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Democrats and Republicans were warring Tuesday over reports that the White House has "lost"--or simply failed to keep--archives of e-mails belonging to the president and his advisers.

Since last spring, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been investigating reports that an estimated 5 million messages from 473 days between 2003 and 2005 allegedly vanished from e-mail servers housed within the president's office.

A hearing convened by the committee gave Democratic leaders a new chance to press White House officials publicly on how and when they expect to recover the files.

"We still know virtually nothing about the status of the alleged missing White House e-mails," said Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States, said the National Archives and Records Administration had similarly gotten no response from the White House to its queries about what's going on. "I'm concerned about maintaining the fullest possible presidential records," he told the committee.

Republican leaders said they were also concerned about the prospect of missing nuggets of presidential history, but they accused the Democrats of failing to acknowledge the White House's ongoing efforts to retrieve the messages. Republican Ranking Member Tom Davis (R-Va.) said the White House has said it has since reduced the number of days' worth of missing e-mails from 473 to 202 after discovering that those messages had been filed "in the wrong digital drawer" as part of a switch from the Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange e-mail system in 2002.

White House Chief Information Officer Theresa Payton assured the committee that her office is working actively on a multi-step restoration process. Their early results have identified an unspecified number of the previously "missing" messages, though those results still have to be validated.

When pressed by Davis, Payton also said she felt "very comfortable" that they would be able to reconstruct any remaining lost documents from "disaster recovery backup tapes," although she said that process would be time-consuming and could cost at least $15 million.

Did advisers use Republican National Committee accounts?
A separate issue under scrutiny revolves around charges that Karl Rove and some 50 other presidential advisers were using Republican National Committee accounts to conduct official business and thus subvert federal record-keeping laws. The RNC has said it had virtually no records of e-mails sent on its servers by Rove and others before November 2003, which Democrats argue is troubling because those messages may contain important official information about the president's decision to go to war in Iraq.

Waxman said he heard from RNC officials as recently as Monday that the White House had made no effort to request backup tapes from the committee that may contain those files. He scolded White House officials for their inaction. Both Payton and her boss, White House Office of Administration director Alan Swendiman, said they wouldn't be responsible for making such requests but would look into who is.

Republicans accused the Democrats of pursuing the investigation simply to dig up dirt on Rove and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars of money that the RNC could be using to shore up its candidates' campaigns.

"Are we simply going on a fishing expedition at $40,000 to $50,000 a month?" Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked National Archives and White House officials at the hearing. "Do any of you know of a single document, because this committee doesn't, that should've been in the archives but in fact was done at the RNC?"

"I think the issue is always, were there official government public records on that system?" responded Gary Stern, general counsel to the National Archives.

The loss of documents in either case is potentially significant because federal laws, including the Presidential Records Act, requires the White House to preserve all documents related to the president and vice president's official business and turn them over to the National Archives. Personal records, including political campaign-related materials, are expected to be filed separately and not subject to the same restrictions. The matter has already sparked a lawsuit from an advocacy group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Clinton administration's archiving problems
The Bush administration isn't the first to encounter problems with missing e-mails. During the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration at one point relied on a flawed e-mail archiving system that failed, among other things, to preserve e-mails sent by people whose names began with the letter D. The situation resulted in congressional hearings and some $11 million spent on reconstructing the some 200,000 missing e-mails, Waxman said.

The problems for the Bush administration apparently started soon after the White House decided to shift its e-mail system from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange in 2002. It also replaced the automated records storage system devised by the Clinton administration with a system that one of its own experts described as "primitive," according to Waxman.

According to the committee, the archive system is an "ad hoc" process called "journaling," in which a White House staffer or contractor manually copies e-mails and saves them on various White House servers. Democrats cast more than a little suspicion on that practice. They cited testimony outside the hearing from a former White House technology worker who said, at least during some points in 2005, those files and directories were available to all 3,000 employees under the umbrella of the executive office of the president.

White House CIO Payton, who began her job in May 2006, said she was unaware of anything of the sort. She also said she had no knowledge of anyone intentionally deleting or tampering with files and later said the copying of messages is automatic, not manual.

"We want to make sure we get all the e-mails over to the (National Archives) at transition" to the next president, she told the committee.

Remember the mystery surrounding the potentially millions of "missing" e-mails exchanged by top White House aides like Karl Rove?

Apparently the White House would prefer that it remain that way--or at least that's the inference one might draw from a letter sent on Thursday to Fred Fielding (PDF), the president's chief lawyer, by Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform.

(Credit: whitehouse.gov)

As reported last week by the Associated Press, the Bush administration has taken what Waxman deemed the "unusual position" of declaring the White House Office of Administration immune to requests for relevant documents under the Freedom of Information Act. (The recent declaration came as part of a lawsuit filed back in May by a group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sought to enforce a FOIA request it had made for more information about the matter.)

