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Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email At State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, according to State Department officials. She may have violated federal requirements that officials' correspondence be retained as part of the agency's record. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. "It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business," said attorney Jason R. Baron. A spokesman for Clinton defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the "letter and spirit of the rules."
This seems indicative of sense that the rules do not apply to me.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Did I win?
So exactly what shady deals has she been concocting with her rich chums then? And leaving no email trail?
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Do you know what will happen to her? Not. A. God. Damn. Thing.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I'm genuinely curious. Can someone explain how Mrs. Clinton could use her personal email for official state business, and NOT break half a dozen laws and rules?
So, what's with the "possibly" stuff?
Sorry but "the shitstorm will be her punishment" isn't acceptable.
The rules are there for data retention and accountability purposes.
Didn't we learn ANYTHING from the whole Lois Lerner debacle?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
From the 'liberal' media of CNN, the Washington Post and Huffington post this morning.
Now I'm no fan of the Clintons, but if you don't see a coordination job then you're either a Fox news watcher or a Lotus eater ;)
Not really. The really one remaining significant difference between the parties is that public shaming is still a career-ender in the Democratic party. There's no post-scandal career phase as an evangelical preacher, Fox news commentator, or both waiting for guys like Anthony Wiener or William J. Jefferson (the freezer cash guy).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Unlike poor Karl Rove who is rotting in jail for doing the very same thing, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy
She must have sent a huge number of e-mails to 1000's of people. Didn't someone notice that the e-mails were from hillary@gmail.com instead of hillary@state.gov?
If I got an email from her dealing with official business, I would have questioned why it wasn't from a "real" e-mail address - as in whitehouse.gov or whatever.
Why didn't anyone say something sooner? Didn't someone suspect her emails the same way I would suspect an e-mail from a Nigerian prince needing help?
There is an ancient concept called "sovereign immunity" which holds that rulers (people making laws) are automatically exempt from those laws. The theory is they would carve exemptions for themselves if it weren't so wordy or otherwise onerous (requiring foresight). To be sure, this self-justifying concept is very attractive! Free-riders include some enforcers of the law (police). Small wonder that Hillary behaves as "rules are for the little people."
However, the concept belongs to fealty and other power politics. It has no place in a democracy, and still less in the US which explicity rejects individual titles and power. Everyone is supposed to be equal before the laws, and have laws enforced uniformly. As it is now, "color of law" is near-immunity from it. We do not have a democracy but elected/appointed dictatorships, fortunately still fragmented.
I am sure, after the Snowden revelations, that she felt that using her personal email for conducting official business was the safest and most prudent way to backup her email. It required absolute no effort on her part and it was guaranteed to be retained. A Win Win for sure!
The law must be satisfied to the extent possible.
For starters: No deleting any e-mail in the personal account until the go'vt can review. Hand over the credentials for the "personal" accounts and allow all messages contained or archived to be copied to the federal servers and go into the public record; contact the email service provider with a court order to hand over all backups, have a police seizure of all digital media Mrs. Hillary had access to, and charge Mrs. Hillary the cost of compliance with the order for recovery of official messages resulting from non-compliance with the law.
I dunno, did we learn anything from the gwb43.com debacle? I suspect that what Clinton has learned is that she's not in violation of the law if she can produce her emails on subpoena, and even if she is in violation, she's learned that nothing will happen.
It'd be interesting to go back to the slashdot archives for the articles about Bush's use of private email, and see how many accounts that were defending Bush are bashing Clinton, and how many people bashing Bush are defending Clinton.
I'm sure the Bush defenders will argue that they haven't flipflopped, it's just not the same when it's not a Republican doing it.
...the burner phones. :-)
http://www.quora.com/Why-does-...
I'm curious as to whether the "official" State Department email was encrypted by design, and whether her private email was encrypted at all. Seems to me that a lot of State Department secrets might be laying around in various places if her emails weren't encrypted.
I'm also curious as to how she proposes to PROVE that she's turned over all of her official emails to the State Department. After all, it might behoove her to "overlook" certain emails that portray her or the Administration in an unflattering light....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Hillary is not the only one to blame, imo anybody from the government who sent sensitive matters to that email is.
The Bush White House email controversy surfaced in 2007 during the controversy involving the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain hosted on an email server not controlled by the federal government. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the Hatch Act. Over 5 million emails may have been lost or deleted. Greg Palast claims to have come up with 500 of the Karl Rove lost emails, leading to damaging allegations. In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been deleted.
The administration officials had been using a private Internet domain, called gwb43.com, owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee, for various communications of unknown content or purpose. The domain name is an acronym standing for "George W. Bush, 43rd" President of the United States. The server came public when it was discovered that J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas. Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com (registered to "Bush-Cheney '04, Inc.") and rnchq.org (registered to "Republican National Committee"), but, unlike these two servers, gwb43.com has no Web server connected to it — it is used only for email.
The "gwb43.com" domain name was publicized by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), who sent a letter to Oversight and Government Reform Committee committee chairman Henry A. Waxman requesting an investigation. Waxman sent a formal warning to the RNC, advising them to retain copies of all emails sent by White House employees. According to Waxman, "in some instances, White House officials were using nongovernmental accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of the communications." The Republican National Committee claims to have erased the emails, supposedly making them unavailable for Congressional investigators.
On April 12, 2007, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel stated that White House staffers were told to use RNC accounts to "err on the side of avoiding violations of the Hatch Act, but they should also retain that information so it can be reviewed for the Presidential Records Act," and that "some employees ... have communicated about official business on those political email accounts." Stanzel also said that even though RNC policy since 2004 has been to retain all emails of White House staff with RNC accounts, the staffers had the ability to delete the email themselves.
