Clinton Regrets, But Defends, Use of Family Email Server

dcblogs writes: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that, in hindsight, her decision to use a private email server to conduct official business was not the best one. But she is defending it and said the system was secure. Clinton, at news conference in New York, said the email server that she used had been set up for former President Bill Clinton. The system had "numerous safeguards" and is on home property protected by the U.S. Secret Service, she said. "There were no security breaches," said Clinton. "I think the use of that server, which started with my husband, proved to be effective and secure," she said. It still remains unclear about just how appropriate Clinton's system was. As a general rule, government IT policies don't give federal employees the option of using their own email accounts to exclusively conduct government business.

Comments

As if SMTP were ever secure...

[mellon]

The sad irony here is that the Clinton presidency was the first where they had to set up a real email presence, and they hired some really smart people to do it. They did a great job. But that was a long time ago, and things have moved on. So they're getting criticized for using SSL 2.0 for transport security, which is a valid criticism now, but is still better security than most people have. And of course it's not like security on government servers is better. So this is kind of obviously a deliberate attempt to create a fuss over something that really isn't as significant as it's being pumped up to be.

On the plus side, maybe more people will start using strong TLS transport security for their email...

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[khasim]

In my opinion, the security is not the main point. It's a close second but not the main point.

The main point is transparency. Her official emails need to be controlled by some official other than her. So when someone files a FOIA request it can be assigned to a disinterested 3rd party.

Then it gets down to security.

She keeps switching from the segmentation of roles (official, non-official, personal, etc) to the security. She has got to be smart enough to understand that different roles have different requirements and those requirements are NOT based upon whether bad guys can crack her server.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[cahuenga]

Exactly. This story isn't about what is technically legal, it's about the choice she made when faced with a clear moral dilemma.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[cahuenga]

Then call it an ethical dilemma

Hillary was a Senator, front-row during the Bush Email Fiasco. She knew what was expected and knew it was a liability should it become public. She was also fully aware of the advantages as a future candidate for higher office – Namely, sanitizing rights to her official record if needed.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[CrimsonAvenger]

How would you feel about carrying two phones?

If the job required it, no problems. As a personal choice, no. Note that Hillary had the choice - she didn't have to be SecState if she found the job conditions too onerous. But obviously she liked the power more than she disliked the job conditions, and intended to ignore the job conditions anyway.

How would you feel about having your private email on a government server?

And this is why, when I worked for the government, I didn't do private email from work.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[tsqr]

When you read science fiction, does the character with the smart phone carry two of them so that she can have access to her secure stuff and her regular stuff? Hell no.

Science fiction != real life. But that aside, what's up with the whole lame "two phones" argument? Most people who have smartphones know you can have two email clients connecting to two different accounts on two different services on a single device.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[CauseBy]

We know 100% positively for certain that State Department email systems are cracked, therefore Clinton's personal email server cannot possibly be less secure than State Dept email servers. Maybe the security cert was generic, or whatever, but it is literally impossible for her email to be less secure than the alternative.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[sycodon]

Note that if Hilary knowingly used...

We will never know now, will we?

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[Archangel Michael]

They didn't go after Bush for WMD, because ... wait for it ... they said the exact same thing as Bush!

Unless you're telling me that Hillary, who was briefed by the same people as Bush, had access to Bill, and everything else and said "Iraq has WMD" is somehow less complicit in the run up to the war. The dirt was on just about everyone.

That is why they didn't go after Bush.

Re:As if SMTP were ever secure...

[cyn1c77]

General Petraus just plead guilty to talking documents home and giving his biographer access to it.

Hillary seems to have taken everything home and given her entire political team/IT/family access to it.

Nice spin, but there is a large distinction between Petraus' intentionally distributing classified documents (to someone he was sleeping with) and Clinton keeping her unclassified email on a non-government server (and not intentionally sharing it with anyone).

It's also interesting how you refer to one of those individuals formally and one informally.

No it doesn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It still remains unclear about just how appropriate Clinton's system was."

The most ridiculous part of the summary. Except for the whole "convenience" pseudo-argument. At best this excuse suggests that Clinton is willing to prioritize personal convenience over transparency and accountability, which is probably not a great look for someone who is expected to announce a presidential campaign in the near future.

Re:No it doesn't.

[TheRaven64]

The most ridiculous part of the summary is the part where she thinks that an Internet-connected system is secure if no one has physical access to it...

Re:No it doesn't.

[Karmashock]

She is on record saying she didn't like email because it could be audited. Since that recording she apparently figured out that she could self host.

That is almost certainly why she was doing it.

And added to that, many members of the government are being encouraged to use text messages instead of emails etc because they can't be audited.

There is a concerted effort throughout government to communicate in manners that cannot be audited.

