A lot of people there need to lose their jobs and their freedom over this. They think the consequences were worth it, they need to be shown consequences then.
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Yes, but the fact of the wiping would be readily apparent to anybody with the expertise to take a look. And I would not trust the IT department to agree to do the wiping or to keep quiet about it.
That said, we’re talking about phone-to-phone text messages. They’re not the most permanent electronic records in the world. It’s quite plausible that losing sending their old phones through the shredder means there are no more copies.
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Breaking on MSNBC
SS officials claim employees got reminders in Dec & Jan that they were required to preserve texts.
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It seems more and more that the Secret Service is horribly corrupt/morally bankrupt as an organization. How many stories have there been about getting hammered, sleeping with hookers, and now this.
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So let me get this straight — an agency of the Federal Government where ALL communications are supposed to be preserved by LAW, has failed to follow even the most rudimentary back up plans AND their devices and communications were not preserved by their cell service provider? Subpoena everything. Cell service provider. Metadata. Social media accounts of the personnel in question, including leadership who instituted the “back it up yourself” strategy. Their personal devices. Everything back to the stone age! Sift through it all properly and THEN bring them all in individually to testify about it. No one can completely wipe their life from the Internet. Someone will break. Then fire all of the agents who failed to back up their phones and the leadership who allowed that ridiculous directive. They broke the rules egregiously, they deserve it. People have been fired for less.
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Well, at any rate, they’re overdue for a serious housecleaning there.
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I could say “I am betting” but that would not be true because I know, to obtain the sort of security clearance one would need to be accepted as a Secrete Service Agent assigned to guard the President of the United States would require you giving up most if not all your rights to privacy as a citizen.
Forget about my own experience the last 35 years working both for the Government and with private companies providing information, services and equipment including to the Department of Defense, it is just common sense that to obtain a security clearance you allow Government agents to monitor your personal life.
The higher level the clearance the more rights you have to give up and I doubt their is any higher level then protecting the President. In fact as an agent protecting the president, probable cause is already met to do just about anything.
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Maybe, but I very much doubt an obstruction of justice charge could be sustained, and intentionally destroying government documents is a fairly low-level felony. I wouldn’t expect much jail time even if it could be proved.
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SS has been bad for a long, long time. They are, after all, cops.
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Only official records and things meeting certain criteria are required to be preserved. That e-mail you were forwarded about office lunch plans doesn’t fall under the law, nor does much of the routine day-to-day stuff.
It’s a small portion of what actually passes through devices these days that is required to be preserved, techniques to isolate that stuff and preserve that while not just blanket-saving everything, even things that are supposed to be removed (think stuff like privacy laws), are not well served by statute and regs that date back to pre-computer times.
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OT: Then they came for gay marriage and I said, “Tommy Tuberville said what?”
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Maybe, maybe not. Secret Service communications are not generally going to be “Presidential records” that are covered by the Presidential Records Act. What seems clear is that SS had some kind of retention policy, and that the J5/J6 texts should have been maintained in any event due to Congress’s preservation letters and reporters’ FOIA requests.
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So glad you are still with us. May Her Noodliness bathe you in marinara. R’amen!
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Kinda OT, but not really: Somebody turned up photos of Enrique Tarrio’s visit to the White House. Lots of helpful details included too.
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I would assume he’s the best, or only person the committee has found to fill in part of the story they want to tell tomorrow. So far, the committee has only had witnesses in public testimony when they know exactly what they’re going to say, so I wouldn’t expect that to be different here.
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The USSS already has digital forensics experts. Their other mission is investigation and prevention of financial crimes, including online ones. You’d think those SS being subpoenaed could, you know, pick up the phone and ask their fellow SS guys for a little help.
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Everything points to the possibility that they were infiltrated by the Organization and were an intended part of militia for the coup conspiracy along with the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the NRA.
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Another side of this, is that a normal Federal agency would be doing an After Action report about a significant event like 1/6 riot to evaluate what worked and what didn’t, and how to do better next time. Standard procedure. All records would be preserved for that report, even aside from any official records requirements.
So it’s doubly squirrely what happened here. Either the USSS violated a procedure they would normally do, or they never do AA reports and that’s one more thing that needs to be changed.
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So… they were acting like US Marines? Are you calling the US Marines corrupt and morally bankrupt?
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Hell yes. And I am also wondering whether the protective detail members do any kind of shift report.
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