Not that being a "career-ender" actually matters to either Dems or Reps - if you're worth millions, who cares if you don't have a job?
And Bill Clinton, like Barack Obama, came into the office basically upper-middle to lower-upper class, and left or will leave as multimillionaires (Clinton is worth double-digit millions, Obama is approaching a billion).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
So no trial, just execution of punishment? No thought into if the emails were actually stored or not, just punishment because you dont agree with her politics?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
And clearly demonstrated evidence of intercepts being used to blackmail politicians to avoid them cleaning house and shutting down agencies and to avoid them starving agency budgets.
There once was a senator from mass.
Who went out in search for a piece of asd
Lucked up and found it
But fucked up and drowned it
Even that didn't end his ass.
...this does not seem to be that serious an infraction. To the average citizen, they will see this as the equivalent of using Firefox or Chrome when told to use only IE. (which, interestingly enough, her staff at the state department begged her to allow).In reality though, this is a VERY serious violation of IT/Security policy. The govt run email system has certain protections in place to ensure confidentiality, repel intrusion, prevent staff from snooping on emails, etc. While other email providers also care about these things, it's almost guaranteed that will not go to the same lengths to protect against and punish malfeasance. If I were her, the NSA revelations would have given me stomach ulcer. A govt email could easily be excluded from any digital reconnaissance conducted by the NSA. Her gmail or yahoo account? Just the opposite. And heaven help us if other countries have anything close to our capabilities/level of infiltration into 3rd party email providers. She should seriously be pondering how many of her foreign policy initiatives were foiled as result of her utter laziness and willful ignorance. They should fire some people at the state department -- anyone who received an email from her should have noticed she was using her personal email, and should have "blown the whistle". And this should be a major campaign issue -- but it won't.Our political system is not for the rational -- it's for the power hungry and those entertained by the power hungry. Full hypocrisy disclosure -- I also love House of Cards.
But NONE of the government recipients or people who used to be in government notified any authorities in the US Government that Hillary was violating the rules that they had to follow. So are they all complicit in breaking the law?
Given that private email accounts are not likely secure, how is it that other government official would send sensitive and sometimes secret materials to a private email account of Hillary's. That would also make any government official who sent official emails to Hillary guilty for not following the law.
Just another example of the fact we must follow the law or get hammered by government departments, but when the Clinton's violate law, it's just time for another spin job from Bill & Hillary: "What difference does it make?" with arms raised and screeching. God help the US.
Burn her!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
This one doesn't pass the smell test for me. If there wasn't something fishy going on it sure looks like there was. Why would she not only choose to use a private email account but not even have an official government email address during that four year period?
Not only that but "no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act". I suspect that "no actions" is really 'we were told expressly by Ms. Clinton not to back up any of her email messages'. Everything that passes through State department servers should be backed up routinely. How can it be that for four years none of her emails were backed up anywhere?
This whole thing reminds me of the recent IRS scandal where email backups were suddenly just gone and nobody knows why.
Hillary has a long string of "things that make you go hmmmm...", all the way back to when Slick Willy was in the White House. This is just the most recent example. Politics aside, she is just a person that appears to be slippery and dishonest. What Bill has, that she never will, is a likability that allows some to look past imperfections. She is not to be trusted and will not get my vote.
Her politics? Here I thought this was a breach of security. But, ok, lets just sweep it under the rug as 'politics'.
Well, if anybody else in government did this, they'd get fired, lose their pension, and possibly face criminal charges.
When the people at the highest levels of power decide that the law doesn't apply to them, nothing at all happens.
So, on behalf of the rest of the world ... when the political leaders ignore the law and face no consequences, the rest of us want to send a big collective "fuck you".
This has nothing to do with her politics. If Bush or Cheney had done this, we'd want them prosecuted as well.
Laws which are selectively applied are crap. Assholes in power who believe the law doesn't apply to them need to be punished.
These laws exist so there is a public record of activities, not some place where you can sidestep that and conduct business elsewhere away from oversight.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And Bill Clinton, like Barack Obama, came into the office basically upper-middle to lower-upper class, and left or will leave as multimillionaires
Obama was a multimillionaire before entering the White House, mainly on the strength of his book deals. And Clinton had more than a few investment properties in his Arkansas days. (Famously including Whitewater, but there were some presumably legitimate ones in there too.) Clinton's net worth was almost definitely in the millions when he took office.
The difference is that there was outrage for those years that Bush and Company were up to their dealings. Now that we have a new boss (that's the same as the old boss) there is silence from the harshest critics of the Bush regime. What happened to all the protestors with their signs that shown the Republicans as Nazis? Where's all the cries that the Patriot Act was a gateway to totalitarian politics? Where are those that thought we were being eavesdropped on by the man? What happened to all those voices?
Oh, that's right. Now that the shoe is on the other foot we're just going to let it slide?
It had nothing to do with the policies of one administration to another. It was about partisan cheerleading.
Put up or shut up.
You are glad that someone as seasoned at breaking the rules in technology is doing so? That sounds like a great thing to me. Here we go, here are more Government idiots who know how to use technology and will make sure that they have zero accountability! I am glad that the monkeys at the top finally learned the basics of interwebz 101 and know how to cover their tracks. We wouldn't want our Government officials to be held accountable now, would we?
Obama is approaching a billion
Really? How?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
They should all be in jail. I don't think one person breaking the rules is excused by a third party doing the same. Unless you are trying to say that two wrongs do make a right?
