On a variation of "The dog ate my homework":
WASHINGTON - Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.
The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.
Honest, Judge, they were just clutterin' up the place.
Facciola proposed the drastic approach of going to individual workstations of White House computer users after the White House disclosed in January that it recycled its computer backup tapes before October 2003. Recycling — taping over existing data — raises the possibility that any missing e-mails may not be recoverable.
But wait for it...
It would be costly and time-consuming for the White House to institute an e-mail retrieval program that entails pulling data off each individual workstation, the court papers filed Friday state.
Link
This from the Administration that brought you Iraq and pissed away billions on poisonous house trailers...
[update] Since this has hit the Rec List I suppose I should flesh it out a bit...
I don't believe a fucking word of it.
[re-update] Since this came out on Friday leading into a holiday weekend, it will die if we don't help it out. Could somebody resurrect this Saturday afternoon, and maybe again Sunday??