The White House 1 - US citizens 0

For anyone who hasn't seen All the President's Men... or any film for that matter where political figures and big business are seen shredding documents, well, that's a thing of the past.

Now we have the White House disposing of millions of emails which were sent during the period leading up to the Iraq war.

Here's the article.

Here's what started it all.

Here is the response from CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) who was suing the White House Office of Administration for the missing emails. This is a fascinating read.

Clearly we don't need all of the puzzle pieces in this situation. And I'm not getting all conspiracy theory on anyone. It's impossible, in this day and age, for there not to be back up servers in one of the most secure and technologically up-to-date offices in the whole country.

And this 'mistake' coupled with the timing could not be construed as coincidence.

This is a great example of the spin, and the pressure exerted on D.C. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

My favorite part in the CREW article is:

After initially agreeing to provide records, OA changed course and claimed it was not an agency and, therefore, had no obligation to comply with the FOIA. OA made this claim despite the fact that even the White House’s own website described OA as an agency and included regulations for processing FOIA requests.

Unreal.