The IRS' New Excuse For Why They Lost Lerner Emails, and a Solution: HOW TO GET THEM BACK

IRS IT Guy Backing Up The Computer System

The IRS' excuse = We back up emails using the same way Cavemen do.

From the Washington Post:

Prior to the eruption of the IRS controversy last spring, the IRS had a policy of backing up the data on its email server (which runs Microsoft Outlook) every day. It kept a backup of the records for six months on digital tape, according to a letter sent from the IRS to Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). 

After six months, the IRS would reuse those tapes for newer backups. 

So when Congressional committees began requesting emails from the agency, its records only went back to late 2012. The IRS also had two other policies that complicated things. The first was a limit on how big its employees' email inboxes could be. At the IRS, employees could keep 500 megabytes of data on the email server. If the mailbox got too big, email would need to be deleted or moved to a local folder on the user's computer.

THE SOLUTION =

ASK THE NSA! 

THEY SAVE EVERYTHING!