IRS Scandal explodes. "no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution."

[werepossum]

I think you need to read that again. In their 2010 lawsuit, Z Street made the argument that their 501(c)(3) application was handled with bias. In their 2012 lawsuit, True the Vote made the argument that their application was handled with bias, and sought Lerner's email as evidence. This is the same issue that Issa, Camp, the Senate, TIGTA, and the FBI are also investigating.

In my earlier link (Politico), True the Vote lost a request for an external forensics expert to examine Lerner's hard drive. They are arguing that even though True the Vote filed its suit about a year after Lerner's crash, the IRS was nonetheless responsible for preserving Lerner's mail due to the earlier Z Street lawsuit. Z Street did not raise that issue itself, however, and has not claimed evidence related to their suit was lost in Lerner's drive crash.

From the Politco story:


In short, the missing emails at issue are Lerner's, for the IRS "Tea Party" targeting controversy that started in 2012 ... nearly a year after Lerner's crash. This did not affect the earlier Z Street investigation, at least based on anything filed so far.

Nope, the IRS targeting started at least in March 2010, right after the Dems were defeated in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission - that's our first existing evidence anyway. Lerner herself is on the record via speeches and recovered email in 2010 addressing this "problem". Remember also, the first informal Congressional inquiry by Camp started with his letter of June 3, 2011 - just ten days before Lerner's hard drive crashed. This is after months of constituent complaints. 2012 is just when it first became common knowledge. In fact, according to the IG's report, throughout 2010 and 2011 the IRS Ruling and Agreements office specifically referred to these cases as Tea Party cases; only in July 2011* did the IRS switch to the less apparent "advocacy cases" designation, although the actual conservative dragnet widened throughout most if not all of 2011 as well.

*Purely coincidentally, this is the month after Representative Camp sent his first letter addressing the matter (specifically the stalling of conservative groups' applications and the IRS targeting of Republican donors) and Lerner's emails became unavailable. It is also the same month that Lois Lerner first became aware that the very activity she months earlier (via email which disappeared but was later recovered from the computers of colleagues who had not suffered unrecoverable hard drive crashes) successfully advocated moving to D.C. was in fact occurring. (I believe the plot of someone advocating action on an activity and yet only months later learning of that activity's existence was originally conceived for a Doctor Who episode before being discarded as too unbelievable even for a time travelling superhero.)

Here're some timeline links.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...line-of-irs-targeting-of-conservative-groups/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyph...eline-of-irs-tax-exempt-organization-scandal/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-irs-targeting-controversy-a-timeline/

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/irs-targeting-scandal-timeline

In any case, my point was that the IRS was apprised at that point (2010) that it was in violation of the various record acts, yet a year later Lerner lost almost three years of emails.

Something else strikes me as interesting in the IG's report was the number of applications. We've oftimes been told that the flood of new applications started this problem as the IRS' Determinations Unit honestly attempted to handle the flood. The IG puts the relevant applications as this:
FY2009 69,301 - 501(c)(3) 65,179 / 501(c)(4) 1,751 / 501(c)(5) 543 / 501(c)(6) 1,828
FY2010 63,148 - 501(c)(3) 59,486 / 501(c)(4) 1,735 / 501(c)(5) 290 / 501(c)(6) 1,637
FY2011 63,222 - 501(c)(3) 58,712 / 501(c)(4) 2,265 / 501(c)(5) 409 / 501(c)(6) 1,836
FY2012 73,319 - 501(c)(3) 66,543 / 501(c)(4) 3,357 / 501(c)(5) 1,081 / 501(c)(6) 2,338

The federal government's fiscal year runs from 10/1 through 9/30. Thus FY2009 ended September 30, 2009. This means that the IRS began putting conservative groups' applications on indefinite hold, asking privileged information, and leaking that privileged information to progressive groups in the middle of a year experiencing a 9% DROP in 501 applications as well as a very small drop in 501(c)(4) applications specifically.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/05/politics/irs-timeline/

 

[Bowfinger]

Nope, the IRS targeting started at least in March 2010, right after the Dems were defeated in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission - that's our first existing evidence anyway. Lerner herself is on the record via speeches and recovered email in 2010 addressing this "problem".

