Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

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hn_throwaway_99

My guess is that you did not read the article (and, from reading most of the other comments, you are not alone). They were using "auditable email logging solution that keeps communications for whatever their applicable policy dictates." The issue is that the CDC had a policy where lower level employees had their emails deleted after 90 days (and there was nothing secret about this, it was their standard procedure), but there is disagreement over how long these lower level employees have to have their emails retained due to the CDC agreeing to a "Capstone" records retention program from the National Archives. The article has the details.

Issue being, the headline is written in a way that deliberately makes it sound like something nefarious is going on, where it sounds like an underlying disagreement over the interpretation of how long records were required to be retained due to this signing on to the Capstone program.

Regardless, this is the Internet, so I'm sure everyone with an axe to grind will read this as "WhaT tHe CDC doEsn'T wAnT yOu to Seeeee!!!!"

My point exactly. They may have been using a logging solution but whoever made the decision to keep communications for only 90 days was derelict in their duty, incompetent, or, deliberately trying to protect the agency from scrutiny.

Do you have any evidence that something nefarious wasn’t happening? That’s the point of communication through approved channels keeping records of said comms.

> Issue being, the headline is written in a way that deliberately makes it sound like something nefarious is going on, where it sounds like an underlying disagreement over the interpretation of how long records were required to be retained due to this signing on to the Capstone program.

From the article, it seems there was a dispute over which of two scenarios applied (1) the CDC agreed to implement the whole of the Capstone program but then unilaterally decided to stop applying it to lower-level employees; (2) the CDC agreed to implement it for senior employees only and never agreed to implement it for lower-level employees. Plaintiffs claimed the situation was (1), the CDC claimed it was (2), the judge decided based on the evidence (1) was more likely. The plaintiffs are GOP-aligned and the judge is an Obama appointee, so one must assume the judge is ruling based on the evidence, not partisan bias. Given that, it definitely makes the CDC and the DOJ look bad - if the judge’s ruling is correct, then they were presenting a false narrative to the Court

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