86 Out of 3.1Million Emails Saved --- Didn't "Intentionally" Violate Law

[Spare_change]

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials only archived 86 text messages out of 3.1 million agency employees sent and received in 2015, according to a federal watchdog’s report made public Wednesday by House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith.

The EPA Office of Inspector General (IG) released the report requested by the Texas Republican, which described enormous text message retention problems within the EPA. One unnamed senior official configured his phone to automatically delete texts after 30 days.

The IG claimed EPA officials never “intentionally” violated the Federal Records Act and did not include the low number of archived texts in the body of its report, relaying it instead to congressional staff.

Multiple federal laws and regulations require that officials preserve all documents =- including email and text messages — created in the course of conducting official business of the U.S. government.

“I applaud the inspector general at EPA for recognizing that there is a problem with EPA officials using texting for official business and the conflict it presents for maintaining records,” Smith said in a statement. “Out of the 3.1 million text messages analyzed by the IG, only 86 of the text messages were logged into the enterprise system at EPA as a federal record.

“This vast deficit is astonishing, and further discredits the claim made by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that only one out of her 5,000 text messages was an official record according to EPA.

“A better process for maintaining this type of official correspondence to provide for congressional requests and Freedom of Information Act practices is lacking and needs to be addressed. I look forward to hearing how EPA specifically plans to address the deficits outlined by the IG report,” Smith said.

 

[mamooth]

Very conveniently, Congress has excluded itself from all such archiving laws. The rules they made only apply to the executive branch.

Hence, the hypocrites in Congress really ought to stop whining about it, at least until they agree to be bound by the same regs they tell everyone else to obey.

 

[Shrimpbox]

Talk about deflection. you apparently don't care if there is wholesale violation of the law. I am sure you will,apply the same standards to the trump administration.

 

[mamooth]

Talk about deflection. you apparently don't care if there is wholesale violation of the law. I am sure you will,apply the same standards to the trump administration.

Honest mistakes, sure. Remember, I'm a liberal, so by definition, I'm consistent. You need to stop assuming everyone holds the same kind of double standards your side holds.

In the meantime, y'all should show some courage, and spell out your conspiracy theory, instead of just hinting at it. Are you brave enough to do that? You know, tell us how EPA bureaucrats are hiding the text messages about their evil socialist plots. Yeah, that makes sense. Everyone engages in a socialist plot and texts about it, but leaves no evidence of it anywhere else. Sure thing.