Electronic Mail

When Karl Rove and his top deputies arrived at the White House in 2001, the Republican National Committee provided them with laptop computers and other communication devices to be used alongside their government-issued equipment. The back-channel e-mail and paging system, paid for and maintained by the RNC, was designed to avoid charges that had vexed the Clinton White House -- that federal resources were being used inappropriately for political campaign purposes.

The White House said Wednesday that it may have lost what could amount to thousands of messages sent through a private e-mail system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators. The e-mails were considered potentially crucial evidence in congressional inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics may have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

The growing controversy over White House record-keeping and disclosure swirled around presidential advisor Karl Rove on Thursday, as congressional Democrats said they were told that some e-mails that Rove sent from a Republican National Committee account were missing. After a meeting between RNC lawyers and congressional investigators, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) said he learned that Rove might have deliberately deleted them himself.

Karl Rove and other White House employees were cautioned in employee manuals, memos and briefings to carefully save any e-mails that might discuss official matters even if those messages came from private e-mail accounts, the White House disclosed Friday. Despite these cautions, e-mails from Rove and others discussing official business may have been deleted and are now missing. White House officials spent much of Friday reiterating that the missing e-mails were the result of an innocent mistake.

When questioning the White House claim that some sensitive e-mails from officials there might have disappeared for good, Democrats can cite any number of high-profile computer users who once thought the same -- from Oliver North to Bill Gates. "You can't erase e-mails, not today," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont). But security experts interviewed Friday disagreed. As the number of e-mails sent has soared, they said, companies have become more rigorous in wiping out old records.

Hiding in his dorm room, Virginia Tech freshman Bryce Carter did what anyone his age would do in a time of crisis -- he blogged. First he assured friends that he was alive. Then he posted video he shot of police cars gathering outside and still photos of sharpshooters. "My friends could be dead," he typed on "Bryce's Journal," which is normally dedicated to partying, the environment and Hokies sports. "Tears continue."

For as long as 14 hours, belts across America didn't vibrate. Thumbs stopped clacking on tiny keyboards. People were transported to a more innocent age, a time when sitcoms could be watched uninterrupted and meetings had to be arranged by, gasp, phone. The BlackBerry e-mail network went down around 5 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday, and David Hyman, an online music executive, suddenly knew how it felt to be an addict.

Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.

Even as Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch moved forward with plans for a sweeping probe of the Bush administration, several advocacy groups complained that his ties to the administration and to conservative groups, as well as his record on gay rights and whistle-blowers, made him the wrong man for the job.

A school district employee resigned after administrators began investigating an e-mail titled "Proud to be White" that was deemed racially offensive by fellow employees, officials said. Keith Greer, a microcomputer specialist for the Central Unified School District, quit Wednesday after the e-mail message sent from his district e-mail account was reported by a fellow employee who was offended, district spokeswoman Courtney Roque-Bautista said.