All of which is against the spirit of the law regardless of whether it is against the letter of the law.

Its the fucking IRS issue all over again. They said they didn't have her emails or they were destroyed. Turns out that the IRS emails were actually backed up the whole time and the IT department that had them had received no queries for them at any time. Revealing that the IRS in fact never looked for them.

Its just deceit deceit deceit.

And for those that will reflexively say this is just a republican thing... it isn't. This is fucking bullshit regardless of what party is doing it. Stop being such shills and realize that if you accept this then the republicans are going to start doing it. And then MAYBE you might grasp why this is unacceptable.

Re:No it doesn't.

[iluvcapra]

There is a concerted effort throughout government to communicate in manners that cannot be audited.

Like phone calls, or meeting another official at a bar.

I just don't think emails should be regarded this way, they're far too casual and they don't really reflect the official acts of people in the way that a true "record" does (in the sense that someone in the 1960s would understand the term "government record.") Emails should be afforded the same leniency as phone calls -- maybe we keep them for a little while, but people, even people in government, should have the right to delete them.

Sometimes I wonder if transparency advocates won't be happy until they've stapled a Google Glass onto the head of every government employee recording a 24 hour stream of their every sight and utterance. The problem with this approach is that the only people who actually use government transparency are other politicians, mainly to dig up dirt, and lobbyists -- it makes their job so much easier when they can confirm that a politician remains bought. Beyond a certain point transparency only benefits the loud and wealthy, it makes discretion impossible and it subjugates elected officials to the whim of anyone that runs a PR operation.

Re:No it doesn't.

[Archangel Michael]

Physical Security is just part of security. The issue is that it seems to be the only verifiable security measure taken place. If you cannot verify security, often done by third party consultants, you cannot verify anything. Basically this comes down to "Trust Me" by a Clinton. And while Clinton Sock-Puppets trust her Implicitly, doesn't mean I should. In fact, those same Sock-Puppets wouldn't accept that answer from anyone with an (R) after their name.

IMHO, Hillary is unfit to be President, or Secretary of State. And that says a lot about the whole current Administration and their whole "I just found out about this from the news" is tiresome excuse of incompetence or willful (criminal) ignorance (take your pick)

Its Not the Server

[Mr D from 63]

Too much focus on the server. Using a home server or a contract server makes no difference from a legal/ethical standpoint. You don't conduct federal business on a private email account. That seems to clearly have been violated If you do, then that private account should be subject to access from the appropriate authorities.

It was secure, alright

[Poorcku]

Secure from the privy eyes of accountability.

Re:It was secure, alright

[rmdingler]

This, to me, is precisely the point.

Whatever else Hillary Clinton is, she is quite adept at the art of being in government.

Since this system was designed for her husband, she was aware of its advantages (and disadvantages). It was not used instead of the official gov't email on a whim. It just smacks of entitlement....... Maybe you don't know who I think I am!

Re:It was secure, alright

[sumdumass]

Also her claim is she did not want to carry multiple devices. What device was she using that only allows only one email account or just one app to check that one account?

I've had multiple accounts on my phones since my first smart phone. I can switch accounts pretty simply in the same app as well as use other apps specifically for the other accounts with different defaults for each. I don't buy her excuse and seriously question the mental abilities of government official that high up if its too dificult.

FOIA

[erikkemperman]

Seems to me the reasons for her decision to use a private server for government business are pretty simple. It means that she (and her staff) get to decide which documents should be forked over in response to FOIA requests.

In a just world this server would now at an independent expert for thorough inspection.

Same thing for congressional oversight. Case in point: Benghazi.

Also, it keeps all of her correspondence out of the official protocols. She wants to delete some stuff? No problem. That would be more complicated if she had used her government-issued means of communication.

I seem to remember from earlier incidents (like the hack of Sarah Palin's personal mail) that this is *not legal*. For good reasons.

Finally, it is basically a given that some of her correspondence contains sensitive, if not outright secret, information. If someone like Thomas Drake gets threatened with ridiculous punishment for having *un*classified information on his home PC, surely this here should land Mrs Clinton in a whole lot of trouble. But, well, who am I kidding, right?

Re:FOIA

[avandesande]

Millions of US citizens have work emails and the sense not to use their private email for business unless they have no other choice. This is an issue that even non-technical people should be able to understand.

like benghazi

[circletimessquare]

we are going to hear about this ad nauseum for months, as if she personally commanded the jihadis there

i'm not really a fan of clinton, but the bias against her is obviously overblown

if clinton had done this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

we would hear about she had committed sedition, treason, and was a traitor, for the next 2 years, daily

and it IS sedition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

but this letter will be forgotten in a week

because it's not hillary clinton who did it

Re:like benghazi

[sumdumass]

No it isn't sedition. It was a reminder of how the constitution works and that the president despite his insistance otherwise does not have the authority to nullify laws passed by congress which the sanctions are. Congress and even state governments have long reached out to foreign officials and even negotiated trade agreements without administration participation. Look up the sister cities project if you doubt that

And we will hear about the clinton email specifically because congress has requested copies of it for oversight purposes and there appears to be gapps in what was provided.

