President Bush's interim spokesperson recently disclosed that perhaps five million emails have been "lost" from the White House computer system. As a somewhat knowledgeable IS person, I had three immediate speculations about possible reasons for this glitch:
1. The mail server specialist graduated from Regent University with a degree in "Fundamentalism", a major where computers and systems knowledge are outlawed because they might provide information contrary to their teachings. Consequently, she prayed about the backup requirement, secure in the knowledge that if God wanted the emails backed up, God would get it done. Her boss, recently promoted from the Attorney General's office, agreed with her plan.
2. The mail server specialist failed to schedule the backups because he had been put on temporary duty at the Pentagon, where he was assigned to "google" the topic "statements obtained by torture". Soon after, he started a priority investigation of the "Rather Than Working" blog, whose attorney author seemed to disagree that torture was an appropriate method of doing pre-trial fact gathering.
3. The mail server specialist was instructed to dump the emails after a random sample of them were found to contain actual names of people who influenced administration policy and actual reasons why policies were adopted. Keeping such information was deemed to provide a national security risk, since that insidious enemy, the U.S. Congress, might obtain access to it. The entire cabinet voted, behind closed doors, to deep six the server.
Of course, these are merely idle speculations. I'm sure the White House promptly will provide a complete and truthful explanation for this innocent mistake which really doesn't represent a problem anyway. Also, I expect the administration will offer any individual or company under investigation by the government the same level of forgiveness for trashing emails as it expects get from us. After all, "Do unto others as you expect them to do unto you" is their motto.
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3 comments:
While reading your post, probably a bit too fast, boom, I stopped. I like it. A real reason. And I get to go testify before a committee, don't I?
Knowing that it isn't all about me, I'm struck by what's in your post that I've not seen in any media outlet. Stuff stays in hard drives till you overwrite it. Even then, as I understand it there are ways to undo the overwrite. Then too, there isn't any way that the White House or the RNC doesn't back up it's servers.
Though maybe you and I are wrong. The White House Counsel just agreed to mutually agree to an independant investigator to look into it. Given the Administration's recent idiocy, maybe they're counting on God to undo what they have done.
Hilarious post. Sad, really, but funny. (I get so confused about this administration's shenanigans, never quite knowing what response is appropriate.) The idea of a fundamentalist ISO degree (Information - sort of) is on the mark.
P.S. I always knew that Dave was headed for trouble with the justice department.
Not just "lost" emails but the deliberate use of accounts outside administration control.
Then there's the suspicious limits to who's email was lost.
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