I think you have misinterpreted the rules a bit. Campaigning and party activity are prohibited with government resources.
The President and Cabinet sending emails on implementing political goals are permitted activities. Sending emails about ?NC platform discussions are not permitted.
When I went through ethics training with the GC, it was very clear what was and was not permissible. From the GC point of view, the default was use goverment email and save every email.
I can see the desire, particularly at the executive level, not to leave a record because policy formulation can be a messy activity. However, I'm not sure that is the motivation in this case. First, there is no control over the retention of the other end and, second, a lot discussion happens on the classified side.
That may surprise people here. The Republicans have done a good job painting her as the quintessential ultra-liberal Democrat, but really she is no such thing. She is, in fact, from the right wing of the party and could have been an establishment Republican a generation ago. She is widely reviled by the left over her vote on the Iraq War Authorization of Military Force (although to be fair, Joe Biden voted for it too and he's seen as generally reliable on liberal issues, as long as he doesn't open his mouth).
On the other hand she's the first really plausible female presidential candidate for a major party, and I think a lot of people who want to see that milestone project a great deal of their hopes on her. But what makes her plausible in the first place is her acceptability to the establishment.
And what makes her acceptable to the establishment is her competence and personal accomplishments; being married to Bill helps. But the Ivy League education, experience in high profile NGOs and partnership in a major law firm mean she's seen as serious by "serious people". But in this case that should be held against her here. She's not like old Uncle Joe (Biden), whose heart is in the right place but who the hell can tell where his mind might go a-wandering; Hillary is someone you expect to have her head in the game. She knew damn well that conducting official business on non-government servers is exactly what people do when they're breaking the law.
I'm neither a Hillary partisan nor a Hillary hater. On the political spectrum I tend to fall a little to the right of the most vocal Democratic base and to the left of the establishment "DLC" wing that dominates the party at the national level. When the Secretary of State does something this fishy, that's a big deal. I think there should be something like a special prosecutor appointed, even though when the words "Clinton" and "special prosecutor" are uttered in the sentence the word "circus" can't be far behind. But then if the special prosecutor finds no indictable offense I'd be happy with that result.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So no trial, just execution of punishment?
She'll cop a plea, and Obama will pardon her on his way out. For a small consideration of $40M or so towards his presidential library fund.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Since the CIA monitors government email and the NSA monitors private email, I don't really think this is a security issue.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Yes, that's exactly that would happen if Anonymous Coward was appointed supreme emperor. Fortunately, the existing corrupt politicians are unlikely to give up their power that easily. AC would be floating in a river by sun up.
I suspect the sentiment was more frustration that politicians are almost never held accountable.
Best idea on term limits comes from a bumper sticker: "Two terms. One in Congress, the other in federal prison for what they did while in Congress."
You applaud Hillary for breaking the rules...good for you.
That is right, leaders shouldn't have to worry about rules like "accountability" and "morality" and "laws of the land" because that would get in the way of these tinpot dictators from doing what they wish. Couldn't have that in modern politics now, could we?
Nah, real leaders just break all the rules, murder their opposition and leave no trace to what they actually did. At least that is what you are saying. Maybe you used bad wording or such, but in the end the conclusion is the same...without accountability there is no way to make sure our leaders actually follow the same laws they put on the rest of us.
Sandy Berger told her so.
Maybe just maybe they think she should be punished for the laws that she broke as written above in the summary. Did you bother to read that before you started kissing the heck out of Hillary's backside?
Just out of curiosity, what email systems does she use? Hopefully not Yahoo mail, that was the one that the Alaska governess had gotten hacked with, right?
I assume her official US government email would have been similar to the system I used while working for a DoD contractor: Outlook / Exchange, where you had to use your smartcard + PIN to encrypt or at least digitally sign every email sent, and there was a 50MB limit on your server-side inbox, 2MB limit on attachments, and no zip files or Office documents or anything else the virus scanner couldn't recognize. And accidentally hitting Ctrl-Enter-Enter would automagically send your mail off prematurely unless you were permitted to change that option.
Because you do not like her, you categorize this as breach of security? Is there really any security in politics??? Whenever someone who is supposed to run for a position in politic, any knit-picking story will arise no matter what in order to "hoo-ha" those who are opposing the candidate (and hope the story will stick)...
Not only does 'Billary' avoid oversight with respect to government emails, but she also defended a rapist and insulted the victim:
Rapist
And people actually vote for her? How sad.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
This will not dissuade Ms. Clinton's adorers, who'll dismiss it all as yet another manifestation of the infamous vast right-wing conspiracy. They love her for being a Collectivist (as in "It takes a village"), a Democrat, and the first female President.
Nor will it affect her opponents ("haters") much, because to them this only confirms, what they knew or suspected for years.
Nothing new here, move along...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If the Whitehouse can present no backup of this account and for some unknown reason the ISP does not have one, further potential litigation could be avoided perhaps if they ask the nice people at the NSA for their backup ;-)
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken
When the administration of the previous guy ... what was his name again? nobody ever talks about him any more ... used personal email instead of government email it was quickly made into a non-issue by our fearless "liberal media". Now Hillary may have done the same and it's a big deal. Why?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Shes a democrat, she could kill children on the street and get away with it.
You misspelled politician, but since you still believe in the illusion of opposing sides providing benefit to anyone, not sure my clarification means much.
Because you do not like her.
Do I? Or don't I? How would you know by my statement? I don't care who it is. If someone as high ranking as that, and potential future POTUS, is conducting all business on their yahoo account, we should raise an eyebrow or three.
