Data rights and wrongs

Whether you lean left, veer right, or run strictly down the middle, you have to admit that our current adminstration has a conflicted approach to data retention. When it comes to our data, the Feds are all over it – asking ISPs to retain subscriber data for more than a year, demanding months’ worth of search terms from the major Web services like MSN and Yahoo, and of course whatever the NSA was sniffing when it leeched onto the major telecom providers’ backbones.

But when it comes to data generated by and for the White House, privacy and secrecy are the watchwords. Our example du jour: White House attorney Scott Bloch.

In case you haven’t been following this story closely, here’s some background.

Bloch heads up the Office of Special Counsel, which is empowered to protect Federal whistleblowers from retaliation by their bosses, and to enforce laws like the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activities (like fund raising) on the taxpayer’s dime.

Bloch’s office is investigating Karl Rove for allegedly violating the Hatch Act by giving PowerPoints to various federal employees about how they could help the Republican cause in 2006. Bloch himself is being investigated by the federal Office of Personnel Management, for allegedly dismissing whistleblowers’ cases without cause and for retaliating against whistleblowers in his own agency. (Kind of like hiring Oprah to guard the Oreos.)

So what has Mr. Bloch done that’s worthy of this blog? It has recently been learned that, in December 2006, Bloch placed a call to 1-800-905-GEEKS and asked a technician to give his office PC a data wipe to Department of Defense specs. The disc was overwritten 7 times with garbage data, obliterating any actual information on the disc.

Bloch claims to have called in the Geeks on Call because a virus was destroying the files on his computer. So, naturally, he ordered them to destroy the files on his computer. Apparently Bloch thought it was an airborne virus, because he also ordered files destroyed on two laptops used by his former top aides.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jeff Phelps, who runs Geeks on Call’s DC operations, acknowledges that a DoD-level wipe of a hard drive is just a bit extreme. “We don’t do a seven-level wipe for a virus,” he said.

Meanwhile, it seems Bloch copied some “personal” files to a thumb drive before the wipe began, which he is refusing to turn over to investigators. Now there’s a loophole any garden variety criminal would love to exploit. “I’m sorry, Mr. Federal Agent, you can’t have access to my computer files, they’re personal.”

In a letter to the editor in today’s Journal, Bloch defends himself (or tries to):

After the hard drive crashed, I wanted to protect my personal files, which included personal and medical information, privileged communications with my personal attorney, my son’s pictures from Iraq, Christmas lists, etc. They were moved to a flash drive, and the hard drive cleaned to remove any trace of a virus. None of this is relevant to the investigation, nor has the inspector general of OPM informed me of any such allegations.

Anybody out there want to explain how Bloch can copy personal files after his hard drive has crashed? Or why he’d call a retail tech support firm to take care of a virus on his work computer instead of his own IT guys? Or why the invoice for Geeks on Call makes no mention of a virus?

What’s ironic is that Bloch’s investigation ties directly into a bunch of other data discrepancies – including how the White House ‘misplaced’ 5 million emails when it upgraded from Notes to Outlook, and the use of non-official email addresses to either a) avoid Federal record keeping laws, or b) avoid violating the Hatch Act, depending on whose story you believe.

For David Gewirtz, this is more than merely politicians behaving badly. It’s a matter of national security. In his new book, Where Have the Emails Gone?, he describes various nightmare scenarios of what could happen if, say, Al Queda got hold of one of the Blackberries Karl Rove has lost over the years, or simply tapped into the hundreds of millions of unencrypted email messages sent from White House staffers.

Gewirtz, a magazine publisher and journalist, describes himself as an independent who voted for Reagan and Bush I as well as Clinton. He says his axe isn’t political, it’s technical. But what he has to say is damning. He writes:

As far as internal email operations go, the White House apparently operates like a stupid drunken sailor on crack….. The problem is not our vastly superior security and encryption technology. The problem is that all of that technology is not being used….email in the White House needs to be fixed. It’s not just about politics, it’s about security.

Got strong opinions about national security and personal data? Let the flame wars begin. Tipsters can also email me their thoughts; if I use them in the blog, you’ll qualify for cool swag.