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No, it is not "undoubtedly" the case. There would be a lot of incentives in "losing" those years of emails.

I really do think Hanlon's razor applies here. I don't disagree that the incentive is there, but I think the total failure of the USG to do technology correctly is the more likely culprit. I can tell you from first hand experience that I know of very senior people who have lost months of data from what would be a simple migration or corrupted virtual instance. Boggles the mind really.

Agreed. A lot of it has to do how government contracts for IT support. Contracts quickly get out of date. The contractors are also all trying to lock themselves in.

It's common for the contractor to own all the IT equipment and just lease it to the government. What happens when it's time to change contracts and every single computer, phone, printer has to be replaced. There is no possibility for competitive bidding in the wake of that.

Yep. This is the biggest unspoken scandal in government. It has probably taken years off of my life. The whole system is in shambles.

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