Let's also remember that Microsoft recommends keeping relatively small .PST files and recommends creating archive files. These archive files are often not loaded into the Outlook environment or profile, and so, if the backup messages the judge is looking for exist, they might not be visible to a remote management scanner.

Regretfully, when I shared this concern with Judge Facciola's office, I was informed, "The judge is quite technical."

Yeah, and I understand that I'm staying within the law when I punch my turbo and accelerate up to (but never, ever over) 65 miles per hour -- but my understanding of basic traffic laws doesn't make me qualified to be a Magistrate Judge.

Someone who has a better than average level of technical literacy as an end-user (even someone who has managed to set up a nice, secure network for their own home use) doesn't necessarily have the specialized knowledge and institutional folklore necessary to fully "grok" enterprise-level IT. That kind of knowledge is so specialized that only a relatively small percentage of "quite technical people" would have any sort of clue about it.

Of course, many of our own OutlookPower and DominoPower readers have that level of technical expertise. That's because many of our readers are IT professionals with years of experience managing enterprise systems.

So, while the Magistrate Judge is undoubtedly "quite technical," I do worry if he's got the enterprise-level IT experience to fully understand all the loophole implications of his limited discovery order to the EOP.

Oh, and finally, the Judge once again did not request any email archives be retrieved from the hundreds of millions that were sent outside the internal EOP systems due to Hatch Act compliance.

I've said repeatedly that I'm not an attorney, but I find this sort of investigative blindspot bizarre. It's like if the police search a house for a murder weapon, see an attached garage, but decide not to bother to look inside.

In any case, the White House responded to the Judge's order on Monday. One guess how cooperative they were.

Government response and third declaration by Theresa Payton
Next up on our happy-dappy hit parade of Your Tax Dollars at Work TV is the response by White House Chief Information Officer Theresa Payton. This is her third time at bat in front of Magistrate Judge Facciola.

First off, she answers the Judge's question of how many current EOP employees still work at the White House from the 2003-2005 time period. She states:

Based on information from OA's Human Resources Division, I understand that there are 583 individuals who presently work at EOP FRA components who also worked in an FRA component sometime between March 2003 and October 2005.

What this means is there are 583 people who might be subject to Federal Records Act compliance. What I find curious is that she does not reply with a count of those individuals at the EOP who are subject to the Presidential Records Act.