WaysandMeansCommittee:We’velearnedthatLois

Ways and Means Committee: We’ve learned that Lois Lerner’s hard drive was scratched — but data was recoverable

posted at 6:01 pm on July 22, 2014 by Allahpundit

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We’re getting closer to the inevitable comic finale of this charade, when video emerges of Lerner beating her hard drive with a hammer and House Democrats still end up arguing that Republicans are jumping to conclusions.

There’s literally nothing, short of a videotaped confession of wrongdoing, that’ll make suspicions about this bipartisan. And since we’re three and a half months out from an election, I’m not sure a confession would do it either.

Despite early refusals to make available IT professionals who worked on Lois Lerner’s computer, Ways and Means Committee investigators have now learned from interviews that the hard drive of former IRS Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner was “scratched,” but data was recoverable. In fact, in-house professionals at the IRS recommended the Agency seek outside assistance in recovering the data. That information conflicts with a July 18, 2014 court filing by the Agency, which stated the data on the hard drive was unrecoverable – including multiple years’ worth of missing emails…

It is also unknown whether the scratch was accidental or deliberate, but former federal law enforcement and Department of Defense forensic experts consulted by the Committee say that most of the data on a scratched drive, such as Lerner’s, should have been recoverable. However, in a declaration filed last Friday by the IRS, the agency said it tried but failed to recover the data, but is not sure what happened to the hard drive afterwards other than saying they believe it was recycled, which, according to the court filing means “shredded.”

Further complicating the situation, the Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that this declaration may not be accurate. A review of internal IRS IT tracking system documents revealed that Lerner’s computer was actually once described as “recovered.” In a transcribed interview on July 18, IRS IT employees were unable to confirm the accuracy of the documents or the meaning of the entry “recovered.”

So, to sum up, (1) the hard drive was physically damaged somehow; (2) the computer is mysteriously missing now, despite possibly having been recovered at one point; and (3) the IRS apparently ignored the advice of its own tech people in declining to bring in outside help to get the data back. I have the same question Ace does: How does a modern hard drive end up being scratched, and not just scratched to the point that some of the data is unavailable but basically all of it is? Is there any innocent explanation for that, like accidentally dropping a computer off a desk? I asked Hot Air’s webmaster and resident tech expert, Mark Jaquith, and he told me it’s possible to physically scratch the drive by dropping a laptop: Although the drive’s R/W heads have some give, a modern laptop’s accelerometer could quickly “park” those heads in place, producing a metal-on-metal effect. That could wipe out some data or the FAT table (the drive’s glossary) or a “platter,” which would render the drive inaccessible for physical reasons. Mark says, though, that a metal-on-metal scratch would make a terrible noise. I don’t recall Lerner claiming that she dropped her computer or heard any such noise like that before her hard drive failed, but am happy to be corrected if I missed something.

Also, what about the “less than 20″ other IRS employees who lost data after their computers crashed? More scratches? The taxman’s hands sure are slippery when he’s toting his laptop around.

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Tags: data, hard drive, Lois Lerner, recoverable, scratched

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Dataproblems,hackerscontinuetoplagueObamacareexchanges

Data problems, hackers continue to plague Obamacare exchanges

posted at 7:21 pm on July 3, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham

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Two reports from the government watchdog for Health and Human Services this week revealed serious data discrepancies among the sign-ups the Obama administration hailed as Obamacare’s triumphant comeback. Those data problems may mean some people got subsidies they shouldn’t have and would have to pay back hefty amounts to the federal government. Phil Klein reports:

Applications for insurance coverage through President Obama’s health care law submitted in the final three months of 2013 contained millions of inconsistencies in which information such as income and immigration status could not be independently verified by the federal government, according to a June report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The inconsistencies may have resulted in individuals receiving an improper amount of subsidies, or subsidies that they shouldn’t have been eligible for in the first place — something that could require them to repay the money in future tax bills.

In other cases, inconsistencies led to bizarre outcomes. According to the report, “one marketplace cited situations in which infants and young children included on applications were erroneously identified as incarcerated.”

At issue is the information that individuals are asked to submit when they apply for coverage, such as income, citizenship status, Social Security number, or incarceration status. In theory, once data are submitted, they are supposed to be checked in a massive storage database known as the “hub,” which gathers data from multiple federal agencies.