Re:Clear to me

[DigiShaman]

It's a losing battle anyways. Clueless sycophants will defend politicians anyways. She's Ms. Clinton after all. Naturally she gets a pass.

Printing out the e-mails

[Sara Chan]

Clinton printed over 50,000 pages of e-mails, which were then shipped to the State Department. It would have been less work for her to send those e-mails electronically. What was her purpose in doing that extra work?

Printed texts take more time to search, and they do not contain all the internal meta-data. Perhaps too she just wanted to show her middle finger to the people who asked for her e-mails.

This is honorable behavior?

Re:On a side note, if she wins the nomination

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh boy! Another prediction that a political party will destroy itself from with in!

Yes, the far left doesn't want Hilary, they want Warren or Sanders, but the far right doesn't want Jeb Bush, they want Ted Cruz...

But here is the thing, if Jeb & Hilary get the nominations, then the far left will vote for Hilary cause she isn't Jeb, and the far right will do the opposite.
If it ends up being a Warren/Cruz ballot then the right will vote for Cruz, even if center right doesn't want him, because the alternative is the far right.

No political party will destroy itself because the nominee doesn't represent the extremes in their ranks, they'll turn and focus on the other party, and how much worse they are. Honestly the worst thing that could happen for the country is a extremist candidate running against a centrist candidate (I know centrist is a dirty word in both parties now) because at that point who we actually elect is going to be more about just how crazy the extreme candidate is, and when there is only one reasonable choice, all the sudden the entire point of having an election is lost.

It's not a "moral dilemma" to a Clinton

[Nova Express]

Laws are for the little people, not them.

They believe, and act, as though they are above the law. Lying, perjury, obstruction of justice.

There's no dilemma if you feel that laws simply don't apply to you...

A Secr. of State That Never Worked in WDC?

[BoRegardless]

Tell me how supposedly one of the most important jobs in the country can be run by a person who's communications are separated from her official office?

When in WDC, she can't refer to incoming email from staff who are just around the corner or down the hall? Someone calls from London and says "look at the email I just sent." and Hillary has to say what? Maybe "I'll look at it tomorrow when I get home." What the hell is that for a high level functioning government cabinet position?

So she must have had official emails for HIllary being sent addressed to some lower person in the Secretary's office (probably clippy.)

This sounds to me like the perfect way to raise funds for a personal project from governments around the world, and eventually destroy the hard drive.

Re: In other news

[CrimsonAvenger]

This sort of thing isn't unprecedented, the Bush White House had a policy of issuing important staffers two Blackberries [wikipedia.org], one that had a whitehouse.gov email and one that had a gop.org email, and using both systems indifferently for communication.

So, the Bush White House had its staffers use government email for government stuff, who'da thunk it?

Note that if Hillary had done that, noone would be getting excited now. Who cares if she has a private email server, as long as ALL of her government correspondence is done with the official account?

Note, by the by, that the argument that all her official correspondence with State Dept. staff is a matter of public record because the worker bees were using government accounts is specious. SecState also communicates with representatives of OTHER governments. The communications with those other governments would not be available on the State Dept servers if done through a private email server....

Re:Why blame her for this?

[caseih]

Of course we can blame her for this. She's the one that made the decision to use personal email for government and public purposes, hiding her correspondence from government archives, and hidden from freedom of information requests. If not outright illegal, this is morally wrong. When she becomes president will she continue to hide her official correspondence from government archives and the public? Nixon would have loved to have had a system of off-the-record private correspondence instead of those pesky papers that leave trails.

Re:Why blame her for this?

[GlennC]

...the IT people that worked with her that never said anything, or raised any kind of fuss over the problem.

That assumes she didn't simply dismiss their concerns with the type of entitled attitude that has come to be a defining mark of both the Left and Right wings of the Demopublican Party.

Why now?

[seven of five]

She was Secretary of State for years. She resigned the job years ago. If this issue is really that important, why did nobody speak up after her first couple of months? I'm not saying let her off the hook, but the controversy seems timed for political reasons.

Regret?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

She doesn't regret using personal email. She regrets getting CAUGHT using personal email.

Re: In other news

[Bill_the_Engineer]

So, the Bush White House had its staffers use government email for government stuff, who'da thunk it?

