Turning NSA back on illegal government

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Activist political appointees working inside Federal agencies under Obama (and earlier administrations) have been caught several times using personal email and other means, sometimes under phony names, to hide their communications about government plans and strategies in collusion with their cronies in leftists pressure group lobbies. This is one way leftist activists infiltrate and run the government to slip their own agendas into policy and law. It's not limited to the IRS.

In this latest incident, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, was caught but deleted (or hid) the record of what was said (sound familiar?) when confronted with the threat of disclosure through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

So why not turn to America's friendly national backup service, the National 'Storage' Agency -- NSA? This has been mentioned before in the form of dark humor regarding Lois Lerner and the IRS, but here is a case where someone is trying to do it. But NSA is resisting, too. It controls the process and it's built to be one way: mass government spying on the citizens, not turning over legal requests for illegally destroyed government records showing illegal activities by government agents. And so the cover up of government corruption continues to worsen. National Single Payer Affordable Backup Care is corrupt, too.

Lawsuit Seeks EPA Administrators Deleted Messages

What have top officials within the Environmental Protection Agency been telling various environmental groups in their phone, email and text messages?

Thats a question Chris Horner, an attorney and senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, cant answer yet because the EPA claims it does not store this kind of datain violation of the law.

But its possible the National Security Agency does know.

Thats why Horner filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the NSA on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Energy and Environment Legal Institute and Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, in response to the agencys refusal to comply with two Freedom of Information Act requests concerning EPA correspondence.

The plaintiffs are seeking "metadata" from EPA Administrator Gina McCarthys phone communications, email and text messages, according to the suit.

In advance of her Senate confirmation, McCarthy told lawmakers she was uncomfortable with instant messaging and thus did not use EPAs "IM" system. But text messaging, Horner said, is something her phone bills showed she did with great regularityand increasingly over time.

McCarthy later claimed that thousands of text messages on her EPA-issued phone were 100 percent personal in nature and thus took the liberty of deleting them.

Horner said hes established that McCarthy was, in fact, a prolific texter. He said he has been informed she was cautioned by the agency at one point about messages she had sent during and about her experience in congressional hearings.

McCarthys predecessor, Lisa Jackson, faced questions about transparency as EPA administrator.

The EPA has worked repeatedly to make an end-run around federal record-keeping laws, the Competitive Enterprise Institute claims in a press release, "by using personal devices, including email accounts and text messages, to conduct work-related correspondence and otherwise do federal business."

"We have found a silver lining of the NSA affair, being that the spies inadvertently caught some lawbreaking senior appointees at EPA," Horner told The Daily Signal. "We would like the information NSA obtained regarding EPA records that EPA destroyed. Possibly confused by having tripped up fellow bureaucrats, NSA has refused to release to us information on many thousands of Gina McCarthys unlawfully destroyed text messages."

More details in full article

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The seriousness of the EPA illegal stonewalling is becoming more public:

The IRS is Not the Only Government Agency Hiding Documents from Congress

The Blaze, June 25, 2014 by Pete Kasperowicz

Last November, Issa subpoenaed the EPA for various emails and documents that Republicans suspect will show that the White House interfered with congressional requests for information.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said Wednesday she was not ready to hand over all documents Republicans have requested, which prompted a top Republican to say contempt proceedings would begin.

In a Wednesday morning hearing, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said she was still not ready to hand over the documents Issa is seeking. McCarty indicated that EPA staff was still negotiating with committee staff and trying to work with the request for papers, but Issa said that answer wasnt good enough after more than six months.

"Could you imagine if I just went ahead and set up a coal energy plant without a permit, started burning raw coal to produce electricity, and then told you for month after month after month that I look forward to working with you?" Issa said.

"I am informing you today that it is my intention to hold the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt and to schedule a business meeting to do so at the first business day available to this committee, which will be after next week."

Full article

But then what? DOJ's Holder and IRS's Lerner have already been found in contempt of Congress and nothing has been done about it.

All of these agencies treat the citizens like dirt, issuing bureaucratic decrees and making demands with no practical defense possible. When they are caught themselves, they arrogantly thumb their noses. How dare anyone question their absolute authority and arbitrary discretion to do what they want.