Between October and December 2013, there were 2.9 million such inconsistencies in applications, according to the report, 2.6 million of which remain unresolved. As Klein makes clear, this doesn’t mean there are 2.9 million separate applications with mistakes because there are many potential data problems on each person’s application. The most common inconsistency had to do with citizenship and immigration status, with income shortly behind. In some cases, the federal government and states with exchanges were not using the verification processes required by their internal rules (well, knock me over with a feather). The AP reports:

Digging out from under the data problem is one of the top challenges facing newly installed HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

The administration says it is doing just that. Spokesman Aaron Albright said more than 425,000 inconsistencies have been resolved so far, more than 90 percent of those in favor of the consumer. The administration is hoping to clear up the majority of cases this summer, but may yet have to resort to an extension allowed under the health law.

The inspector general found that the federal insurance exchange reported a total of 2.9 million inconsistencies with consumer data from Oct. 1, 2013 through Feb. 23 of this year.

At the time, the administration had limited technical capability that would have let officials resolve roughly 330,000 of those cases. Only about 10,000 were actually cleared up within the period. Albright said the situation is much improved.

The inspector general said several states running their own insurance markets were having similar problems.

Guy Benson reports on the inspector general’s take on state exchanges:

Democrats celebrated that “8 million new enrollments” figure in a failed attempt to improve public perceptions of the law. That number has always been highly exaggerated — not accounting for duplicates, a substantial non-payment rate, a high percentage of enrollees who were previously insured, and applicants whose coverage may be disrupted by these ongoing data issues. The watchdog report stated that approximately 1.2 million additional “inconsistencies” marred applications processed through state exchanges. More: “During our review, 4 of the 15 State marketplaces reported that they were unable to resolve inconsistencies” at all, including some of the usual suspects such as Oregon. How many data snags have affected the millions of applications filed over the first three-plus months of 2014? The final number will almost certainly be significantly higher.

Meanwhile in Vermont, considered one of the better state exchanges:

A Romanian attacker hacked the Vermont health exchange’s development server last December, gaining access at least 15 times and going undetected for a month, according to records obtained by National Review Online.

CGI Group, the tech firm hired to build Vermont Health Connect, described the risk as “high” in a report about the attack. It also found possible evidence of sophisticated “counter-forensics activity performed by the attacker to cover his/her tracks.”

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Tags: data, exchanges, healthcare.gov, implementation, ObamaCare

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Oh,bytheway:Morethantwomillion

Oh, by the way: More than two million people who signed up for ObamaCare are in limbo due to data discrepancies

posted at 4:41 pm on June 4, 2014 by Allahpundit

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They’re vague here on precisely where, and why, the discrepancies are occurring. Is this related to the famous “834″ problem on Healthcare.gov, in which information sheets generated by the website for insurers about new enrollees were ending up garbled and/or incomplete? Or is it more of a bureaucracy problem, i.e. the last known residence that the feds have for a new enrollee in their Social Security database doesn’t match the address on the enrollee’s new insurance application? Eyeball this chart to see just how much technological red tape there is to sort through potentially before an enrollee’s identity and eligibility for subsidies can be verified. That’s what they’re talking about here, I think.

Fun fact: In nearly one million of these cases, the discrepancy is related to immigration or citizenship status.

About 1 in 4 people who signed up have discrepancies, creating a huge paperwork jam for the feds and exposing some consumers to repayment demands, or possibly even loss of coverage, if they got too generous a subsidy…

Responding to the document, administration officials expressed confidence that most of the discrepancies can be resolved over the summer. Nonetheless, HHS has set up a system to “turn off” benefits for anyone who is found to be ineligible.

Julie Bataille, communications coordinator for the health care rollout, said most of the discrepancies appear to be due to outdated information in government files — and the “vast majority” of cases are being resolved in favor of consumers. The government is making an all-out effort to reach those with discrepancies, which officials have termed “inconsistencies.”…

Updated numbers provided by Bataille indicate that the total number of people affected remains about the same as a month ago. About 1.2 million have discrepancies related to income; 505,000 have issues with immigration data, and 461,000 have conflicts related to citizenship information.

“[T]he inconsistencies point to the possibility that many enrollees obtained coverage or subsidies without being eligible,” notes The Hill.