Is there really any security in politics???
If only Nixon would have used that line at Watergate.
If it's one of the media darlings then it's politics. If it's someone they don't like then it's a breach of the law. Try to keep up.
So no trial, just execution of punishment? No thought into if the emails were actually stored or not, just punishment because you dont agree with her politics?
That has been the standard approach of the GOP towards all democrats for some time now. Look at all the conspiracy nuts out there who are certain that Obama deserves immediate forceful removal from the white house sans trial over ... well, insert your favorite conspiracy here. They don't care if their favorite conspiracy has already been investigated numerous times by nonpartisan public and private sources. They don't care about rule of law, either. They just grab any flimsy justification they can to force out a democrat, just for being a democrat.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"RULES?" Come on. If I kill someone I'm not "breaking the rules," I am breaking the LAW.
Likewise, this is Federal Law.
At least the apologists at the NY Times are out in force here to minimize it.
I doubt that anyone else would get in all that much trouble. The media would no doubt castigate them if they were a conservative but no one in political power actually gets in any real trouble for breaking minor laws. I'm old enough to remember when Tricky Dick got in trouble over the Watergate scandle and I wonder if it happened today if he would still have to resign. I seriously doubt it. Sad that we hold our leaders to a lesser standard than ordinary people. Tragic really.
Any evidence of this? Did you read the part about how this law is rarely if ever prosecuted?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
No we wouldn't, I couldn't stand Bush and I definitely didn't like Cheney - but I wouldn't be worked up about this huge big fat non-issue. I'd be worked up over torture, sure, but not the use of a personal email address. That's a slap on the wrist offense.
Segregated emails annoying? Are you kidding me? I go out of my way to keep personal and business emails separate, to the point of having a stock"bounce" email I send to people who accidentally send to the wrong email address. Same with phone numbers - one personal, one business.
She's either lazy or evil. Given it's Hillary, I'm going to split the difference and call it both. Too lazy to have two emails, just evil enough to know that if she says something awful she can at least delete it from her end. (I mean, every email goes somewhere so it's not like you can delete all of the copies yourself.)
As a (mostly) Democrat, I sincerely hope she doesn't run for President. While I think she has been vilified by the right beyond her actual failings, I'm not a fan of her in general. More importantly, I might get stuck voting for her as a result of some nutjob who makes it through the GOP primaries. Either that or I'll have to write in Bill 'n' Opus.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
On the one hand, I'm glad someone as seasoned as her is using modern technology.
As many of you likely know, having segregated emails can be.... , a bit annoying and roadblocking. If I had to guess, she did this as a matter of convenience more than to 'buck the rules'. I've probably done it myself, and I'm just a lowly 'Systems Admin'. Hard to guess what things are like at Sec. of State level.
While I'm sure this did break rules, and I haven't bothered to look at the specifics, I can't imagine the consequence of such an action to be too severe. In fact, I'd argue the media shitstorm that is about to come from this from the political right, will far outweigh any punishment. I can already feel them 'seething' over this. Also have to wonder how they'll spin this if she does indeed run for POTUS.
In short, slight ethics, infosec. violation at Federal Level? Likely. Enough to break out the torches? Haven't they already bit lit for like the past 2 decades???
At most this makes my knee itch a little. But that might also be a mosquito bite.
What should happen is violations of security policy blatantly laid out in front of her and her staff, and then review past events to see how they were handled. She should not be above any punishment here, to include termination.
What will happen is something totally different and likely illegal, which is why she will run for POTUS and win.
Corruption is not merely part of this game. It's now mandatory in the job description, and you're going to be fucking good at it. Because the public allows it, they should not be surprised when shit like this happens. It's going to only get worse because every politician knows they can get away with anything these days.
Who said she broke laws? Was there a conviction? When was the trial? My issue is with that he jumped past arrested and tried and wanted summary execution of punishment. If you want to see this investigated and tried by all means, but to disallow her due process just because you dont like her, and me pointing out the problem with that is more your problem then me "kissing the heck out of Hillary's backside". But I guess with your "with us or against us" mentality what else would I expect.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
After the story broke, several pundits commented that the media will drop the Hillary story as quickly as possible and start digging into Scott Walker's email usage. Sure enough, the first article has appeared. Walker "blurred the lines" while in county government: http://m.jsonline.com/news/sta....
And she wants to be president? I don't think so.
I like Hillary Clinton. So how did you (or as you stated, 'we') get to your conclusion? You accuse me of not liking Hillary, and that just devastates me by the way. Where is your information that was put in evidence?
Like she's even going to get charged. Get real.
Holder deliberately gave guns to Mexican drug lorgs and didn't get charged. I don't think Hillary using her personal email is going to get Obama to turn on her ... lol.
Yes, today Nixon would still have to resign for two reasons:
1. He's a Republican and ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and all of the other liberal Democratic Party allied new media outlets would scream bloody murder how horrible this all was.
2. Just like in the 70's Republican voters are by and large don't wink at dishonesty in their ranks, but actually hate it. It's part of the conservative personality. So they would not support him.
Of course, if the exact same scandal occurred with Obama he would not have to resign for two reasons:
1. He's a Democrat and ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and all of the other liberal Democratic Party allied new media outlets would scream bloody murder how horribly racist people are who criticize Obama and how "good people" are able to rise above such racism.
2. Democrat voters by and large wink at dishonesty in their ranks and actually admire it. When a Democratic President like Clinton or Obama lie and everyone knows they are lying you see most of the liberal media wink and nod at how "savvy" a politician he is.