White House attorneys, for their part, did acknowledge in late May in a briefing with his committee staff that an "unknown" number of e-mails subject to preservation under the Presidential Records Act may have been lost since 2005, according to Waxman's letter.

But, despite "repeated" committee requests, it hasn't yet coughed up a review that reportedly reveals "some days with a very small number of preserved e-mails and some days with no e-mails preserved at all." White House attorneys also haven't disclosed the identity of a contractor that was responsible for archiving the messages.

In his letter, Waxman instructed the White House to fulfill both requests by September 10. Depending on the response, the committee will decide whether it's appropriate to make the report public, an aide told CNET News.com. A White House representative didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

President Bush on Thursday signed into law the America Competes Act, which authorizes $33.6 billion from federal coffers for government-sponsored research, education and teacher-training programs in the science and tech arena over the next few years.

The move promptly drew an avalanche of accolades from high-tech companies, who cheered the action as a way of helping the United States stay competitive in science, technology and engineering. But it may not be time to pop the corks yet.

After all, it's still up to the respective congressional appropriations committees to go through the formal process of doling out funding, which the president must ultimately approve. Some Republican critics have already voted against the bill on account of its hefty price tag, and even as he signed the bill, the president indicated he shares those concerns.

"The bill creates over 30 new programs that are mostly duplicative or counterproductive--including a new Department of Energy agency to fund late-stage technology development more appropriately left to the private sector--and also provides excessive authorization for existing programs," the White House said in a statement after the bill signing Thursday. "Accordingly, the President will request funding in his 2009 budget for those authorizations that support the focused priorities of the ACI (American Competitiveness Initiative), but will not propose excessive or duplicative funding based on authorizations in the bill."

Bush did, however, applaud Congress for proposing funding for next year at the levels he stipulated for the National Science Foundation, the Energy Department's Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The bill, which overwhelmingly cleared both chambers of Congress just before they departed for their August recess, is aimed at boosting investment in key areas where critics say the United States is lagging behind other countries. It would do things like create new grants and programs for teacher training; bankroll semiannual school events aimed at stimulating interest in science, technology, math and engineering; and, yes, create that Department of Energy research arm dedicated to investigating "long-term and high-risk" alternative energy technologies, which the president apparently finds "counterproductive."

A White House panel charged with flagging privacy and civil liberties foibles in the government's electronic eavesdropping programs may soon be gaining a little more freedom.

Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have approved a 567-page conference report that would change the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from a panel within the Executive Office of the President to an "independent agency" within the executive branch.

Just last week, the current vice chairman of the panel, a former Reagan White House attorney, told a congressional committee that the panel was fine as-is. But Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House special counsel who resigned from his post on the board a few months ago, suggested the current structure of the board allowed for too much meddling from the White House, potentially interfering with its oversight duties. Civil libertarians and privacy advocates have charged much of the same.

The House vote on Friday afternoon in favor of the broader bill, which is designed to implement remaining recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, was 371-40, while the Senate vote on Thursday was 85-8.

The oversight board changes are scheduled to take effect within 180 days of when the bill becomes law. Whether they will make any real dent in complaints about the board's questionable authority remains to be seen.

Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the action "an intermediate step to put some bite back into this board."

"It may not be enough to give it real teeth, but it's a ramping up of this process," he said in a telephone interview Monday.

The approved bill would give the board authorization to have access to any documents, including classified ones, from any executive branch agency or department; to request information from state and local governments; and to interview executive branch officials. The board would continue to have five members, but all five would now have to be approved by the Senate after being appointed by the president. (Right now, only the chairman and vice chairman must go through that extra layer.)

The panel would not, however, have direct subpoena power. In order to compel agencies to turn over documents or other relevant answers, the board would have to submit a written request to the U.S. attorney general, asking that official to issue the subpoena.

"You need an independent agency with full subpoena power that stands as part of the executive branch and has ability to prosecute and regulate the executive branch," Sparapani said. "This is a good step along that line, but we'll have to see if this experiment works."

The ACLU plans to continue to push for establishment of an even more powerful "independent privacy commissioner," akin to what Europe and Japan have, Sparapani added.

The broader bill also includes more sweeping investigatory powers, including the ability to issue subpoenas, for the Department of Homeland Security's chief privacy officer, a post that has been dogged in the past for its perceived lack of authority. The measure would also require senior privacy officials to be designated within various other federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Defense, State, Treasury and Health and Human Services and the CIA.

WASHINGTON--Congress is already well on its way to bestowing new powers on an internal White House panel that's supposed to judge whether Bush administration programs like the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance regime pose privacy and civil liberties concerns.

But the board's chairman on Tuesday had one message for the politicians backing the new authority: thanks, but no thanks.

Civil liberties advocates have long dogged the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board--which was created within the White House by Congress in 2004 at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission but didn't meet until 2006--for its perceived inability to make real assessments without executive branch officials looking over its shoulder and its lack of transparency to the public.

