Why is it that only Fed agencies undergoing Congressional oversight are losing hard drives? - Granite Grok

Why is it that only Fed agencies undergoing Congressional oversight are losing hard drives?

Hard driveLois Lerner of the IRS is the most famous example of a Federal Agency who has been weaponized by the Obama Administration (even, according to random posts I’ve seen, more than Tricky Dicky – disgraced President Nixon (R) or one termer President LBJ (D)) and we have been SO treated by the arrogance of the new IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over the public’s right to know.  And Gina McCarthy, head of the EPA, has had to undergo questioning over more documents / emails that have gone missing – another hard drive crash (allegedly).  And now, we have yet another agency that has the same case of the hard disk flu – Federal Elections Commission (FEC, where Lois Lerner was before going to the IRS ) (reformatted, emphasis mine):

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Monday made yet another request to the federal government for details about a crashed hard drive that may have contained information allowing criminal charges to be brought against a federal official.  Issa’s newest letter concerns the hard drive of April Sands, a former employee at the Federal Election Commission who resigned in the spring after admitting to violations of the Hatch Act. That law puts restrictions on the ability of government officials to conduct political activities while on the job, or from government offices.

Issa noted that while Sands admitted to violating the law, the FEC just recently told Congress that it could not recover her hard drive, which made it impossible to seek criminal charges against her.  “Recent information obtained by the committee suggests that the FEC OIG could not pursue criminal prosecution for the misconduct because the attorney’s hard drive had been recycled by the FEC,” Issa’s letter said.

As a result, Issa asked the FEC to provide information to his committee by July 28. That includes all documents related to the hard drive loss, and documents detailing the FEC’s practices for retaining information on computers.

It is like the Federal bureaucracy believes it is in charge, or something.  I do wonder when that law was passed that said that they were no longer accountable to anyone (which in watching their actions, voids any words to the contrary).  Words do matter, but actions do fulfill that old maxim of which speaks louder.

We, my friends, are in a huge world of hurt if this trend continues – and I don’t see it stopping.  I have said for years that the primary role of bureaucracies is to grown themselves, much to the dismay of our wallets.  However, more and more, they are becoming their own Legislature, Judiciary, and Executive branches all unto themselves.  Again, look at the EPA where it has decided that it can, on its own and within itself, has the power to garnish anyone’s wages if they fall afoul of any of its regulations.  All on its own and totally outside of our normal due process.

I think that this act, by unelected and now unaccountable bureaucracy made powerful by legislators that refuse to game out the bad outcomes of their statutes, is at the tipping point of turning into Tyrants themselves.  The only way to save ourselves is by electing some Legislators with a pair that will start slashing that bureaucracy.  Sadly, none of our current Federal Government’s Ambassadors to NH have such intestinal fortitude to accomplish such a goal.  In fact, with at least three of them, this is a feature, not a bug.

 

(H/T:

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