That is why there are convicted felons in the party who get their support, because they hate it and dont want to support them, such as Grimm, who had support and voted in while on trial....
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The elected officials no matter the party stop following the spirit of rules or the spirit of law and actually follow the fucking rules or law.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Well, if anybody else in government did this, they'd get fired, lose their pension, and possibly face criminal charges.
When the people at the highest levels of power decide that the law doesn't apply to them, nothing at all happens.
So, on behalf of the rest of the world ... when the political leaders ignore the law and face no consequences, the rest of us want to send a big collective "fuck you".
This has nothing to do with her politics. If Bush or Cheney had done this, we'd want them prosecuted as well.
Laws which are selectively applied are crap. Assholes in power who believe the law doesn't apply to them need to be punished.
These laws exist so there is a public record of activities, not some place where you can sidestep that and conduct business elsewhere away from oversight.
So you're saying Clinton should maybe be fined for something other than violating recordkeeping policy?
On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, making false statements, and two counts of perjury. He was acquitted on one count of making false statements. He was not charged for revealing Plame's CIA status. His sentence included a $250,000 fine, 30 months in prison and two years of probation. On July 2, 2007, President George W. Bush commuted Libby's sentence, removing the jail term but leaving in place the fine and probation, calling the sentence "excessive."[43][44] In a subsequent press conference, on July 12, 2007, Bush noted, "...the Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision."
(from the Valerie Plame wikipedia article)
Another Democrat blaming bush for Democratic shortcomings!
God damn, grow some adult pants and take responsibility for your decisions.
He never said to skip the legal process, he said that she should wind up in jail. I would enjoy watching that trial as it plays out during the Democrat Primary...
I suspect she'd have another one of those priceless Hillary moments "What difference, at this point, does it make..."
Ken
Well, if anybody else in government did this, they'd get fired, lose their pension, and possibly face criminal charges.
Still waiting on charges against Sarah Palin, for the same offense. I'm guessing it will be a cold day in hell before either sees any consequences beyond partisan propaganda. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is one of those rules, like declaring any gifts over $50, that gets employees a firm warning not to do it again.
The whole Snowden debacle showed us that wrongdoing CAN be caught by forcing these people to use accountable services.
Rather than taking things off to private, unaccountable services.
Sure, the release of the Snowden info embarrassed a lot of people. But they were people doing things they shouldn't have been in the first place. Thinking that NOBODY would EVER get to look at government data who wasn't already in on the swindle.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Sorry, but on instances of government, I take an "us vs them" stance.
Us, being the general populace of the US. The people the government is supposed to be accountable to.
Them, being the government, elected and appointed officials and all the aides, toadies, hangers-on, etc that constitute our vastly overgrown federal, state and local apparatus.
But if you want to turn this into Republicrats vs Demoblicans, that's on you.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Worst of all the email address she used was sexeh_mama56@hotmail.com
mailto:Hilldog@sendit.com
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
It will be an interesting exercise to compare the Bush Whitehouse Email Controversy' with Hilary's erupting email 'scandal'
Ken
Bush was a millionaire when he entered office (both Bushs).
Clinton was not a millionaire when he entered office - I think his gig as Gov. Of Arkansas netted him a cool $35K in salary.
Obama stepped into office a millionaire from book sales of his TWO autobiographies.
If Hillary becomes President, she'll step in as a multi-millionaire - probably richer than 'obscenely' rich Mitt Romney.
Ken
Yes it's completely political, forgive me for thinking that a person holding such high office should abide by rules, regulations and even law, for more info see the Federal Records Act.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Defend. Please.
Clinton lied under oath in court while President - his career ended?
Ken
Put it like this, how unprofessional is it if say you are talking to a vendor and instead of giving you a myname@mycompany.com they give you myname@yahoo.com
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
You forget Bush did do this, well similar this is why the FRA was altered to cover Presidential emails.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
So you don't think it gives a glimpse into the persons character or ethics?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Oh, she just uses her own domain, which someone registered for her the week before she was sworn in as Sec of State. clintonemail.com
whois clintonemail.com | grep "Registrant Name"
Registrant Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Hey, LOOK everybody, Clinton supports PRIVACY rights from the prying eyes of the NSA!
nmap clintonemail.com
Starting Nmap 6.47 ( http://nmap.org/ ) at 2015-03-03 07:50 PST
... and ... transparency through old video streaming technology.
Nmap scan report for clintonemail.com (208.91.197.27)
Host is up (0.083s latency).
Not shown: 996 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
53/tcp open domain
80/tcp open http
554/tcp open rtsp
7070/tcp open realserver
curl -vi clintonemail.com ... says it's an apache server, so there's that.
You are aware you can break laws without a conviction right?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
After all, it might behoove her to "overlook" certain emails that portray her or the Administration in an unflattering light....
Ya think?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The whole Snowden debacle showed us that wrongdoing CAN be caught by forcing these people to use accountable services.
It's not that I'm not in favor of that, it's that there's a valid counterargument. It may not be compelling, but at least it isn't invented.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
After some quick digging, this appears to be the law broken:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
Basically, she was required by law to archive her communications on federal servers. She did not.
Also of note, according to TSG she forwarded classified intelligence Emails to Sidney Blumenthal, who was not a federal employee.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/d...
They just figured out what e-mail is.
Now they are all going to want those noisy teletype machines in their offices replaced.
Have gnu, will travel.
They aren't reports, they are news stories. Or do you not think the Secretary of State of the United States of America not having a state.gov email address is a big deal?
I think it's astounding. We are not arguing over whether she had one and decided (for whatever reason) not to use one. She was never issued one.