The law says that an enrollee’s coverage will continue for 90 days while a discrepancy is being resolved. According to HHS, fully 40 percent of the 2.1 million affected by this — more than 800,000 people — are now outside that window. Think President Overreach will intervene to give them relief if/when HHS decides that it can’t resolve this problem by the end of summer, as it currently hopes to do? No surprise either that most discrepancies are being resolved in favor of enrollees. For obvious reasons, HHS is extremely reluctant to see anyone who signed up bounced from the rolls because the feds can’t get their act together on verification. It’s a potential GOP talking point about incompetence in November; it risks undercutting Obama’s victory lap after having hit the seven-million enrollment mark in April; and it’ll further antagonize the dopey immigration lobby, which has already denounced Obama as the “deporter-in-chief,” if they look too hard at the immigration status of people who’ve finally gotten health-care coverage. The more tremendously backlogged they are, the greater the pressure on HHS will be to rubber-stamp an application and send the new enrollee on his way. Remember, these same people were so far behind on the subsidy infrastructure of the federal website that they ended up leaving applicants on the honor system in declaring their income. If they were willing to look the other way at a fraud opportunity like that, they’re not going to suddenly be hard-asses about resolving a discrepancy on basic information.

And it’s not just the feds who are dealing with a tremendous backlog. It flew under the radar yesterday because of all the Bergdahl news, but Roll Call decided to conduct a survey of all 50 states to see how they’re doing coping with Medicaid applications. Result: Nearly three million people are still waiting to have their applications processed due to bureaucracy, ye olde technological glitches, and the sheer crush of new applicants before the March deadline. Applications are supposed to be processed within 45 days but states with heavy backlogs like California are hoping for/expecting federal “exemptions.” I think His Highness, the King, will accommodate them.

Oh, one more thing: I didn’t notice it at the time but apparently CBO has quietly given up on trying to analyze the future fiscal impact of ObamaCare. Turns out it’s very hard to say whether a law’s a net loser or a net winner as you get further out and its regulatory excrescences grow more complicated, especially when it’s basically a matter of presidential whim whether key provisions get enforced going forward. So we’re now flying completely blind on this enormous boondoggle, with no chance whatsoever of righting the ship for at least two and a half more years. Sleep tight, everyone.

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Tags: application, backlog, data, Department of Health and Human Services, discrepancies, information, obama, ObamaCare

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Housecommitteechair:Sebeliusliedwhenshesaid

House committee chair: Sebelius lied when she said she doesn’t know how many ObamaCare enrollees paid their first premiums

posted at 2:01 pm on March 26, 2014 by Allahpundit

Dave Camp uses the more delicate term “evasive and perhaps misleading” in his letter to her but it’s clear enough what he means. This wouldn’t be the first term the White House has been, ahem, evasive and perhaps misleading when it comes to enrollment data either. Sebelius and Jay Carney spent last October hemming and hawing over why they hadn’t released any early enrollment figures yet, insisting it’d be premature to do so and that numbers would be reported at regular intervals. Turns out they had a daily dashboard on Healthcare.gov that was keeping them updated all along. The big take on day one, as you might recall, was … six enrollments. Nationwide.

This new lie is more fun than the earlier one, though, just for the sheer balls required to muster the spin they’re using to deflect it.

Camp (R-Mich.) and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) say they have uncovered “new evidence” that “strongly suggests that the administration knows who has enrolled and paid their first month’s premium.”

The congressmen pointed to an online regulations portal run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that says insurers are required to inform the agency of “the full enrollment and payment profile” for consumers on a monthly basis…

“As we have said previously, information about who has paid his or her premium is collected by individual issuers and is not reported to CMS directly by enrollees,” HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in a statement.

“Until the automated payment and reporting system is completed and fully tested, and CMS is able to access individual enrollment and payment information from individual 834 forms, the payment information that CMS receives from insurers is neither final nor complete,” she added. “When we have accurate and reliable data regarding premium payments, we will make that information available.”

In other words, insurers are required to report to CMS every month how many people have paid. The data exists and is right at CMS’s fingertips; even if it’s incomplete, the rate of payment among insurers who have already reported will give us some sense of the rate of payment nationally.

But CMS, which built a website that didn’t work for two months and continues to have back-end problems to this day, doesn’t feel comfortable trusting outside entities. They’d prefer to use their own data, which … doesn’t exist yet because the website’s payment system still hasn’t been built. And they also want to be sure the numbers they give the public are “final” and “complete,” even though the whole reason people keep bugging them for payment data is that CMS’s own highly touted monthly enrollment figures aren’t remotely “final” or “complete” without it. Remember, if you missed the deadline to pay your first premium, your enrollment will be canceled; if it’s true, as anecdotal evidence suggests, that fully 20 percent of new enrollees failed to pay on time, that means HHS’s latest enrollment number of 5+ million as of March 1st could be off by a million people. If they were sincerely worried about misleading the public with incomplete figures, they’d refuse to release enrollment data at all until they knew for sure how many people were, or would be, bounced from the rolls on nonpayment grounds. As it is, they’re more than happy to release crap numbers which they know are artificially inflated in the name of doing what they can to help Democrats facing reelection this fall.