I said the "controversy" started in 2012, not the targeting. You need to read more closely. That's when the news articles started, the True the Vote lawsuit was filed, TIGTA investigation began, and various Congressional inquiries started coming.
'

Remember also, the first informal Congressional inquiry by Camp started with his letter of June 3, 2011 - just ten days before Lerner's hard drive crashed. ...

No. That talking point was refuted earlier in this thread. Camp's letter was focused on auditing donors and assessing gift taxes. There was exactly one line (out of three pages, IIRC) mentioning the approval process, but it a minor point and not in any way a Congressional inquiry. Like it or not, Lerner's drive crash -- now exceptionally well-documented -- happened well before the controversy started.

In any case, my point was that the IRS was apprised at that point (2010) that it was in violation of the various record acts, yet a year later Lerner lost almost three years of emails.

You've failed to provide any evidence of the IRS was in "violation of the various record acts" in 2010. Also, as I already pointed out, a judge rejected your attempts to tie Lerner's lost email to the 2010 Z Street suit. That was the whole point of posting that link.

Something else strikes me as interesting in the IG's report was the number of applications. We've oftimes been told that the flood of new applications started this problem as the IRS' Determinations Unit honestly attempted to handle the flood. ...

Discussed earlier in the thread, and you've added nothing new to warrant a new discussion. In short, we don't have all the facts needed to accurately assess the IRS EO workload then. It is important to remember that workload has at least three components: quantity of work, effort required per piece of work, and number of people to perform the work. Your numbers address only the first component.

 

[werepossum]

I said the "controversy" started in 2012, not the targeting. You need to read more closely. That's when the news articles started, the True the Vote lawsuit was filed, TIGTA investigation began, and various Congressional inquiries started coming.

You're arguing that the IRS did not know its behavior was improper until everyone else found out about it. I'm arguing that the IRS knew all along that its behavior was improper and therefore once they received the first Congressional letter of inquiry, the jig was up and they went into damage control mode to hide (though not stop) the behavior for which they later apologized.

No. That talking point was refuted earlier in this thread. Camp's letter was focused on auditing donors and assessing gift taxes. There was exactly one line (out of three pages, IIRC) mentioning the approval process, but it a minor point and not in any way a Congressional inquiry. Like it or not, Lerner's drive crash -- now exceptionally well-documented -- happened well before the controversy started.

These are part and parcel. Donors to conservative 501 applicant groups were being singled out for audits, as well as being called out on left wing web sites even though the IRS information was privileged. Same with gift taxes - Citizens United forced the IRS to revise its policy of assessing gift taxes on 501 contributions. Conservative donors were complaining that the IRS had not yet changed its policy to come into line with the Citizens United. Given that these same donors' information was being requested from conservative 501 applicant groups, I don't think it's a stretch to link the two. Certainly Lerner knew what she was doing before it was brought to her attention. Even Obama doesn't plead THAT degree of ignorance.

You've failed to provide any evidence of the IRS was in "violation of the various record acts" in 2010. Also, as I already pointed out, a judge rejected your attempts to tie Lerner's lost email to the 2010 Z Street suit. That was the whole point of posting that link.

We know Lerner and seven others lost ALL email due to hard drive crashes. To the extent that such emails could be partially recovered, this was exclusively via combing the computers of other IRS employees. As literally tens of thousands such emails were judged discoverable, they are clearly official correspondence. To argue otherwise is to make a mockery of the law, insisting that Lerner et al were doing their jobs but generating no official business. That dog won't hunt. Under that interpretation, any federal employee breaking the law could freely destroy all records and then claim there is no evidence of non-compliance based on the lack of surviving official documents.

Discussed earlier in the thread, and you've added nothing new to warrant a new discussion. In short, we don't have all the facts needed to accurately assess the IRS EO workload then. It is important to remember that workload has at least three components: quantity of work, effort required per piece of work, and number of people to perform the work. Your numbers address only the first component.

You're arguing that unless we know everything we know nothing, and since the IRS refuses to tell us anything about the other two parts we can never form an opinion. Under that doctrine Nixon would have served two full terms. Let's turn it around and assume that absent evidence to the contrary, the other two quanta remained constant. For effort per piece of work, I offer two points. First, the Citizens United ruling clearly made such determinations easier by allowing such organizations more rights. That is incontrovertible since there was a huge hue and cry from the left over that point. Second, the IRS took on a huge amount of additional work for conservative groups' applications only; arguing that the IRS took on this politically driven additional work because of other as yet-invisible extra work seems nonsensical.