Doesn't that bother you?
"It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,
And yet, Kerry is the first Secretary of State to actually use a government email. Clinton was evidently following standard practices at the State Department.
She used her own private address for government work, so now all of the email that has ever gone to or from that address should be retained by the government for the public.
Why, even if it were a government address, this would not happen. Only those records that are not sensitive or classified get turned over, which is exactly what she did, although after the fact. So, why would you hold her to a higher standard than what the law requires?
... that what Hillary did is against virtually every US government agency policy and directive. You are NEVER to conduct official government business on public systems due to security, archiving and many other reasons. The Clintons are the prototypical scofflaw Democrats.
Actually, if that were true, then the Federal Records Act wouldn't need a section dealing with archiving personal emails and the like. What about using personal stationary and your own stamps, is that forbidden, too?
No, the Federal Records Act simply states that the communications need to be archived and submitted, which she actually did. This is nothing more than trying to make a scandal where none exists. Even Condoleezza Rice used her own cell phone while SOS. SOS Kerry is the first to use a government issued phone and email account.
By getting this out there now, it can be written off as "old news" come election time. Savvy news media types know that the best time to expose the skeletons is months in advance. Savvy politicians know this too so expect more of these types of stories being "leaked" to the sympathetic press teams in the next few months. Meanwhile, the opposition is gnashing their teeth and hoping that they are able to reserve most the things that could discredit Hillary until the very last moment.
Another thought occurs to me as well; it seems that every time something like this happens to a liberal candidate, the majority of comments are along the lines of "oh it doesn't really matter because all politicians do this". As if it's expected. I recall the Earth shattering k-boom that rocked the planet when it was revealed that Sarah Pallin used gmail when she was Governor. The amount of ZOMGICANTBELIEVEITHOWSTUPIDANDILLEGALANDIMMORALANDJUSTPLAINDOWNRIGHTBAD that is. Yes, they all do it. Some of them do it for the purposes of obscuring and avoiding exposure. Some of them do it because they are lazy and/or stupid. I'm not proposing that Hillary needs to be put in the public square and become the target of rotten fruit. Just keep this in mind the next time a Republican is exposed and treat the occasion with the same level of contempt.
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy
>> "It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,
I may be in the minority here, but I think this is perfectly acceptable and intuitive. I'm sorry we WANT to be able to monitor communication channels of officials. At the top executive branch level, that's impractical. If she was never issued an address, that's largely irrelevant to the nature of the agenda. The Law often conflicts with reality, so this doesn't surprise or alarm me. The statement about nuclear winter is laughably partisan.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Well, if anybody else in government did this, they'd get fired, lose their pension, and possibly face criminal charges.
Sarah Palin didn't, neither will HRC.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
There is a war going on for your mind.
Then there is the whole Fucking Common Sense thing about Government Employees using Government emails to discuss Government business.
Seems like it's a good opportunity to create a new, well deserved law that any correspondence about government business, policy or even what color you want your office painted needs to be done on a government email account.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
irrelevant. You have to prove she broke the law before you can say she needs to be punished for breaking it. We are the land of the free.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So It's really only about whether there was a rule/law. Not whether or not what she was doing obviously is sketchy? Maybe set up a domain of your own and conduct all your employer's business through it. Does it make sense to you that it's ok as long as your employer has no rule? My kids try this angle a lot and they don't get anywhere.
...to burn the witch.
To me at least.
I think it may be something regarding that whole... "THIS IS LIKE THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR III" thing.
When it is actually closer to an overzealous former librarian complaining about overdue books turned in late.
From TFA:
It was only two months ago, in response to a new State Department effort to comply with federal record-keeping practices, that Mrs. Clinton's advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal emails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department. All told, 55,000 pages of emails were given to the department.
...
"It's a shame it didn't take place automatically when she was secretary of state as it should have," said Thomas S. Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a group based at George Washington University that advocates government transparency. "Someone in the State Department deserves credit for taking the initiative to ask for the records back. Most of the time it takes the threat of litigation and embarrassment."
...
"I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business," said Mr. Baron, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013.
...
Before the current regulations went into effect, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who served from 2001 to 2005, used personal email to communicate with American officials and ambassadors and foreign leaders.
...
Penalties for not complying with federal record-keeping requirements are rare, because the National Archives has few enforcement abilities.
...
"It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario - short of nuclear winter - where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business," said Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath who is a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Do we know who the provider is? Seems to be a problem if she was using insecure email to send sensitive info. Such a OBL?
Don't worry Hillary, the NSA has your back (up).
AND remember the liberal democrat cries about Sarah Palin's alleged use of private email for public use (until it was hacked and nothing was found) ??
Yeah, the same people who were screaming lunatic mad about that, are the same ones suddenly silent here. Those people need to be "named and shamed".
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
For all of you 20-yr-olds...
Bush & co did it first.
mark
David Petraeus just pled guilty to removal and transfer of classified materials.
Well, if anybody else in government did this, they'd get fired, lose their pension, and possibly face criminal charges.
Well, Condolezza Rice did it and nobody seems upset about that. According to the WSJ, Kerry is the first Sec of State to use a government email account.
I voted democrat in the past 2 elections, and I think this is pretty horrible. This is far worse than when Palin did it because it puts national security at risk.
Wasn't her's a possible violation of state law? Is Alaska's law the same as the Feds?
I fully understand the implication for archival purposes of this failure and I'm not happy but it seems she's trying to rectify this thought I'd rather a national archivist select which emails get archived not her staff. However,I kind of yawn at this aspect of things: not good but not worth getting in a tissy over.
