Harris expert: No files missing

A review of the secretary of state's computers shows no records of her actions during the election recount were destroyed.

By ALISA ULFERTS

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 2, 2001

TALLAHASSEE -- An expert hired by Secretary of State Katherine Harris says none of the computer records mapping her actions during the presidential recount were destroyed.

William G. Morgan of Bradenton, director of software development for Indigo Investment Systems, is expected to deliver his report to Harris in about two weeks.

His initial assessment showed no evidence of files missing from computers used by Republican officials to draft public statements during the recount, according to Harris' spokesman.

"No files were erased. No files were destroyed," spokesman David Host said Wednesday. He further sought to allay fears that Morgan may have destroyed records during the 21/2 days he analyzed them this week.

"He has done nothing to alter those computers whatsoever. He didn't even turn them on," Host said. Harris, also a Republican, was on a business trip Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Several Florida newspapers, including the St. Petersburg Times, have hired their own experts to inspect the four computers and review the expert's work.

Harris' office initially denied access to the hard drives, but later relented and invited the media to "verify Mr. Morgan's conclusions and perform any other study of these computers they deem appropriate."

From election night until the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to ballot recounts in Florida, Harris allowed two friends involved in Republican politics to draft public statements on the computers.

Harris has said campaign consultant Adam Goodman and lobbyist J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich were "personal friends with media experience" who were brought in because she lacked a press relations aide.

But a story last month in the New York Times suggested that some records on those computers may have been destroyed. The newspaper reported that it was told by Harris' attorneys that some files on two of the computers were erased.

The newspapers' own media expert, Ontrack Data International of Eden Prairie, Minn., a private firm specializing in what it calls "computer forensics," began work Wednesday afternoon.

Ontrack was the company that state law enforcement officials recommended to Harris.

The company's clients have included the FBI, NASA, Library of Congress and oil, utility and computer giants such as Amoco, General Electric and Hewlett Packard.

Harris decided to go with Morgan, a Democrat recommended by her staff.

At a briefing Wednesday morning with the dozen media groups, Ontrack officials said they will be looking for changes to the hard drives in the past several days. Project manager Stuart Hanley said he doesn't know why it took Morgan so long to make a copy of the computers' hard drives.

"That's a good question. We'd like to ask them that," Hanley said.

It's a question Democrats also want answered.

"The 2 1/2 days remind me of the missing part of the Nixon tapes," said Democratic Party spokesman Tony Welch. Reporters were not allowed to watch Morgan at work because Morgan was concerned about trade secrets, according to Host.

But that answer doesn't satisfy Welch.

"You don't spend 2 1/2 days behind closed doors working on those computers. Now exists the possibility that those computers were tampered with," Welch said. Host denied that.

As for the statements to the New York Times that some files had been erased, Host said Wednesday that state officials "reformatted" those computers, which were used on election night to monitor results.

During the reformatting process some files would have been erased, but Holt said all public records on those computers were saved in another form before the computers were reworked.

"There's no law that requires us to preserve records on the computer on which they were created," Host said.

But Host said that the other two computers used by Goodman and Stipanovich had not been reformatted and that all the public records that were on them have already been released to the media.

One of those computers is a Gateway with 8 gigabytes of hard drive storage and the other is a Dell with 3.2 gigabytes.

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