POOF...It’s Not Just the Torture-Emails DOJ Lost, It’s the Backup Documentation

[kpete]

It’s Not Just the Emails DOJ Lost, It’s the Backup Documentation
By: emptywheel Monday March 1, 2010 6:52 am
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........it’s not just the emails that are missing. It’s also some of the backup documentation. Some of the documents that went into the production of the torture memos–and should have been reviewed by OPR over the course of its investigation–disappeared some time in the last 5 years.

As I reported last September, after some delay in a FOIA response, Acting head of OLC, David Barron confessed that OLC could not find all of the documents that it had first listed on a 2006 FOIA response.

The problem, as Barron explained in his declaration, seems to stem from three things: CIA, not OLC, did the original FOIA search in 2005 and at that time did not make a copy of the documents responsive to FOIA; for long periods OPR had the documents, lumped in with a bunch of other torture documents, so it could work on is investigation; the documents got shuttled around for other purposes, as well, including other investigations and one trip to the CIA for a 2007 update to the FOIA Vaughn Index.

And, somewhere along the way, at least 10 documents originally identified in 2005 as responsive to the FOIA got lost.

Poof!

The 10 Missing Documents

Here’s a list of the short descriptions of what disappeared:

* Document 6, 07/25/2002, 46 page Top Secret memo providing legal advice
* Document 20, 09/12/2003, 1 page Top Secret memo requesting legal advice
* Document 47, 07/07/2004, 1 page Top Secret memo providing legal advice
* Document 77, 08/16/2004, 2 page Top Secret memo providing legal advice
* Document 142, undated 2 page Top Secret memo requesting legal advice
* Document 155, undated 3 page Top Secret draft memo with attached handwritten notes requesting legal advice
* Document 172, undated 5 page Top Secret memo requesting legal advice
* Document 175, undated 6 page Top Secret draft memo providing legal advice
* Document 177, undated 10 page Top Secret draft memo providing legal advice
* Document 181, undated 127 page Top Secret draft memo providing legal advice

more:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/03/01/its-not-just-the-emails-doj-lost-its-the-backup-documentation/

[spanone]

1. makes no sense to destroy evidence if you leave a backup

[tom_paine]

10. Bingo.

Got it in one.

Someone once said, "Ordinary Crminals dream of the Perfect Crime, State Criminals dream of controlling the crime scene"

Yes indeed, how CAN we stop or even slow down Bushification of our nation when the very law enforcement and judicial processes themselves are corrupted by Bushification?

Answer. No more than Germans could stop it when they had the same problem with Nazification.

[Captain Hilts]

2. We're supposed to trust these folks with 'justice'? nt

[Uben]

3. They should have a chain of possession....

...that would tell who had them last. That document is the smoking gun. I'm sure it is one of the missing, as well. Therefore, the one in charge of their safekeeping at the time should be tried and convicted of obstructing justice. Put the fucker in prison for twenty years.

[hootinholler]

8. Indeed!

One does not just lose a Top Secret document there are signatures and control sheets for such things. These should be easily tracked.

-Hoot

[Soylent Brice]

4. just peachy.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

I'm sure a nation that is A-OK with war criminals going free can come up with an explanation that will taste sweet as it goes down to explain lost emails and documents relating to its war crimes.

Sorta like antifreeze.

[notadmblnd]

6. files on servers are generally backed up daily

weekly, monthly and yearly. They are generally retained for up to seven years. They're trying to tell us that they have no backups what-so ever? Not buying it. Sorry.

someone could have a full time job for a while if they were provided the tapes and a dedicated server to restore these file to.

[Echo In Light]

7. k-r

[Kalyke]

9. Were these electronic?

Because, if they were/are, they are not "poof" gone unless someone set forth a deliberate series of deletions to permanently rid the DOJ computers of forensic evidence of these documents.

If that's the case, then that person or persons are, in the least, in violation of several compliance regulations and/or, at most, possibly guilty of a criminal offense.

Now... who's going to charge them?