Originally Posted By: Sini
Originally Posted By: Derid
Just because it "feels" fashionable to hand wave away Govt incompetence and abuses, does not mean it is the intelligent path.


No, what currently fashionable is blaming government for everything.

Erosion of privacy - big deal, government rightfully blamed.
Lost emails - fairly normal in any big organization.

I personally lost email archives and I work with technology. I don't expect glorified accountants with government-run IT department to do better. Remember, at the time it was viewed as regular correspondence, and not 'mission-critical' stuff it became as a result of the scandal.

Don't attribute to malice what could be adequately described by ignorance.


There is a lot more to this story, its not just the emails. The emails are just the latest stumbling block in the investigation.

Its possible that having the supposedly only drives with Lerner and other IRS staffers suffering technical issues and being destroyed days after the GOP initiates an investigation is just innocent incompetence.

In any case, the "story" here for me - that burns me up, and that I think should be burning everyone up you included is this:

How is it reasonable that your average Joe is held to much higher accountability with regard to their own personal records, than agents of powerful Govt agencies are held to with their work records documenting their conduct? So regular individuals have dire consequences regarding their accountability, but powerful Govt officials have none?

This is a big deal. It does not matter whether you think Lerner and Co. were in on some big conspiracy. This situation needs fixed, and the IRS needs far more institutional accountability for their behavior or we will be seeing more, and larger abuses in the future.

I do not think it is unreasonable nor tinfoilhattery to firmly believe that Govt institutions charged with investigating private citizens be held to at least the same standards of record keeping and accountability as the private citizens and companies they investigate. That goes for all arms of Govt not just the IRS.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)