As far as we know, ONLY Hillary Clinton used her family email server. The rest of her staff used government mail servers. Therefore any correspondents between her and her staff or the president is recorded on an official email server anyway.

I'm not saying that I agree with her using her own personal email server, but I also don't think this "controversy" rises to the level of me really giving a rat's ass about. Actually it rises to the level of "She should have known better... but meh".

What does concern me is that the right decided to use this low grade political material so early that it will be forgotten by the time the election season actually hits full stride. So the more important question is what's going on that requires the gullible media's distraction on something as trivial as email usage by a retired secretary of state?

Re:In other news

[Penguinisto]

Sorry, but it was expressly against State Department policy since 2009, she was SoS when one of her underlings got fired for doing the exact same thing in Africa, and the whole thing was very likely against most gov't secrecy regulations considering some of the content that likely got passed around on it.

But, you know, worshippers gonna worship...

Re:Clinton followed a Presidential trend...

[BillCable]

So the defense now is "Bush did bad things, too?"

"Hey - Nixon engaged in obstruction of justice, too! We have precedent!"

Let's see how that one goes over.

Re:What difference does it make? (TM)

[Penguinisto]

Hillary should offer up her private emails as soon as the Republicans in Congress release all of their private emails.

If you have credible evidence that any of them did government business on such systems, I would agree.

This is not some petty-assed partisan issue, so please stop worshipping.

Re: In other news

[g0bshiTe]

You also realize this was the major factor in law being passed to prevent that. Documentation for the National Archives is law concerning state document retention. While I agree at the time she used the system it may not have been illegal, but a memo released and signed by Obama https://www.whitehouse.gov/the... suggest otherwise, http://www.whitehouse.gov/site...

However we are reminded time and time again no law was broken, what was broken was procedure, if one can not follow a simple procedure set out by their employer their actions are questionable and their motive becomes dubious.

Re:What difference does it make? (TM)

[asylumx]

Ok, I'm not big on all the hubub around these emails either -- but we need to be the change we want to see in the world. If Democrats like Hillary want our political discourse to be better then they need to set the standard, not act like children and point the finger back across the aisle. If all we're going to do is wait and see which party will do the right thing first, then they will NEVER do the right thing. We, as a governed populace, should be looking for a government that does the right thing even when it means admitting they had previously done the wrong thing.

Re: In other news

[g0bshiTe]

The only alternative now is to force people to turn over their private emails as long as they're government employees.

I don't have a problem with that.

The American public has been doing that for how long now, and without knowledge it was going on?

Re: In other news

[TheCastro1689]

They're hoping to find a "gotcha" email in her corespondence. Especially one of the ones deleted or not handed over. Then they hope the pressure keeps on and she loses the primary. You forget that primary season is starting soon,and the republicans know they have no good candidates at this time. The Gov. from Wisconsin is their best bet. Dems have Hilary, Elizabeth Warren and people even seem to still like Anthony Weiner.

Re:No, It's NOT illegal

[Karmashock]

She has months of gaps in her emails. That's not credible.

There is no way she sent no official emails while head of the state department for months.

As to your ad hominem on Fox news... it doesn't matter who says a thing. If the devil himself stood before you and said 1+1=2... is he lying?

Saying that it is from fox so is wrong is equally stupid. It is ad hominem. Do better.

As to requirements to use the US government servers, yes she is required to use them. She can use private email if she BCCs or CCs all the email to the government account. Otherwise she can't do it.

And even then that is frowned upon.

If on top of that she destroyed government documents then that is a felony.

She has MONTHS of gaps in her emails. Which means she's either filtering mails in sensitive periods of time to carefully redact information she doesn't want to reveal or she actually deleted them.

I suspect it is the first option. The server should have been ceased and gone over by independent computer forensic investigators. Same thing you'd do if you were auditing a corporation that wasn't cooperating with discovery.

She'll almost certainly get away with it. But that is more because she's powerful and has powerful friends rather then because she didn't do anything.

As always, dodging the salient issue

[Anarchitektur]

Every blurb I see about this story, she defends her decision to use a private email server on the basis that it was "secure." Regardless of the veracity of those claims, the security of the system is not the point. She conducted official government business on an email server under her control. When subpoenaed, she produced all emails she deemed to be responsive to that request and all other "non-business" emails had been deleted and says, "trust me, this is everything."

Security is obviously a concern, but the reason that these rules regarding emails exist is for oversight. Government email servers aren't under the control of the politicians using them, and that mitigates the risk of spoliation of evidence. With that in mind, defending her decision on the basis of security is non sequitur. The ridiculousness of her defense becomes more apparent through hyperbole: Yes, I ate babies, but safeguards were in place to make sure those babies were free of bloodborne pathogens.