America's Winston Smith. Author of the new book, "I Don't Recall: A Government Without Memory" available today on Amazon.
Joined September 2011
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The breach "includes RECORDS associated with more than 20,000 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees, including Border Patrol personnel."
Data breaches are records management failures. @CBP does not comply with records management laws.
These breaches will continue indefinitely.
foxnews.com/us/dhs-investiga…
Understood. Cut by more than half by @grok:
For over 25 years I’ve helped federal agencies manage their records, and I’m also the father of an autistic young man. Those two parts of my life collided when I learned about Brian Cole Jr., the Virginia man arrested by the FBI in December 2025 in connection with the pipe bombs found outside the RNC and DNC headquarters on January 6, 2021. His lawyers have described him as autistic.
I’m not arguing whether Cole is guilty. I’m writing because I know what can happen when the government can prosecute someone but fails to keep the records needed to independently test its claims. A misleading case doesn’t always require inventing evidence—it can arise from real fragments when surrounding context is missing, alternative explanations disappear, or a record’s history can’t be reconstructed. Proper records management is supposed to prevent that and make misconduct easier to expose.
That’s why the records practices of three agencies involved in the Cole case—FirstNet Authority, the U.S. Capitol Police, and the FBI—deserve scrutiny.
Federal rules (36 CFR § 1236.10) require agencies to protect the reliability, authenticity, integrity, completeness, and context of electronic records, including against unauthorized alteration, and to maintain audit trails. These safeguards protect investigators, employees, and defendants alike. When they fail, both sides can lose important evidence.
**FirstNet:** I worked there for nine months in 2019 and saw no functioning electronic records system close to compliance. Yet its self-reported NARA scores (especially a high electronic-records maturity score in 2019) look far better than what I observed. FirstNet has also appeared in reporting about disputed or missing telecom data in the pipe-bomb investigation; questions remain about who controlled what records and whether they were properly preserved.
**Capitol Police:** For years it was non-responsive or absent from NARA reporting. In its 2024 report it admitted it had previously considered itself outside the Federal Records Act, only determined in August 2021 that it was covered, and lacked a proper inventory of records. A formal records team wasn’t stood up until January 2024—long after the events of January 6.
**FBI:** Past official findings document serious gaps (for example, missing text messages from FBI devices covering late 2016–early 2017). Producing a document is not the same as establishing its full history, integrity, and completeness. The Cole investigation relies on purchase records, surveillance video, license-plate readers, and cellphone data—each with its own preservation trail that should be testable.
As a consultant I’ve spent years explaining why records need controls throughout their life. As a father I can’t stop imagining my own son facing a federal case where the records needed to challenge the government’s version are missing, incomplete, or unprotected. How would he show what was left out, challenge an altered record without an audit trail, or recover information that should have been kept?
I don’t know whether Brian Cole Jr. is guilty or innocent, and I’m not claiming he was framed. What the public record does show is serious weaknesses in federal recordkeeping, reinforced by my own experience at FirstNet. The government should have to demonstrate the integrity and history of the specific records it relies on—record by record. The chance that failures in those safeguards could let someone be framed and make the deception harder to uncover is horrifying; imagining it happening to my own son makes it unbearable.
"Whether the nation endures or dies, the knowledge is needed to build the future."
Our country's enemies - foreign and domestic - know this is true, sir, that's why they are so determined to destroy it.
I wish that were surprising. It isn't. I wish it weren't basically horrifying, it should be and would be if I were capable of that level of fear.
The government is and always will be a dangerous swarm of unseemly creatures working largely unsupervised and with the power to destroy anything that questions its incompetence.
Are we even really denting my statement by charging a couple of pensioners with lying to Congress and having a Hegseth in the Pentagon?
Americans lack the diligence to be engaged enough to overcome this threat. It would seem at least equally to the effort it took me to stay focused enough to read this epic without wandering off (trust me it's real).
All that black pilling I just wrote... Doesn't change the need to continue to try and educate people everyday. Whether the nation endures or dies, the knowledge is needed to build the future.
Hopefully @donlueders will be seen soon on the ColemanNation Podcast to promote his new book.
There's an explosive, important new book coming out tomorrow by former UK Prime Minister, from my publisher, Free Speech Press. Don't miss it.
See links to the book in the post's comments.
@trussliz @1MikeFairclough
I'd be curious to know what Wendell Phillips would say if he knew that our government has not preserved ANY of its records in compliance with the law for nearly 2 decades, as I prove in my book, "I Don't Recall: A Democracy Without Memory."
What do you think, @AOTUS12_Wilson?
Today's #FoundingFriday quote comes from abolitionist Wendell Phillips, "the heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future.” This quote can be found on a statue at the National Archives building in Washington, DC.
Some very kind words from the good folks at Firsthand Media:
Every journalist or lawyer who has ever FOIA'd a document should pay attention to this issue. Listen to the interview and read @donlueders new book, "I Don't Recall: A Government Without Memory."
Ensuring that our federal records are kept accurately, securely, and accessibly is essential for government accountability to citizens, a just legal system, and an accurate understanding of history.
Also, Ms. Besong, please let me know how I can provide you with a free copy of my book, "I Don't Recall: A Government Without Memory."
It's chock-full of electronic records management failures someone in your new position will want to know about.
@USNatArchives @AOTUS12_Wilson
Congratulations new @USNatArchives Chief Records Officer, Laura Besong. Below is a list of 20 questions your predecessors could not - or would not - answer. Your new customers, the American people, need you to answer them. The success of our Democratic Republic depends on it. 🧵
Congratulations new @USNatArchives Chief Records Officer, Laura Besong. Below is a list of 20 questions your predecessors could not - or would not - answer. Your new customers, the American people, need you to answer them. The success of our Democratic Republic depends on it. 🧵
19. Microsoft 365 has become the primary collaboration platform across much of the federal government. Putting aside the dangerous monopoly implications of that, can Microsoft 365 serve as a compliant electronic records management solution under 36 CFR § 1236.20?