Crisis at the National Archives

[MOD3]

Topic locked.

Note to posters:  this story is not about Trump.  Or, you.

[WingNot]

Topic locked.

Note to posters:  this story is not about Trump.  Or, you.

That escalated quickly!

[MOD3]

That escalated quickly!

Like a dumpster fire.

[Sanguine]

And yet the accumulation of recent congressional testimony has made it clear that the Obama administration itself engaged in the wholesale destruction and “loss” of tens of thousands of government records covered under the act as well as the intentional evasion of the government records recording system by engaging in private email exchanges. So far, former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Lynch and several EPA officials have been named as offenders. The IRS suffered record “losses” as well. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy called it “an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws.”...

[RoosGirl]

The article says the clerks tape them back together.  So they are making it into the archives, certainly with more labor. 

But yeah documents being removed from a secure storage site is a bigger deal then cleaning up bits of paper off the floor.

The article also says the guys were fired. It's unclear to me if anyone was hired to replace them.

I have room in my brain for both issues to be of concern.

[driftdiver]

The article also says the guys were fired. It's unclear to me if anyone was hired to replace them.

I have room in my brain for both issues to be of concern.

Didn't take long for the dumpster fire to flare back up.

[Victoria33]

@Oceander
@mystery-ak
@Cyber Liberty
@txradioguy
@MOD3

I read the whole article.  This part is important:

“A first-rate librarian, Ferriero (the archivist in charge), has been driving a much-needed digital overhaul and expansion of the National Archives over the nine years of his appointment. This will greatly improve the ability of digital search locally and remotely, as well as accessing the files themselves.”

“To support this effort, in 2014 President Obama signed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments. For the first time electronic government records were placed under the 1950 Federal Records Act. The new law also included updates clarifying "the responsibilities of federal government officials when using non-government email systems" and empowering "the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal.” Additionally, it gives the Archivist of the United States the final authority in determining just what is a government record.”

Ferriero, first rate librarian, been there 9 years, is the one person to determine what material is a government record.  By himself he does this.  There needs to be more than one person determining if a document is a government record.  One person can make mistakes.  There should be three people reviewing these documents to come to an agreement if a document is a government record.  Why three people?  Two people are inclined to agree.  The third person causes discussion among the three - mistakes are less likely.

@MOD3, this post is about the article, not some other subject.   

[RoosGirl]

Didn't take long for the dumpster fire to flare back up.

Put me on ignore if you don't like my comments.  Otherwise stop being so whiny.  I completely understand that you don't think Trump trashing things that are supposed to be documented is important.

[driftdiver]

Put me on ignore if you don't like my comments.  Otherwise stop being so whiny.  I completely understand that you don't think Trump trashing things that are supposed to be documented is important.

The article is not about Trump.  Saying so is not whining.

Bitching about being called out is being whiny.

[Victoria33]

One equates Trump to the antiChrist and the other tells him to go to hades.

Trump calls people degrading names.  Because he does that, I can call him "Antichrist Trump".

[catfish1957]

Trump calls people degrading names.  Because he does that, I can call him "Antichrist Trump".

If God chose Trump as the Anti-Christ, I'd say he had a pretty warped sense of humor.

[skeeter]

@Oceander
@mystery-ak
@Cyber Liberty
@txradioguy
@MOD3

I read the whole article.  This part is important:

“A first-rate librarian, Ferriero (the archivist in charge), has been driving a much-needed digital overhaul and expansion of the National Archives over the nine years of his appointment. This will greatly improve the ability of digital search locally and remotely, as well as accessing the files themselves.”

“To support this effort, in 2014 President Obama signed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments. For the first time electronic government records were placed under the 1950 Federal Records Act. The new law also included updates clarifying "the responsibilities of federal government officials when using non-government email systems" and empowering "the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal.” Additionally, it gives the Archivist of the United States the final authority in determining just what is a government record.”

Ferriero, first rate librarian, been there 9 years, is the one person to determine what material is a government record.  By himself he does this.  There needs to be more than one person determining if a document is a government record.  One person can make mistakes.  There should be three people reviewing these documents to come to an agreement if a document is a government record.  Why three people?  Two people are inclined to agree.  The third person causes discussion among the three - mistakes are less likely.

@MOD3, this post is about the article, not some other subject.   

The article is about thousands of missing documents from the Obama administration. Not about the procedure used to submit them to the archives.

[Victoria33]

The article is about thousands of missing documents from the Obama administration. Not about the procedure used to submit them to the archives.

