[VinceASA]

Helpful reply. So, this means that the US government’s official IT policy does nothing to store and protect older emails? If that is true, that needs to change.

[nhwingut]

So, this means that the US government’s official IT policy does nothing to store and protect older emails?

It's clearly done on purpose. Supposedly they have a policy that calls for printing out official business emails. Which is ambiguous at best. And it's at the agent's determination. If it's incriminating do you think the agent is going to print it out? Right! And secondly, the idea, in this digital age and government green agenda (when storage is so cheap), they'd print out on paper instead of digitally storing it is so laughable. Oops, spilled coffee on it.

Bottomline, the IRS is nothing but a legal criminal organization. And we know that destroying evidence is task #1 of most organized crime operations. This wasn't a policy that slipped through the cracks. They are always getting sued. And what better protection than having no evidence.

[Qiviut]

They broke a couple of laws (2, I think) by not properly backing up/storing information. They also didn’t report the hard drive “crashes” per the law to the proper people.

US Archivist: The IRS ‘did not follow the law’
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/06/24/us-archivist-the-irs-did-not-follow-the-law/