Newsweek: They Haven’t Got Mail (Rumsfeld & Chertoff don't use email)

[sabra]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11371281/site/newsweek/

They Haven’t Got Mail
The Katrina hearings haven’t only revealed critical information about White House responses to the hurricane. They’ve also uncovered the online secrets of Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Chertoff.

By Mark Hosenball
Newsweek

Feb. 15, 2006 - The business world and government departments depend upon it, grade-school kids are taught how to use it and Osama bin Laden’s followers have become skilled practitioners. But congressional investigations of government responses to Hurricane Katrina have revealed that two of the nation’s key crisis managers, the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, do not use e-mail.

During the course of their inquiries, which culminated this week in public hearings and the release of a scathing House committee report, congressional investigators sent the Bush administration extensive requests for papers and e-mails documenting how the administration responded before and after the hurricane made landfall on the Gulf Coast near New Orleans last August. The White House refused to turn over high-level documentation, asserting that communications between President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and their aides were covered by executive privilege.

When it came to documentation of how Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Donald Rumsfeld responded to Katrina, however, congressional investigators got a different answer from the administration. The House committee established to investigate Katrina was “informed that neither Secretary Chertoff nor Secretary Rumsfeld use e-mail,” reported Reps. Charlie Melancon and William Jefferson, two Louisiana Democrats who participated in the inquiry despite a boycott by other House Democrats who felt that the inquiry was too partisan. The Democrats made the disclosure in a report attached as an appendix to a widely publicized investigative report released today by the Republican majority which led the House Katrina investigation. (The Democrats’ report added that despite investigators’ requests for other documentation, “We received no other records we requested, such as phone logs, e-mail records of assistants, or other internal communications that would show how Secretary Chertoff and Secretary Rumsfeld received information, communicated with other government officials, or gave orders.”)

Spokesmen for the two officials maintain that Rumsfeld and Chertoff were kept informed during Katrina the same way as they keep in touch during other crises: through aides and a variety of other communications methods. “This is a large organization with a very competent staff that that kept the secretary well informed on Defense Department operations throughout Katrina,” Bryan Whitman, a Defense spokesman, told NEWSWEEK. Brian Besanceney, Chertoff’s top spokesman, said: “Every senior DHS official knows that, if they have important information to convey to the secretary, they go to his office or pick up the phone.”

[niyad]

1. and we are to believe this? RIGHHHHHHHT

[DS1]

2. [e-mail]

I keeed

Emails are traceble, recoverable, and easily copied. These guys using emails would be like hitmen stabbing people with engraved fountain pens.

[cybildisobedience]

3. another question

When Clinton pondered the invocation of "executive privilege," wasn't there constant squawking about how this precipitated a Constitutional crisis?
And don't these guys do it, like, every day?

[MadMaddie]

4. Soooo....if Chertoff and Rumsfield don't use email....

Isn't one of their inititives to overhaul the communications for disasters because of 9/11?

What the hell?

Brownie admitted he was sending emails to his superiors and calling them.

This is the twilight zone!!:wtf:

[Betsy Ross]

10. You solved the mystery!

Brownie was writing desperate emails but there was nobody at the other end reading them.

[Trevelyan]

16. There are missing Videos from Katrina meetings - Cheney pulled the perfect

distraction...not kidding cheney barely knew Whittington.

Daily Kos:
"How about this for news, instead of Cheney shooting his friend."

"WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security has not been able to find any recording of a crucial conference call five hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall - though it has transcripts of other key discussions recorded in the days before and after the storm struck.

Senate investigators want to know who conferred and what they said on a 40-minute call that began at noon Aug. 29, as levees were being breached in New Orleans and government relief efforts were overwhelmed by the enormity of the storm.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee wants the transcript for its investigation of why the response was bungled. The public phase of that probe is scheduled to end today with the appearance of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who in recent days has become the critics' favorite target.

...."We have not found recordings of the VTCs

[annabanana]

19. Ah yes... That interesting "coincidence"

I just happened to be that particular day that was missing

(coincidence.. )

[VegasWolf]

5. They are afraid of getting caught if they use email.

:sarcasm:

[worldgonekrazy]

6. You can't shred an email

Yeah, you can delete it, but that can be undone.

[occuserpens]

7. My guess is, they are simply lying on this

[0007]

15. I'd say so!

[satya]

8. I believe them. They don't want * to know what they REALLY think of him.

I wish I could find the link where I read that * didn't use it either; it was a few years back, someone asked about emailing his daughters in college and he said he didn't email, it wasn't secure.

Of course, he knew even more about that than we knew at the time...

[hvn_nbr_2]

9. That's nothing. Shrub doesn't even use pencils. Only crayons. n/t

[Stand and Fight]

11. Somehow I don't doubt this... n/t

[Barrett808]

12. Himmler gave important orders verbally only...

...trying not to leave physical evidence of crimes...

[northzax]

13. I wouldn't either, if I were them

email's for little people

[Up2Late]

14. I could believe Rummy not using e-mail, he doesn't use a Chair either!

But Chirtoff, I don't think so.

[rodeodance]

17. well, if this is so (below)--then Chertoff was not listening or his aides

bonked.



......This is a large organization with a very competent staff that that kept the secretary well informed on Defense Department operations throughout Katrina,” Bryan Whitman, a Defense spokesman, told NEWSWEEK. Brian Besanceney, Chertoff’s top spokesman, said: “Every senior DHS official knows that, if they have important information to convey to the secretary, they go to his office or pick up the phone.”

[superconnected]

18. I don't believe it. Not possible in corporate or government world

They may have secretaries checking their email, but I really doubt they don't have it at all.

It's most likely they are lying. The only alternative is they are even more incompetent than I thought. Which is pretty damn incompetent.

But I don't believe it in this case. Bet the first thing that happens in the white house is you get put on the network, told where your printer is, and verified your email is up for their system. I worked for city gov for 3.5 years, everyone had email. I doubt federal could not.