In fact, what is supposed to be a five-member body has already recorded one dropout--former Clinton Administration special counsel Lanny Davis--who cited precisely those concerns when he stepped down in May.

So both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed bills this year that attempt to address those concerns. The House version proposes the more drastic changes: severing the body from the White House and making it a standalone, independent agency with subpoena power. (The Senate version would leave the board within the White House but require the chairman to work full time and confirmation of all members--not just the chairman and vice chairman--to staggered six-year terms.)

But at an hour-long hearing Tuesday afternoon in a House of Representatives Judiciary subcommittee, board vice chairman Alan Raul said the House approach in particular is "potentially unwise."

He argued such a move would deprive the board of its current "unparalleled" access to executive branch officials, would be inefficient in that it requires appointment of a whole new board, and could limit the number of private meetings members are permitted to have.

Raul, a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin in Washington and a former Reagan White House attorney, also complained that Congress never bothered to hold "formal hearings" to hear board members' views before passing those bills. (The two chambers are currently meeting to reconcile the differences between those two proposals, which focus more broadly on implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations.)

Davis, who left the board, said he tried to give the structure of the panel a fair chance but ultimately decided the setup was akin to "a square peg in a round hole." His concerns escalated this spring, he said, when the White House edited and made "significant deletions" to the board's annual report on its findings to Congress--although most of the deletions were ultimately restored after Davis aired his complaints.

The committee members, for their part, didn't really comment on Raul's views--perhaps because the bills have already moved so far along. Some Democrats, addressing no one in particular, did rehash familiar concerns that the Bush administration's various antiterrorist and law enforcement programs may pose threats to Americans' rights.

"I'm worried our liberties have come under attack by our own government," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the Judiciary Committee's chairman.

Raul, meanwhile, touted the board's work in its 35 "formal" meetings since March 2006. Among other things, the board has evaluated National Security Agency surveillance programs, the State Department's e-passport initiative, the Treasury Department's terrorist finance tracking program and the FBI's misuse of national security letters to capture telephone and Internet records, of which Raul said was "highly critical."

The White House is getting ready to trade in its aging "Marine One" helicopter for a new model, though don't go looking for President Bush to take it for a spin.

The VH-71's first flight, July 2007.

(Credit: Lockheed Martin)

The first test aircraft built for the VH-71 Presidential Helicopters Program made its maiden flight Tuesday--in British airspace--in a flight that lasted about 40 minutes, at speeds up to 135 knots.

Why the overseas locale? The helicopter isn't quite a cutting-edge design, despite the billing by its manufacturers as "the world's most technologically advanced helicopter." Instead, it's based on AgustaWestland's decade-old, three-engine EH101 helicopter, relabeled more patriotically as the US101 by lead contractor Lockheed Martin. (A "Made in America" note on the company's US101 Medium-Lift Helicopter page points out that more than 200 U.S. suppliers in 41 states have joined the US101 program.) The test flight of the VH-71 took place at the Yeovil, England, facility of AgustaWestland, which in turn is a unit of Italy's Finmeccanica.

It makes sense, of course, to be using a proven commodity when the passengers will include the leader of the free world and other heads of state. Lockheed Martin et al. say that more than 130 of the 101s, designed from the start for military duty, have logged upwards of 120,000 flight hours handling assignments ranging from troop transport to battlefield logistics and combat search and rescue.

The current version of Marine One.

(Credit: White House photo by David Bohrer )

In addition, the US101 companies say, the helicopter's "low vibration will allow the president to work in transit in unprecedented comfort and efficiency."

In its new VH-71 guise, the aircraft is slated for more shakedown cruises before crossing the Atlantic in the fall for structural testing at a facility in Patuxent River, Md. (Lockheed Martin is based in Bethesda.) Three more test vehicles are expected to head aloft by early 2008.

Those four aircraft plus five pilot production versions of the VH-71 are expected to be delivered by late 2009, to complete the Increment 1 phase. Increment 2 will look at the helicopters' command and control capabilities while in flight.

At the moment, the primary presidential helicopter is the Sikorsky VH-3D, also known as the Sea King.

White House, a fountain of emails

(Credit: Whitehouse.gov)

New stuff coming out in the White House email saga. When last we reported we had been told about 50 staffers used private e-mail service while at work. And we explained how hard it would be to truly delete any of those e-mails. Now the congressional investigators say at least 88 White House staff members used a private e-mail service provided by the Republican National Committee (RNC). So far Congress and the RNC have spent two months negotiating about access to those e-mails and even data about the e-mails.

Today's reports say adviser Karl Rove alone has more than 150,000 e-mails still on RNC servers. Whether Congress gets those or any of the e-mails of the other 87 RNC accounts remains to be seen. Inevitably, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is an the center of this story as well. He was White House counsel when many of the accounts were used. Now there are questions from Democrats: did Gonzalez know such e-mails were being used to skirt the law requiring all official communications be recorded and preserved?