For number of persons available to do the work, we both presumably agree that this would tend to be exculpatory. As such, is it not reasonable to assume that if this were a factor, the IRS would be trumpeting it? After all, they have attempted to use the reduction in requested budget increase as an exculpatory factor without showing any direct bearing on the issue, so it only makes sense that if such direct bearing existed it would have been part of that effort.

 

[Bowfinger]

You're arguing that the IRS did not know its behavior was improper until everyone else found out about it. I'm arguing that the IRS knew all along that its behavior was improper and therefore once they received the first Congressional letter of inquiry, the jig was up and they went into damage control mode to hide (though not stop) the behavior for which they later apologized.

I'm arguing nothing of the sort. The IRS is not a monolithic organization, nor is it a stranger to controversy. It is constantly under attack, especially by the right. At this point, however, I really don't care. If you are determined to cling to such silly conspiracy theories, that such a routine note from Camp sent the IRS into a panic, have at it.

These are part and parcel. Donors to conservative 501 applicant groups were being singled out for audits, as well as being called out on left wing web sites even though the IRS information was privileged. Same with gift taxes - Citizens United forced the IRS to revise its policy of assessing gift taxes on 501 contributions. Conservative donors were complaining that the IRS had not yet changed its policy to come into line with the Citizens United. Given that these same donors' information was being requested from conservative 501 applicant groups, I don't think it's a stretch to link the two. Certainly Lerner knew what she was doing before it was brought to her attention. Even Obama doesn't plead THAT degree of ignorance.

/shrug

That really doesn't refute anything I said. I also think much of what you wrote is factually incorrect. I don't know where you got it, but suspect you misread or misremembered something, just as you did with your claim about the 2010 Z Street lawsuit (which I note you've now silently dropped).

We know Lerner and seven others lost ALL email due to hard drive crashes.

You may "know" that, but it's false. You have a habit of knowing false things. We have been told Lerner's email was lost. We've been told nothing about the email of the other six, only that they had drive crashes.

To the extent that such emails could be partially recovered, this was exclusively via combing the computers of other IRS employees.

Right. So? Are you agreeing, then, the IRS made a good-faith effort to produce as many emails as they could?

As literally tens of thousands such emails were judged discoverable, they are clearly official correspondence.

No, that's a non sequitur. Being discoverable and being official documents have little to do with each other. It doesn't have to be an official document to be discoverable. Official documents must be preserved, however, even without pending discovery. Other, non-official documents may be freely destroyed unless there is litigation requiring all potential evidence be preserved for potential discovery.

To argue otherwise is to make a mockery of the law, insisting that Lerner et al were doing their jobs but generating no official business. That dog won't hunt. Under that interpretation, any federal employee breaking the law could freely destroy all records and then claim there is no evidence of non-compliance based on the lack of surviving official documents.

You've tried to push that nonsensical straw man before. Nobody is making that suggestion except you.

You're arguing that unless we know everything we know nothing, and since the IRS refuses to tell us anything about the other two parts we can never form an opinion. Under that doctrine Nixon would have served two full terms.

More nonsense. You can speculate whatever your little heart desires. What you cannot honestly do is assert your speculation as fact.

Let's turn it around and assume that absent evidence to the contrary, the other two quanta remained constant. For effort per piece of work, I offer two points. First, the Citizens United ruling clearly made such determinations easier by allowing such organizations more rights. That is incontrovertible since there was a huge hue and cry from the left over that point. Second, the IRS took on a huge amount of additional work for conservative groups' applications only; arguing that the IRS took on this politically driven additional work because of other as yet-invisible extra work seems nonsensical.

For number of persons available to do the work, we both presumably agree that this would tend to be exculpatory. As such, is it not reasonable to assume that if this were a factor, the IRS would be trumpeting it? After all, they have attempted to use the reduction in requested budget increase as an exculpatory factor without showing any direct bearing on the issue, so it only makes sense that if such direct bearing existed it would have been part of that effort.

So you're too lazy to go back and read the thread? Not terribly surprising, I suppose. One cannot maintain a conspiracy theory by accepting evidence.

