- You Got Mail
Waxman Asks Government Agencies to Preserve E-mails from RNC Accounts
This is hardly news to anyone on this site, but I never get tired of hearing about this story. It's what oversight is all about.
Waxman has already directed the Republican National Committee to preserve any White House email. After receiving briefings from the office of the White House Counsel and the RNC last week, the Committee is expanding the investigation into whether the White House has violated the Presidential Records Act. The PRA establishes that the records of a president, his immediate staff and certain units of the Executive Office of the President belong to the United States, not to the individual president or his staff. It requires that the President "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are maintained as Presidential records."
Waxman sent letters to every Agency of the Executive Branch:
Attorney General Gonzales, DOJ
Secretary Kempthorne, Interior
Administrator Doan, GSA
Secretary Nicholson, Veterans Affairs
Secretary Spellings, Education
Secretary Chertoff, DHS
Secretary Johanns, Agriculture
Secretary Gutierrez, Commerce
Secretary Leavitt, HHS
Secretary Bodman, Energy
Secretary Paulson, Treasury
Administrator Johnson, EPA
Secretary Jackson, HUD
Secretary Gates, DOD
Secretary Chao, Labor
Secretary Rice, State
Secretary Peters, Transportation
the Committee requests that you preserve all e-mails received from White House officials who used "gwb43.com," "georgewbush.com," "rnchq.org," or other non-governmental e-mail accounts. The Committee also asks you to preserve any e-mails sent to White House officials at any of these accounts.
In addition, I request that you provide the Committee with an inventory of any e-mail
communications in the agency's possession or control that meet the description in the preceding paragraph. This inventory should include the name and e-mail address of the sender, the name and e-mail address of the recipient, the date of the e-mail, and a brief description of the subject of the e-mail. This inventory should be provided to the Committee by May 3,2007.
Obviously, any new developments will be reported here on DKos. Check this tag: gwb43.com for relevant stories. I liked this one especially; rhfactor wrote a diary A Citizen's Report on Speaking with Waxman's Office about contacting Waxman's committee. Specifically to ask the question, "Does the Committee have computer Data Recovery Experts working with them right now, to inform and advise the committee about the entire process of email transmissions and the multiple methods for recovery of deleted emails?"
- Security Report Card
Ranking Member Tom Davis issued a Report on Government Information Security Efforts.
The grades are derived from annual reports agencies produce to comply with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), which Davis wrote and shepherded to passage in 2002. Agencies are rated on their annual tests of information security, their plans of action and milestones or corrective action plans, whether they certify and accredit their systems as secure, how well they manage the configuration of their computers to ensure security, how they detect and react to breaches of security, their training programs and the accuracy of their inventories.
In 2006, the Government received an overall grade of C-, showing somewhat of an improvement over the D's and D+'s in past years. However, look at this report card for the individual govt agencies.
Source: FY06FISMA.pdf
Yikes! Nice that the Agency for Intl. Development makes such stellar grades, but wouldn't you think the Dept. of Homeland Security and DOD would be at the top of the class? How about the Nukes? Dept. of State? And if you look at the last page of the report it shows the DHS, DOD and State Dept. have been getting D's and F's going back to 2003. No sign of improvement there. It all makes sense though if the IT personnel got degrees in Christian Computer Science at Regent University.
- Paging Dr. Rice --- Are you there?
Waxman Reiterates Request for Testimony from Secretary Rice
Since 2003, Waxman has sent numerous letters to Secretary Rice requesting information about the bogus claims of Iraq trying to purchase uranium in Niger and how it ended up in the State of the Union address, among other issues. Rice has not responded adequately and so Waxman is politely insisting that she appear at Thursday's hearing, "Unanswered Questions Regarding the Administration’s Claims that Iraq Sought Uranium from Niger".
Dear Madam Secretarv:
On March 12, 2007, I wrote to you on behalf of the Committee to request answers to multiple letters that I had sent to you over the past four years. I requested a response by March 23,2007, but I received no reply by that date. As a result, on March 30,2007, I sent a letter notifying you that the Committee will be holding a hearing on April 18, 2007, and I requested that you make yourself available to provide testimony and respond to questions about the issues raised in the March 12 letter.
On April 3, 2007, I did receive a letter from your assistant secretary for legislative affairs, Jeffrey Bergner. Mr. Bergner's letter does not answer many of the Committee's questions, nor does it provide most of the information and documents the Committee requested. As a result, I continue to request your appearance before the Committee on April 18, 2007.
I will be really surprised if Secretary Rice shows up. Last time a State Dept. official was invited to testify, he was conveniently flown out of town to avoid the hearing. Top Iraq Reconstruction Official Flown To Baghdad To Avoid Oversight Hearing.
Condi will probably have an important meeting with the Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg or some other lame excuse. (No offense to Luxembourg!)
- Hurricane FEMA
Davis requests hearings on Hurricane readiness
One of the stated goals of the Oversight Committee is to look into the Katrina disaster and be sure that we are prepared for the next natural disaster or terrorist attack. Along those lines, Davis is asking for a hearing to address the government's preparedness for the 2007 hurricane season which starts June 1st. Hurricane forecasters at The Tropical Meteorology Project have predicted 17 named storms, 5 of which are expected to develop into intense (Category 3, 4 or 5) hurricanes.
Here are the proposed topics for the hearing:
- The adequacy of FEMA’s National Response Plans for a category 4 or 5 hurricane and the possibility of multiple named hurricanes making landfall within days or weeks of each other;
- How FEMA is coordinating plans with appropriate State and Local officials;
- What role the military, especially the National Guard, is expected to play in each scenario as planned for by FEMA and governors;
- The status of FEMA’s personnel system and the adequacy of human capital resources;
- FEMA’s understanding of its budget and its sufficiency to sustain 2007 efforts.
I sure hope to see Secretary Chertoff on the hot seat at this one.
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