Another Suspicious Loss of Potentially Incriminating Information

By: Dale Weckbacher

Numbers 32:23

But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the LORD, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out.

NLT

As we look out over history, we see many parallels.  It really does seem that history repeats itself with only the characters and locations of events changing.  Perhaps this is why the Lord asks his people pause to remember things that happen such as frequently remembering the death and resurrection of Christ through the observance of communion.  This allows us to learn lessons from the past insuring we do not repeat the mistakes made in the past. 

This week the IRS revealed that it had lost, or supposedly lost, two years of emails off Lois Lerner’s computer due to a hard drive crash.  (1)  This loss of data seems to parallel the lost 18 ½ minutes from the Nixon tapes during the Watergate investigation.  (2)  Once again, history seems to be repeating itself as a presidential administration is involved in a scandal involving the loss of potentially incriminating information. 

For those reading this that may not have been alive during Watergate or those not living in the United States, Let me fill you in on the history of the Nixon tapes.  On June 17, 1972, authorities arrested five men for bugging and burglarizing the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building complex in Washington DC.  Three days later, Nixon, who was secretly recording all conversations taking place in the oval office met with his aide H. R. Haldeman to discuss various affairs including the break-in.  (3) 

While reviewing some of the tapes, Nixon’s personal secretary claims she was interrupted and intended to press the stop button on the recorder and instead pressed the record button thus erasing 18 ½ minutes of the conversation with Haldeman.  We may never know if the erasure was an error as the secretary stated or intentional in order to destroy potentially incriminating evidence.  Experts have attempted to recover the lost minutes on the tape but have proven to be unsuccessful (4) so we may never know the truth.   

In the digital age loss of data, including emails containing proprietary information can be devastating.  For this reason, organizations take precautions to set up firewalls and backup their data to an offsite server.  With the resources available to the IRS and the fact that they possess sensitive data on every taxpayer, it is difficult and alarming to believe that a hard drive crash on one person’s computer could result in a loss of two years of emails. 

In an interview with the Blaze, Norman Cillo, an army veteran who worked in intelligence and a former program manager at Microsoft said that the IRS claim that they lost two years of Lois Lerner’s emails is simply not feasible.  (5)  Mr. Cillo claims that:

1)      I believe the government uses Microsoft Exchange for their email servers. They have built-in exchange mail database redundancy. So, unless they did not follow Microsofts recommendations they are telling a falsehood.

2)       Every IT organization that I know of has hotswappable disk drives. Every server built since 2000 has them. Meaning that if a single disk goes bad it’s easy to replace.

3)       All Servers use some form of RAID technology. The only way that data can be totally lost (Meaning difficult to bring back) is if more than a single disk goes before the first bad disk is replaced.

4)       If the server crashed (Hardware failure other than disks), then the disks that contain the DATA for the Exchange database is still available because the server hardware and disks are exchangeable. Meaning that if I have another server with the same hardware in it, I can put the disks in and everything should boot right up.

5)      All email servers in a professional organization use TAPE backup. Meaning if all the above fails, you can restore the server using the TAPE backups.

6)      If they are talking about her local PC, then it’s a simple matter of going to the servers which have the email and getting them from the servers. If the servers have removed the data you can still get them by using the backups of the servers to recover the emails.  (5)

Digital technology has allowed us to install safeguards that allow us to recover data lost erroneously or due to some natural disaster or power outage.  However, if the destruction of data were intentional, also known as fraud, it could be possible, all be it difficult, for someone to devise an elaborate scheme to destroy all data and backups thus insuring the complete destruction of all incriminating information. 

Just as there is still suspicion about the missing minutes on the Nixon tapes, unless we are able to recover the missing emails, we will always remain suspicious about what these emails may contain.  However, with all the safeguards in place today to protect data, the total loss of data and backups is highly suspicious and points to fraud. 

For this reason, it is imperative that Congress call for a special counsel to investigate the IRS scandal.  This special counsel should hire the best IT professionals and forensic auditors to find out what happened to the missing data and attempt to recover it so we can erase any suspicions. 

History does seem to repeat itself.  The Nixon tapes demonstrated how recorded data could easily be lost either intentionally or by mistake simply by pushing the wrong button.  Digital data can also be lost intentionally or mistakenly by hitting the delete button or some kind of hard drive crash.  However, we have learned by experience and now put safeguards in place allowing us to recover lost data.  With these safeguards in place, there is no need for us to go through history not knowing what these emails contain we just need to take the initiative to recover the missing data. 

1. Nagy, Mandy. IRS says it has lost over two years of Lerner emails. legalinsurrection.com. [Online] Legal Insurrection, June 13, 2014. [Cited: June 17, 2014.] http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/06/irs-says-it-has-lost-over-two-years-of-lerner-emails/.

2. Investors Business Daily. Lost Lerner Emails Mirror Nixon's 18 1/2 Minute Gap. news.investors.com. [Online] Investors Business Daily, June 16, 2014. [Cited: June 17, 2014.] http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/061614-704897-irs-loses-key-lois-lerner-emails.htm.

3. Trivia Library.com. Mystery in History Missing Portion of the Nixon Watergate Tape. www.trivia-library.com. [Online] Trivia-Library.com. [Cited: June 17, 2014.] http://www.trivia-library.com/b/mystery-in-history-missing-portion-of-the-nixon-watergate-tape.htm.

4. Rein, Lisa. Missing 18 minutes of Watergate tapes? Sorry. www.washingtonpost.com. [Online] The Washington Post, June 16, 2011. [Cited: June 17, 2014.] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/missing-18-minutes-of-watergate-tapes-sorry/2011/03/23/AGfIZpXH_blog.html.

5. Howerton, Jason. Veteran IT Professional Gives Six Reasons Why the IRS’ Claim That It ‘Lost’ Two Years of Lois Lerner’s Emails Is ‘Simply Not Feasible’. www.theblaze.com. [Online] The Blaze, June 13, 2014. [Cited: June 17, 2014.] http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/13/veteran-it-professional-gives-six-reasons-why-the-irs-claim-that-it-lost-two-years-of-lois-lerners-emails-is-simply-not-feasible/.