We cannot presume the other two workload factors are constant. The work effort to review political applications -- often non-compliant -- is clearly greater than the work required to review routine applications like a Boy Scouts troop. We know there were hundreds of such political applications. It is therefore easy to speculate that the average review effort went up after Citizens United, even as total application count was flat.

We also know from the TIGTA report that the number of IRS agents working 501(c)(?) applications dropped to a single person at one point. TIGTA did not document when that was or how long it lasted, nor did he document normal staffing levels. Without those details, we cannot quantify how much the per-person workload increased. It does seem pretty obvious that it did increase for some length of time, however.

As far as "the IRS took on a huge amount of additional work for conservative groups' applications only", first, it is a deliberate lie and you know it. Flogging it incessantly only highlights your general lack of honesty when discussing this topic. Second, much as it distresses you, it was the IRS' responsibility to screen such political applications for compliance. In other words, what you call "extra work" was the agents doing their jobs.

Finally, as far as the IRS "trumpeting" reduced headcount: to whom? As far as I know, they've never been officially requested to document an increased workload. It's just a talking point spread from the right-wing bubble. I am not aware of the IRS ever responding to such noise. If Camp or Issa or TIGTA requires they document this, I'm sure they will.

 

[ivwshane]

I'm arguing nothing of the sort. The IRS is not a monolithic organization, nor is it a stranger to controversy. It is constantly under attack, especially by the right. At this point, however, I really don't care. If you are determined to cling to such silly conspiracy theories, that such a routine note from Camp sent the IRS into a panic, have at it.


/shrug

That really doesn't refute anything I said. I also think much of what you wrote is factually incorrect. I don't know where you got it, but suspect you misread or misremembered something, just as you did with your claim about the 2010 Z Street lawsuit (which I note you've now silently dropped).


You may "know" that, but it's false. You have a habit of knowing false things. We have been told Lerner's email was lost. We've been told nothing about the email of the other six, only that they had drive crashes.


Right. So? Are you agreeing, then, the IRS made a good-faith effort to produce as many emails as they could?


No, that's a non sequitur. Being discoverable and being official documents have little to do with each other. It doesn't have to be an official document to be discoverable. Official documents must be preserved, however, even without pending discovery. Other, non-official documents may be freely destroyed unless there is litigation requiring all potential evidence be preserved for potential discovery.


You've tried to push that nonsensical straw man before. Nobody is making that suggestion except you.


More nonsense. You can speculate whatever your little heart desires. What you cannot honestly do is assert your speculation as fact.


So you're too lazy to go back and read the thread? Not terribly surprising, I suppose. One cannot maintain a conspiracy theory by accepting evidence.

We cannot presume the other two workload factors are constant. The work effort to review political applications -- often non-compliant -- is clearly greater than the work required to review routine applications like a Boy Scouts troop. We know there were hundreds of such political applications. It is therefore easy to speculate that the average review effort went up after Citizens United, even as total application count was flat.

We also know from the TIGTA report that the number of IRS agents working 501(c)(?) applications dropped to a single person at one point. TIGTA did not document when that was or how long it lasted, nor did he document normal staffing levels. Without those details, we cannot quantify how much the per-person workload increased. It does seem pretty obvious that it did increase for some length of time, however.

As far as "the IRS took on a huge amount of additional work for conservative groups' applications only", first, it is a deliberate lie and you know it. Flogging it incessantly only highlights your general lack of honesty when discussing this topic. Second, much as it distresses you, it was the IRS' responsibility to screen such political applications for compliance. In other words, what you call "extra work" was the agents doing their jobs.

Finally, as far as the IRS "trumpeting" reduced headcount: to whom? As far as I know, they've never been officially requested to document an increased workload. It's just a talking point spread from the right-wing bubble. I am not aware of the IRS ever responding to such noise. If Camp or Issa or TIGTA requires they document this, I'm sure they will.

You have the patience of a scientist studying the flow of pitch! Coincidently, you too, appear to be working with something pretty slow, what other reason could werepossum have for his constant "misremembering" of things?

 

[Jhhnn]

You have the patience of a scientist studying the flow of pitch! Coincidently, you too, appear to be working with something pretty slow, what other reason could werepossum have for his constant "misremembering" of things?