@skeeter

The process is explained in the article which makes it a reason to comment.  Ferriero could determine on his own that none of the missing documents were government records.  He has the ultimate power to decide what should be kept, or not.

[driftdiver]

@skeeter

The process is explained in the article which makes it a reason to comment.  Ferriero could determine on his own that none of the missing documents were government records.  He has the ultimate power to decide what should be kept, or not.

It is not really that simple.   There are laws and regulations which determine what kind of records go into the archives.  All he does is determine what kind of record it is.  Certainly room for error or corruption but the real issue is the loss of records from the Archives.

[RoosGirl]

The article is not about Trump.  Saying so is not whining.

Bitching about being called out is being whiny.

The article isn't about the bleep Tony awards either.  Like I said, I think both the information in the article by the OP and the one posted by Supressed are important. I get that you don't care about Trump trashi g docs he's supposed to archive. What is the big damn deal about us disagreeing?

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

I don't believe this National Archive issue is about Trump. It will be interesting to get a better account of what is missing. Is it blocks from certain servers or certain time periods? Was this due to government ineptitude or technical issues (which also could be ineptitude if there were not sufficient backups in place).

One challenge with going digital only for many of these things is how easily it is to delete or lose records. But, the advantage may be a digital paper trail (for lack of a better term) of what happened.

When handled properly, digital records are a lot harder to lose than paper.

[sneakypete]

You <NOPE> are even more amazing.  Tearing up documents violates federal law, but because you worship Trump, he’s above the law.  In all respects.

@Oceander

Nope,driftdiver is right. You and people like you must go to bed at night and dream of things to criticize him about the next day. He flat out OWNS you.

[sneakypete]

Are records missing that ought not be missing?

@RoosGirl

IF there are any missing,no one has mentioned it. Right now they are just bitching about him tearing up and throwing away notes.

[WingNot]

@Oceander

Nope,driftdiver is right. You and people like you must go to bed at night and dream of things to criticize him about the next day. He flat out OWNS you.

So true.  Bunch of niggling never trumpers.

[sneakypete]

NeverTrumpers, you say?

At the Tony Awards last night Robert De Niro used the otherwise classy occasion on national TV to say just one thing. “F*** Trump!” CBS bleeped it. The audience gave it a long, roaring, standing O.

@aligncare

Well,these people spend their whole lives pretending they are someone that they are not,so it should surprise no one that get outrages when they see someone in the public eye that self-confident and proud of being who he is.

DeNiro is a wannabe punk that got rich pretending to be a hard-ass gangster,so now he thinks he is a tough guy.

Well,he probably DOES qualify as a tough guy in the cess pool social circles where he swims in NYC. Like many other celebs,he needs to get out more.

[RoosGirl]

@RoosGirl

IF there are any missing,no one has mentioned it. Right now they are just bitching about him tearing up and throwing away notes.

It is unclear, the article says the men thata were taping things back together so that they couod be archived as required were fired. So, is anyone doing that job now or are things just remaining ripped up and tossed away?

[Cyber Liberty]

@RoosGirl

IF there are any missing,no one has mentioned it. Right now they are just bitching about him tearing up and throwing away notes.

Which, by definition, is Off Topic.  This thread is about the documents discovered missing by the Archive Librarian, who's trying to digitize the records from the past nine years.  A lot of Obastard's stuff is missing.  That includes the SoS stuff under Clinton and Kerry.  President Trump is not even mentioned in the story, that I can see.

The story about Trump tearing stuff up is another thread.  It's On Topic there.  Not here.

[WingNot]

Which, by definition, is Off Topic.  This thread is about the documents discovered missing by the Archive Librarian, who's trying to digitize the records from the past nine years.  A lot of Obastard's stuff is missing.  That includes the SoS stuff under Clinton and Kerry.  President Trump is not even mentioned in the story, that I can see.

The story about Trump tearing stuff up is another thread.  It's On Topic there.  Not here.

Burn! 

[Suppressed]

It is unclear, the article says the men thata were taping things back together so that they couod be archived as required were fired. So, is anyone doing that job now or are things just remaining ripped up and tossed away?

That evidently doesn't matter to the ETs.  It's only the law.  He's above the law, don'tchaknow.

[Cyber Liberty]

That evidently doesn't matter to the ETs.  It's only the law.  He's above the law, don'tchaknow.

Apparently it doesn't matter to anybody the story at the top of the thread is not about President Trump tearing up papers.  It's about Obastard destroying documents, a more serious matter.   

It's a pity this turned into a Trump War thread.  This could have been a good discussion.