While we’re on the subject, via the Free Beacon, here’s another brazen lie Sebelius told Congress a few weeks ago. Exit question via Dan McLaughlin: At what point is a special prosecutor finally on the table here?

Tags: data, Dave Camp, Department of Health and Human Services, enrollment, first, month, portal, premiums, sebelius, ways and means

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CNNsource:Yes,theMalaysianjetsentengine

CNN source: Yes, the Malaysian jet sent engine data hours after it disappeared; AP source: No, it didn’t

posted at 5:21 pm on March 13, 2014 by Allahpundit

I know most readers are hard at work and not following the news minute to minute so I thought I’d do you a solid by bringing you up to speed on the missing jet. To sum up: Everything is completely farked.

Here’s what Vaughn Sterling, Wolf Blitzer’s producer, tweeted four hours ago:

CNN JUST IN: Sr. aviation source w/detailed knowledge of the matter tells @RichardQuest the @WSJ story is wrong w/respect to engine data

— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) March 13, 2014

Same source to CNN: There was NO technical data from the plane which would suggest the Boeing 777 aircraft continued flying 4 hours

— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) March 13, 2014

Bombshell. The splashy WSJ story this morning about the jet flying on for hours after it went missing was wrong.

Now here’s CNN again, as of about two hours ago:

New information, U.S. officials told CNN, indicates the missing airplane could have flown for several hours beyond the last transponder reading.

Malaysian authorities believe they have several “pings” of engine data from the airliner’s service data system, known as ACARS, transmitted to satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane is believed to have flown into the Indian Ocean, a senior U.S. official told CNN. That information combined with known radar data and knowledge of fuel range leads officials to believe the plane may have made it to the Indian Ocean.

Wait a sec. It was Malaysian authorities who dismissed the Journal’s story earlier today. Maybe they’ve changed their minds. The jet did fly on! They do have engine data, just like the Journal said!

No, wait. The Journal’s not saying that anymore. There is data, just not engine data:

Corrections & Amplifications
U.S. investigators suspect Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, based on an analysis of signals sent through the plane’s satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of onboard systems, according to people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said investigators based their suspicions on signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane’s Rolls-Royce PLC engines and described that process.

So, er, the plane was transmitting data from some of its systems afterward, but not the engine systems specifically as the Journal claimed earlier. Well, okay.

Wait, scratch that. Nope, it wasn’t transmitting anything once it dropped off radar. So says a different source to the AP:

A U.S. official says there were no data transmitted on the status of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet’s engines after contact was lost with the plane…

The official said there was information about the Boeing 777-200′s engines sent via a digital datalink along with other information on the functioning of the plane before contact was lost.

Wait — so it wasn’t transmitting engine data after it dropped out of contact or it wasn’t transmitting any data? We don’t care which data it was precisely. All we’re looking for is a heartbeat here, regardless of which onboard system it’s coming from, to show that the jet was functioning in some way after it went off the communications grid.

Actually, I think ABC’s gotten to the bottom of this. CNN’s second report quoted above is basically right. There’s something onboard (not an engine system but something else) that checks in with satellites hourly. Sounds like they detected four or five satellite “pings” from the plane after it dropped off radar, ergo they assume it flew on for four or five hours afterward.

No, wait. Scratch that too:

It’s not clear what the indication was, but senior administration officials told ABC News the missing Malaysian flight continued to “ping” a satellite on an hourly basis after it lost contact with radar. The Boeing 777 jetliners are equipped with what is called the Airplane Health Management system in which they ping a satellite every hour. The number of pings would indicate how long the plane stayed aloft…

The official initially said there were indications that the plane flew four or five hours after disappearing from radar and that they believe it went into the water. Officials later said the plane likely did not fly four or five hours, but did not specify how long it may have been airborne.

I wonder why they’ve now reconsidered that. Maybe they think … the plane landed in the Indian Ocean intact and kept transmitting for an extra hour or two before it sank? Could it have stayed afloat that long?

Exit question: How long before the “History” Channel turns this into a special about alien abduction?

Tags: data, disappeared, Flight 370, jet, Malaysia, mystery

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Source from: hotair