!

[SAMPUBLIUS]

If one reads/downloads the answers given to True the Vote case
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1227881/92-2-2.pdf
Case l:13-cv-00734-RBW Document 92-2 Filed 07/18/14
STEPHEN L. MANNING … June - September of 2011, my position at the Internal Revenue Service was Associate Chief Information Officer, Enterprise Networks.

. . . Information Technology Specialist (Customer Support) (hereinafter “the Specialist”) was assigned and inspected the laptop assigned to Lois Lerner and determined that the hard drive on the laptop was not operating properly. ..

6. Because the Internal Revenue Service IT inventory control
system does not place bar code property tags on computer
component parts like the hard drive and because the Internal
Revenue Service has no business purpose for recording the
serial numbers of the numerous internal component parts of
desktop and laptop computers, to the best of my knowledge no
one at the Internal Revenue Service has first-hand knowledge
of the serial number on the hard drive that was in the laptop
computer assigned to Lois Lerner at the time of the Help Desk
complaint on June 13, 2011.
7. In response to recent inquiries made by the Internal
Revenue Service to the 3rd party IT hardware support vendor who
supplied the laptop computer at issue, the 3rd party vendor
advised the Internal Revenue Service that the hard’ drive that was in the computer assigned to Lois Lerner when the
Specialist responded to the June 13, 2011 Help Desk call
contained the serial number 2AGAH01E1XN0ON.
8. According to the June 13th Help Desk Ticket, after
determining that there were problems with the operation of the
hard drive, the Specialist made the initial efforts at data
preservation and/or data recovery with respect to the hard
drive in Lois Lerner’s laptop computer and all of the
Specialist’s efforts to recover any data were unsuccessful.

. . . According to the IRS Enterprise Learning Management System, the Specialist has received regular IT technical training going back to 2008…

. . . According to the Specialist, prior to joining the Internal Revenue Service, from 2004 to 2005, formal Microsoft training was completed through ****Lions World Services for the Blind,***** a certified Microsoft training and testing center, which included the following curriculum: CompTia A+ Hardware 2000, CompTia A+ Software 2000, Microsoft MCP 2000, Microsoft MCSE 2000, Microsoft MCSA 2000, . . .

IT APPEARS that the IT specialist may have been blind or had very poor vision. That would not stop him from running standard software tests on lerner computer..

What is not knosw is who removed hard drive and supposedly sent it to CI while installing a new drive for Lois. EG no credible chain of evidence other than a ticket

Now in same case DECLARATION OF TODD O. EGAAS

” 3. In July of 2011 at the request of the User and Network
Services branch of the Internal Revenue Service Information
Technology business unit, a Senior Investigative Analyst in
the CID Electronic Crimes Technology & Support Center
(hereinafter “the Analyst”’) received a hard drive that had
been removed from a laptop assigned to an IRS employee and
attempted to recover data from the hard drive on July 22, 2011
and August 4, 2011.’

NOTE no serial number noted- - could well have been a really trashed HD - not that of lerner.

” 4. The hard drive had been removed from a laptop assigned to
Lois Lerner by an employee of the User and Network Services
branch of the Internal Revenue Service Information Technology
business unit before it was received by the Analyst.

How did he determine that - What proof it was the lerner hard drive ?

5. All of the Analyst’s attempts were unsuccessful in
recovering any data from the hard drive at issue.
6. On August 5, 2011 the Analyst sent the hard drive back to
the User and Network Services branch of the Internal Revenue
Service Information

NOTE OK it was sent back - but again no serial number

COULD THERE HAVE BEEN SOME SLIGHT OF HAND RE HARD DRIVE(S)

[rdcbn]

Yes