Werepossum can't possibly be genuine. He's a propagandist. He no more believes his own bullshit than Issa does his own.

He's too bright & too agile to be anything else. It clicks right into focus with that frame around it.

 

[ivwshane]

Werepossum can't possibly be genuine. He's a propagandist. He no more believes his own bullshit than Issa does his own.

He's too bright & too agile to be anything else. It clicks right into focus with that frame around it.

I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories. Idiots are idiots because they are idiots, thinking their actions are part of some plan gives them way too much credit.

 

[xBiffx]

Tools found the same drawer again, I see. Nice when everything is so well organized...

 

[werepossum]

Tools found the same drawer again, I see. Nice when everything is so well organized...

The truly amusing part is that the lefties are insisting the IRS did nothing wrong when the IRS actually admitted wrongdoing. Briefly, anyway.

 

[ivwshane]

The truly amusing part is that the lefties are insisting the IRS did nothing wrong when the IRS actually admitted wrongdoing. Briefly, anyway.

Could you be a bigger dishonest fuck?!

 

[Bowfinger]

The truly amusing part is that the lefties are insisting the IRS did nothing wrong when the IRS actually admitted wrongdoing. Briefly, anyway.

Whereas the shameful part is you lying again and again because you are a failure at supporting your position honestly and factually.

Ever going to man up and admit you lied when you insisted, "The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups?"

 

[Jhhnn]

I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories. Idiots are idiots because they are idiots, thinking their actions are part of some plan gives them way too much credit.

He's not an idiot. He's really quite clever, carefully avoiding response to some posts, occasionally posting canned walls o' text, returning to the same premises over and over as if they haven't been covered ad nauseum. Repetition of deception is the heart of propaganda.

That's true for more than this thread & subject. Fast & furious. Obamacare. Benghazi. Whatever the right wing noise machine is pushing, he's pushing it too. When they back away, he's right with 'em. The real idiots just keep pushing.

You're a smart person. Review some of the threads on those topics. Issa & friends aren't quite done with the IRS, but when they are, he'll be done too. He's not a Believer but rather one who manipulates Believers. Quite why, I have no idea.

 

[Bowfinger]

Tools found the same drawer again, I see. Nice when everything is so well organized...

Aww, po' baby. Don't be jealous. Socks get drawers, too.

 

[xBiffx]

The truly amusing part is that the lefties are insisting the IRS did nothing wrong when the IRS actually admitted wrongdoing. Briefly, anyway.

You suck man, you forgot to lock the fricken drawer again. Man I'm disappointed.

 

[Jhhnn]

The truly amusing part is that the lefties are insisting the IRS did nothing wrong when the IRS actually admitted wrongdoing. Briefly, anyway.

Could you be a bigger dishonest fuck?!

See what I mean? Werepossum knows full well what he offered there is simply untrue.

He doesn't believe it any more than you do.

 

[Bowfinger]

You have the patience of a scientist studying the flow of pitch! Coincidently, you too, appear to be working with something pretty slow, what other reason could werepossum have for his constant "misremembering" of things?

I'm just procrastinating. I have a stack of performance evaluations to write, and anything is more fun in comparison. Even rebutting pitch.

 

[werepossum]

Whereas the shameful part is you lying again and again because you are a failure at supporting your position honestly and factually.

Ever going to man up and admit you lied when you insisted, "The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups?"

If you wish to again point out that the IRS has identified only 30% of the groups targeted, and that the best case for the administration is that these are the only conservative groups targeted, and yet somehow pretend that the director of the IRS is not the Obama administration, I'm good with that.

You suck man, you forgot to lock the fricken drawer again. Man I'm disappointed.

Hey, can't long contain that much crazy in one drawer without endangering the Earth itself.

The wibbly wobbly couplet:
1. We can't know anything because the IRS hasn't given us all the facts.
2. The IRS shouldn't have to give us any facts because we already know it's nothing but a partisan witch hunt.

Frankly the "Some dude just gave me this television on the street" defense is better crafted, but hey, when you control the federal government's law enforcement mechanisms you don't really have to try.

 

[Bowfinger]

If you wish to again point out that the IRS has identified only 30% of the groups targeted, and that the best case for the administration is that these are the only conservative groups targeted, and yet somehow pretend that the director of the IRS is not the Obama administration, I'm good with that.


