We were shocked to discover that, during the 2002-2003 build-up to the Iraq war, the Executive Office of the President decided to replace its Lotus Notes email infrastructure with Microsoft Outlook. This migration clearly interrupted email flow in the White House, leading to an April 13, 2007 statement where White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino implied than possibly five million email messages got lost in the transition.

Over the course of our investigation, we've learned that White House staffers are often not legally allowed to take advantage of all the security the United States government can offer. Instead, because of the antiquated Hatch Act of 1939, we estimate that more than 103.6 million White House email messages have been sent over the open Internet, via SMARTech, a 12-person Internet service provider located in downtown Chattanooga.

Our investigation began over a political issue: a Democratically-held Congress demanded email from the White House, looking for evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was party to the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys in 2006.

While we did find very real concerns about White House email archiving and missing email messages, we found other flaws in the system that could, hopefully never -- but still possibly -- lead to the nightmares described above.

A history of controversy
Unfortunately, our discoveries weren't limited by just national security problems. We found a history of controversy -- and some very strange people connections.

We found that controversy over how the White House uses email dates back 25 years, almost as far back as email's very existence. Despite the intent of both the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act, all White House administrations from Reagan on have tried to hide or destroy their email.

In Reagan's time, National Security Advisor John Poindexter did a late night run, attempting to delete email incriminating him and Ollie North in criminal activities. He was later convicted, and even later wound up in charge of George W. Bush's "total information awareness" program.

Also, in Reagan's time, a Deputy Attorney General named John Bolton argued for the administration's right to destroy all the email from the Reagan presidency. Although overruled in court, Bolton (whose long-time criticism of the United Nations "Goes a long way past healthy scepticism," according to the BBC) would eventually wind up as Ambassador to the U.N., appointed by George W. Bush while Congress was in recess.

At the very end of George H.W. Bush's presidency, a deal was struck between the President and Don W. Wilson, the Archivist of the United States, to allow for 4,852 Bush I administration backup tapes to be bundled into boxes and then into vans in the middle of the night, hours before Bill Clinton's inauguration. The tapes eventually wound up at the Bush Presidential Library in Texas, Wilson was discredited in court and lost his job as Archivist. A few weeks later, he wound up as Executive Director of the Bush Presidential Library.