My greater concern was if any of the communication was classified or unclassified but sensitive. I mean over the course of her tenure she's got to have had some emails like that. Even if none of it was classified or sensitive, does she understand the implications this has for national security particularly should she become president and do something this boneheaded? She's gotta know she was doing it and it was wrong.
Nobody claimed that either Bush wasn't a multimillionaire. And like President Obama earned his millions somewhere other than the Senate, Clinton earned money outside the governor's office. The Bushes earned money in businesses. Obama earned money as an author. And Clinton earned money in real estate and some other investments. There's nothing wrong with any of this (well, other than Whitewater), but none of them were in the middle class when they entered the White House.
If she had classified intelligence emails on unapproved servers, then that's another violation as well. One count per email.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
So, I'd like to see the text of the "rule" saying she needed to use a .gov account before saying she broke the law. (People seem to be referring to the 2013 National Archives and Records Administration guidance as the "rules", but 2013 was after she left office.)
After some quick digging, this appears to be the law broken:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
Basically, she was required by law to archive her communications on federal servers. She did not.
The link you give says nothing of the sort. The link states that a government may require an ISP to archive e-mail subject to a subpoena.
That has precisely nothing to do with State Department employees, nor does it say anything whatsoever about what e-mail addresses they use.
Also of note, according to TSG she forwarded classified intelligence Emails to Sidney Blumenthal, who was not a federal employee.
That is a great example of "ABCs"-- Argument By Changing the subject.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So releasing secure documents to someone outside of government is not "illegal"?
You really believe that?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
After some quick digging, this appears to be the law broken: https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
That link says nothing whatsoever about rules for government employee e-mail.
That's a link to rules about ISPs archiving e-mail that is the subject of a subpoena.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It is pretty clear cut.
1. She used her outside email for agency business (admitted, and known)
2. She has been out of the office for quite a while now, and they still don't have that pesky backup of the data.
She has broken the law. It is very unlikely she will ever be charged for it, but it is a pretty clear cut law.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The records law was brought into the 21st century after Clinton left the State Department. Also, she turned over all official correspondence.
She may not have violated any laws.
http://thedailybanter.com/2015...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
This passage may prove key:
If she CC'd a government email address each and every time she was on gov't business, then technically it would be properly preserved because all gov't email accounts are supposed to be archived. We don't know if or how many were not CC'd in this way yet.
As far as whether using that technique is an official "security risk" is also unclear. Bad practice, yes. Illegal, perhaps not.
I expect a lot of complex and controversial interpreting of the law text during the course of this. Laws involving IT are often vague.
Table-ized A.I.
Smell that stench of hypocrisy? It its the smell of Republicans dropping their pants and shitting on the fire built for them by the media.
It blends perfectly with the hypocritical stench of "librul bias" in the media, which bares the scent of decades of Republicans pissing on objective facts. Fox News is where they go and swill cheap beer so they can keep going with that decades long pissing contest.
Ultimately they are pissing and shitting on the Constitution, and for some reason I don't understand nobody seems to care.
Why is Snark Required?
Yes. Let's ask David Petraeus what he thinks about this.
If government officials are using personal mail on public mail servers from the network at the State Dept they also have some serious security issues. Most corporate security policies prohibit that behavior for good reason, even if they don't enforce it. It generally bypasses your email antivirus protection.
Like the people at the DOJ, EPA, and the IRS? You mean those people? It's the media's job to reveal these things. We have a media now that is in the tank of one party and ignores wrongdoing. This country is dead.
His point stands. Colin Powell is no conservative.
Yes, in some elections we can only choose the lesser of two evils.
But it makes me mad when people use that as an excuse to not go to the polls. Because if you don't choose the lesser of two evils, you'll get the greater of two evils.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
It's worse than not caring. After the IRS Commissioner testified before Congress that Lois Lerner's emails were lost and gone forever, the Inspector General located the backup tapes easily -- and we learn that THE I.T. GUYS HAD NEVER EVEN BEEN ASKED TO RETRIEVE THE BACKUPS. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Basically, she was required by law to archive her communications on federal servers. She did not.
She did, just not in a timely manner, and not in a way that can guarantee 100% coverage.
Learn to love Alaska
ABC News went into full panic mode today and tried to cover for Hillary by finding Republicans that might be guilty of the same thing. They quickly put together a story about a Republican Representative who had a gmail account on his business card
http://twitchy.com/2015/03/03/shocker-rep-jason-chaffetz-has-gmail-address-on-his-business-card-which-is-perfectly-ok/
Mission Accomplished - except for the embarrasing fact the Congress is not subject to FOIA/archive laws.
Whoops!
This is the strongest rebuttal yet to the government assertions that people do not have an expectation of privacy in emails. If the Whitehouse and State Department staffs think that a private email account if secure enough for government business, then clearly the government expects that emails are private.
This the the best rebuttal to claims that the government has the right to root through people's emails (even just the metadata) without a warrant.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It's a shame that the rest of the world don't get a vote. That seems fair given that your filthy and corrupt system allows politicians to be put into power by corporate interests and then pressure the rest of the world's governments to further those mundane financial interests.
Requiem for the American Dream
Wait, why should any of us care how Hillary gets her email. We're trumping up procedural irregularities as a criminal act.
Maybe she doesn't know the law. That would be bad for her. She has a J.D. degree.
Maybe she's computer illiterate and doesn't understand how to use two email accounts. Also bad for her.
Maybe she is lazy. Doubt it.