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More government stonewalling:

Rep. Stockman: Still Waiting for NSA Metadata on Lois Lerner's Emails

“They said they collect all this, and we’re asking for it,” Stockman told CNSNews.com Thursday. “We did not hear back,” he added. “Now I don’t know if they have it or what. That’s kind of a secret what they really do have. It seems to be changing all the time.”

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Lawsuit Seeks Damages From EPA, ‘A Toxic Waste Dump of Lawlessness’

July 25, 2014 - 10:36 AM

(CNSNews.com) – A conservative legal group is asking a federal judge to punish the Environmental Protection Agency for destroying or failing to preserve emails and text messages requested in August 2012 under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Landmark Legal Foundation believes the requested -- but never delivered -- messages to outside groups would have revealed EPA attempts to influence the 2012 presidential election.

"The EPA is a toxic waste dump for lawlessness and disdain for the Constitution,” said Landmark Legal President Mark Levin.

His legal group wants the federal court to fine the EPA “in an amount sufficient to deter future wrongdoing.”

Landmark Legal also is asking the judge to appoint an independent monitor to ensure that EPA is properly preserving and searching for all records that fall under Landmark’s original FOIA request...

“When any federal agency receives a FOIA request, the statute says it must preserve every significant repository of records, both paper and electronic, that may contain materials that could be responsive to that request,” Levin said. “When an agency gets sued it must also notify everyone who might be involved in the suit to preserve everything in their possession that could be discoverable in the litigation.

"But the people at the EPA, from the Administrator on down, think they’re above the law, that no one has the right to question what or how they do their jobs. Well, they’re wrong. The laws apply to everyone, even federal bureaucrats.”...

"EPA didn’t and doesn’t care, an attitude that it has carried into every aspect of its dealings with Landmark," the lawsuit says. "EPA has treated Landmark as an adversary from the receipt of its FOIA request, not as a rightful participant in a FOIA regime as enforcing principles of open government subject to oversight by its citizens."

This is the second time Landmark Legal has sought sanctions against the EPA in FOIA litigation.

In 2003, the Agency was held in contempt by a federal judge for destroying email backup tapes in a similar suit over “midnight” regulations hurried into law in the final days of the Clinton Administration. In that case, the EPA was fined nearly $300,000...

Full article

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More in the pattern of lawless government hiding incriminating evidence:

All The President’s Missing Hard Drives
July 23, 2014 Matt Wolking

It’s not just one careless agency. It’s not just a couple isolated incidents:

• A Federal Election Commission (FEC) attorney who engaged in partisan political activities while on the job admitted to violating the Hatch Act and agreed to resign. But when “the FEC's Office of Inspector General began the process of filing criminal charges … it found that the agency had destroyed her computer's hard drive before it could be seized.” (Daily Mail)
• Environmenal Protection Agency (EPA) "Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed to the House Oversight Committee … that her staff is unable to provide lawmakers all of the documents they have requested … because of a 2010 computer crash.” (The Hill)
• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claims to have lost emails belonging to former official Lois Lerner after her hard drive crashed, as well as “six other IRS employees whose hard drives had also crashed. One of those six employees was particularly important: Nikole Flax, who had worked as chief of staff to the former head of the IRS. Flax was known to be involved in discussions about the tea party targeting.” (CNN)
• IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane testified last week that “less than 20” additional IRS officials “have had computer problems over the course of the period covered by the investigations and the chairman’s subpoena.” (Committee on Oversight and Government Reform)

Full article and links

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I've been wondering why I haven't had a HDD crash in so many years. It appears that the manufacturer's have figured out a way to statistically separate out the drives headed for the consumer market from those headed for the government market. Apparently, all the ones with a greater likelihood of failure were sent to government bureaucrats.

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I've been wondering why I haven't had a HDD crash in so many years. It appears that the manufacturer's have figured out a way to statistically separate out the drives headed for the consumer market from those headed for the government market. Apparently, all the ones with a greater likelihood of failure were sent to government bureaucrats.

They keep the privately used ones running because you are storing data for NSA. Once NSA has its new storage facility in place that may no longer be necessary, but there will be a transition period during which they check that they have everything before letting your disk crash.