Hey, can't long contain that much crazy in one drawer without endangering the Earth itself.

The wibbly wobbly couplet:
1. We can't know anything because the IRS hasn't given us all the facts.
2. The IRS shouldn't have to give us any facts because we already know it's nothing but a partisan witch hunt.

Frankly the "Some dude just gave me this television on the street" defense is better crafted, but hey, when you control the federal government's law enforcement mechanisms you don't really have to try.

Werepossum posts:
1. Lies and RNC propaganda
2. Lies about his lies and RNC propaganda
3. Lies about his lies about his lies and RNC propaganda

Kind of an Inconsequential version of Darrell Issa.

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups."

 

[Zorkorist]

All I see is apologists, explaining why the emails are missing.

This was pretty much the original problem.

-John

IRS, on direction from Obama, delays other political parties tax free status applications.

News at 11... except we don't have the hard drives.

-John

 

[Matt1970]

Werepossum posts:
1. Lies and RNC propaganda
2. Lies about his lies and RNC propaganda
3. Lies about his lies about his lies and RNC propaganda

Kind of an Inconsequential version of Darrell Issa.

"The Obama administration has claimed that sixty percent of the groups targeted ... were not conservative groups."

Well, as long as we are going by the Obama administration claims........

 

[ivwshane]

Well, as long as we are going by the Obama administration claims........

What claim would that be?

 

[Bowfinger]

Well, as long as we are going by the Obama administration claims........

That's still a quote (and a lie) from Werepossum, dumbass. How many times are you going to miss this? And when are you going to call out your possum buddy for such a blatant lie?

Edit: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36469871&postcount=700

 

[Matt1970]

That's still a quote (and a lie) from Werepossum, dumbass. How many times are you going to miss this? And when are you going to call out your possum buddy for such a blatant lie?

Edit: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36469871&postcount=700

If you want to turn this into an insult contest, I am out.

 

[Bowfinger]

If you want to turn this into an insult contest, I am out.

That's a lame cop-out. How about instead you show the integrity to acknowledge your error (again), and we can move on?

 

[Bowfinger]

Deeper and deeper you go. Lacking a clean room and specialized hardware, a head crash or controller failure will commonly make a drive unrecoverable. That is a true statement. A head crash will often damage not only platters, but one or more of the heads, making the head(s) inoperable. In a controller failure, it depends on how the controller failed and how badly one needs the data. In some cases, swapping the controller with an identical model with identical firmware will work if the controller didn't cause damage or write garbage to the drive as it failed. (This does NOT require a clean room as long as you don't open the drive casing.) This varies by manufacturer and model of drive, however, and often comes down to luck of the draw. ...

We finally have that detailed technical testimony, direct from the IRS technicians involved. It comes in the form of sworn affidavits, submitted in the Judicial Watch lawsuit: http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Judicial-Watch-v.-IRS-01559.pdf

The second statement is the most interesting one, from the forensics technician (John Minsek, page 8 of the .pdf). I was surprised at how far he went to try to recover Lerner's drive. Not only did he use that "specialized hardware" I mentioned, he actually did use a "clean room" of sorts (clean box?), and tried replacing both the controller card and the heads, carefully ensuring he had an identical model and firmware revision according to his testimony.

His efforts were unsuccessful. He was experiencing some sort of controller error that kept it from ever entering a ready state. I don't know if that indicates a more serious hardware problem, or is merely that "luck of the draw" issue I mention when trying to swap controller cards. Either way, he was ultimately unable to recover any data at all from the drive. It does show that the problem was beyond merely writing bad data to the drive, or reformatting it.

Finally, at one point I speculated that when the IRS tech said the drive was "scratched", he might have meant he wiped the drive and not that it was physically damaged. I was wrong about that. (This is related to me not expecting the IRS to try a clean room recovery.) Today's affidavits report that a drive platter was physically scored. They also confirm that there was no evidence of intentional physical damage.

Anyway, aside from the implications for this story, I found the second statement interesting in its own right. It is quite detailed. It's worth a read if you'd like insight into advanced drive recovery tactics.

Here's another one you may have missed, Matt. I encourage you to read the section I mention, then tell me again how I don't know anything about drives.