DOJ Confirms Secret "Firewalls" Exist for White House Computers

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://insightmag.com/cgi-bin/ViewNews.cfm?Item=117

6/30/00 - A Justice Department lawyer June 30 admitted in federal
district court that indeed there exists previously undisclosed
inventories of White House e-mails captured by computer- system
firewalls protective buffers on a computer system apparently unknown
by the Clinton/Gore administration.

Betsy Shapiro, the Justice lawyer defending the White House in the
"Filegate" case brought by Judicial Watch, told U.S. District Court
Judge Royce C. Lamberth that though she was prohibited "for security
reasons" to provide specific details on this previously unknown
firewall protection system and its capture of e-mails, there are
inventories of such e-mails stored on backup tapes.

These would be in addition to otherwise normally stored emails at the
White House.

Insight was the first to disclose the existence of this firewall
system and the fact that it was capable of capturing e-mail in early
June (see Insight Online, "Electronic Skullduggery?" June 19).

Shapiro said that while it appears backup tapes on this computer
firewall system are maintained they only go back for about four
months. She did not clarify whether such tapes are made every four
months and stored or whether they are only maintained for up to four
months.

She also told Lamberth that while the firewall computer backups appear
to store the outgoing and incoming e-mail of White House electronic
traffic, they do not store the text or any attachments, but only the
name of the sender and recipient and apparently the date and time
sent.

Insight learned of the secret White House firewall-system
"inventories" when asking questions about why it appears to be so
difficult for the White House to 1) capture e-mail, 2) maintain
e-mail, 3) read stored e-mail and 4) reconstruct such e-mail as
requested by various courts, federal law-enforcement agencies and
Congress.

Insight was the first to break the White House e-mail caper back in
1998 (see related stories located in Insight Online's Investigative
Archives and in the Exclusive Reports section) plus the still
simmering matter of overlooked telephone-record call-detail reports
going back several years.

Shapiro also told Lamberth that, despite its best efforts, the White
House will not be able to comply with the courts order to turn over
copies of e-mails requested by Judicial Watch for possibly another
year.

Interestingly, the White House secretly was ordered weeks ago based on
an order unsealed June 30 by the judge to turn over original e-mail
tapes to unknown federal law-enforcement agencies. Shapiro said that
deals have been struck with these law enforcement sources to now
accomplish the court's order. Effectively, Insight is told, the White
House will turn over original tapes of stored emails and then "mirror"
copies will be given back to the Clinton administration. Why the White
House is capable of finding and turning over such e-mail tapes to
federal law-enforcement authorities but not to Congress or the court
in the Filegate case was not made clear by Shapiro, Lamberth or others
by deadline.

What is clear, however, is that the judge said waiting up to a year
for the White House to turn over court-ordered copies of selected
e-mails to Judicial Watch was unacceptable. What remedy Lamberth may
seek is unknown. However, when Insight checked with sources within
federal law-enforcement, it was made clear that based on early reviews
of such materials (directly and through other sources) they did not
find it difficult to retrieve the sought-after electronic messages.

Much was the same two years ago when a White House computer contractor
was able to reconstruct thousands of e-mails in short order. This was
done under the guise of "Project X"  a secret project begun once the
White House was informed of a massive computer glitch that diverted up
to 1 million e-mails to a default computer server instead of to an
authorized backup system.

The result of this glitch was that scores of subpoenas for White House
e-mail traffic never were turned over to Congress, federal
law-enforcement agencies, independent counsels and Judicial Watch
(among others).

Existence of the "secret" White House computer-firewall-system e-mail
captures and backup tapes adds yet another layer of complications for
Clinton/Gore administration officials who have been stung by the
continuing revelations of hidden, secret or otherwise, unknown e-mails
involving a cast of characters linked to various scandals.

By Paul M. Rodriguez
Managing Editor


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