I can not seriously believe we are still having this conversation about these “text messages” as if the potential for them being “deleted” without criminal intent is actually possible.
Likewise, I find it equally absurd that it is being promoted throughout the media and in the comments of the Political players that there apparently is NO EXPERT in Washington DC capable of assessing these claims and determining how to proceed toward a successful resolution of this TECHNICAL QUANDARY!
For anyone with a fair level of technical expertise, this would take about 2 minutes of thought and 5 to 10 minutes to explain in fairly easy to understand language.
Step 1: Get physical control of ALL of the devices (the decommissioned phones) in question. They’ve been decommissioned, so are stored somewhere, unless they’ve been physically destroyed, which would be a clear indication of an illegal cover-up. THIS IS CRITICAL to preserve the devices and to preclude any further efforts to HIDE THIS INFORMATION!
Step 2: Issue an order to have the current device assigned to every agent identified as a “person of interest” turned over to investigators. They can issue a new device to replace the one that is turned in if they still have need for one, and if so, have a specific office assigned to conduct the process of cloning the devices so that the agents don’t lose any information, and the current devices data is preserved. The likelihood is fairly high that the “text messages” in question were transferred to the new devices when the USSS conducted their “replacement program” is fairly high, as the process of going through their old device and “deleting” specific messages would have been extremely time consuming and would require a level of technical expertise that the vast majority of Agents simply do not possess.
Step 3: Someone needs to state CLEARLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY that doing a “factory reset” on a device, or even going into the messaging app and hitting “delete” for every message you want to remove, IS NOT ACTUALLY DELETING THE MESSAGE FROM THE DEVICE! This is such a simple and critical point, and I am astounded that this isn’t being made clear to everyone concerned with this question (e.g. the Select Committee, the DHS OIG, the Head of the Secret Service, the American People!)
The process of actually DELETING the data stored on ANY DIGITAL DEVICE requires either PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION of the Storage Device, or, SPECIALIZED SOFTWARE that either performs MULTIPLE OVERWRITES of the entire Storage Media, or the specific FILEs with 0’s or 1’s or some random combination of both. This is an extremely PROCESSOR INTENSIVE procedure and takes significant time and effort to do. Indeed, in any large organization this would likely not be done by a user on their individual device, but would be assigned to a specific office that would have special equipment that would allow them to conduct that level of “data destruction” on multiple devices at the same time.
Step 4: Issue orders to the GOVERNMENT CONTRACTED CARRIERS for these devices to preserve any data that may reside on their Servers. The technology for any carrier to provide Messaging Services is know as “store and forward”, which is why someone can send you a text message while your phone is OFF, and when you turn the phone ON, you receive that message. That only happens if there is a SERVER somewhere along the path that the message gets routed through. The suggestion that SMS or MMS messages DO NOT use a Server, is patently false!
Step 5: SOMEONE, ANYONE who has knowledge of the Policy for Data Preservation that MUST be in place for the USSS, needs to publicly explain what the POLICY IS! There is simply NO WAY that there is NO POLICY! Anyone who violated that Policy needs to be removed from their position, investigated, and referred for Prosecution if it’s determined that they failed to follow the directives of the Policy!
All of the above needs to be done immediately, if it hasn’t already been enacted. These steps are essential in order to preserve evidence, provide for further investigation, and provide accountability for those who BROKE THE LAW!
A failure to take these steps would be, in my humble opinion, a clear indication of a cover-up on a massive scale. The American People deserve to know if there were Agents in Government Service who pledged their loyalty to an individual and placed that loyalty above their pledge to US!