Maybe she doesn't believe in transparency in government, and wanted to avoid having a record. Perhaps, but it seems like the FBI and NSA could pull quite a bit off most email services. So really only a warrant away from not being much of a secret.
I'm going to kill myself if this is the main thing everytone talks about about in 2016.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...we had a local (fabricated) controversy about a county commissioner using his cell phone to order a pizza. Huge excuse for people to get all wound up about the "misuse" of government resources... waste of taxpayer money. You'd of thought a couple of phone calls from a guy working late (and being paid a pittance) were a horrible offense. I'd be surprised if most of you hadn't heard of similar incidents. They might even be more common than the reverse.
So we might make the leap (easy for some; impossible for others) that H.Clinton wasn't trying to something to get away with something nefarious. By using her personal email account, she avoided the pitfall of unthinkingly sending a fundraiser email, or a baby shower invitation, or a note to her paramour (well, maybe not) via her .gov email account.
Shucks, my mail tool has a little pull-down that lets me send a given email from any of several accounts. Occasionally I forget and send one from the wrong account. Good thing I'm not an elected official.
My point, to belabor it, is that every faux pas isn't necessarily devious. The fault lies as much with our hyper-partisan mentality as anything else.
That's a nice example of projection.
I just looked at the Wikipedia articles on the Federal/Presidential Records Act. It was amended in 2014, and one of the amendments was a requirement to use official government email (among other things). The previous Records Act said nothing about such communications, which was reasonable for a 1978 law.
Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State was form 2009 to 2013. In case you are unaware, 2013 happened before 2014, and therefore the amendments were not law when Clinton was Secretary of State. It is true that the current Secretary would be violating the law by using private email for official business, but we have Constitutional provisions against ex post facto laws.
This is one reason why I pay little attention to such complaints.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What criminal charges? What did Clinton do that was illegal at the time? If Kerry used a private email account, he'd be violating the law, but that's because the law was changed after Clinton left the State Department.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Charged for what? Using a personal email account was perfectly legal until the year after she left the State Department?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Breaking what rules? To be specific, breaking what rules that were in effect during her term at the State Department?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The rules are there now. During her time at the State Department, using a personal email account was both legal and accepted practice. Clinton was acting properly in this, and deserves no punishment. Since the law was changed after her tenure, Kerry would be violating the law if he were to use a private account for official use now.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Using a non-government email address was not illegal until 2014. Not handing over certain official communications when they're needed was and is illegal. Clinton acted perfectly legally in using a personal email account, and also in turning over tens of thousands of emails for official storage.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
As many in the private sector IT space know, if there is a compliance requirement to protect, archive, or destroy data, the responsibility falls on someone in the IT staff to ensure that everything is in place and working. Someone within IT knew that she was using her personal email address and should have put a mechanism in place to monitor, secure, and archive those emails. If she pushed back, they should have notified someone up the chain and ultimately the lawyers of her lack of compliance. Baring a documented trail that shows that IT reported on and attempted to rectify the situation somehow or that she was told to do something and refused to, White House IT is responsible for the failure here.
How about David Petraeus? Stephen Jin-Woo Kim?
At the time many ranking officials in the US had their own email servers - In 2013 the ruling came down to it must be an official government email address and server that was for email and official correspondences . Clinton resigned from that position in 2013 - So what was done was actually the norm for the time.
This so like the opposition to to bring up a non fact in light of the possible presidential bid in 2016
next this we'll hear is "Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi" again and the waste of time with yet another Hearing that will cost the american people millions.
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
Well, if it's true that Edward Snowden is coming to the US for trial, it'll be interesting to watch his trial in parallel with hers.
In the unlikely event that she gets a trial.
And he lives long enough to be tried.
The likelihood of those two events -- as estimated in casino odds -- is why gambling on political events is forbidden in the United States. (Though in the latter case, there is the possibility of someone with a lot of money on the line acting in a very murderly way, even if they don't care about him or what he did, one way or another.)
People would tend to be more honest if they put their partisan feelings to the side when they placed their bets. And poorer if they did not.
That simply wouldn't do.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Come on, people, this is SLASHDOT!
What mail server software did she use?
What kind of hardware?
How much ram? Disk?
What kind of internet did they have? Just one ISP? Two? Three? What kind of hardware used for firewall and ISP rollover and/or load balancing?
What kind of backup and redundancy? External disk? Redundant server? Offsite? Cloud? What kind of malware protection?
THAT'S WHAT WE SHOULD BE DISCUSSING! There are tons of other websites and blogs to bitch at each other about politics.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
...to anyone at or above the General Petraeus level.
So, the next Clinton administration will be just as transparent as the Obama administration.
"I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business," said Mr. Baron, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013.
Someone else pointed out that Cheney used mostly personal email for government business, but not solely, so I guess that gets a pass.
Also I saw no rule that requires all official emails use government servers. That's what she is accused of actually breaching. At least according to the summary and posters here. There's very little fact into what she did wrong, and more a focus on blaming her for something, anything, so long as it's plausible.
Learn to love Alaska
If Bush or Cheney had done this, we'd want them prosecuted as well.
I didn't see anyone on the right go after Cheney for doing the same thing. Most "official" correspondence was handled with "personal" email. And when confronted, those official dealings were "lost". Clinton claims to have followed the law, turning over all work emails from a personal acount. Cheney told the American people to fuck off, and the Conservatives loved it.
Learn to love Alaska
There's very little fact into what she did wrong, and more a focus on blaming her for something, anything, so long as it's plausible.
What I meant with torches and pitchforks and witch-burning .
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens