Iowa's Governor Terry Branstad Thinks He Doesn't Use E-mail

Earthquake Retrofit writes The Washington Post reports the governor of Iowa denying he uses e-mail, but court documents expose his confusion. From the article: "Branstad's apparent confusion over smartphones, apps and e-mail is ironic because he has tried to portray himself as technologically savvy. His Instagram account has pictures of him taking selfies and using Skype... 2010 campaign ads show him tapping away on an iPad. 'Want a brighter future? We've got an app for that.' Earlier this month, the governor's office announced that it had even opened an account on Meerkat, the live video streaming app." Perhaps he's distancing himself from e-mail because it's a Hillary thing.

Comments

*sigh*

[gstoddart]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

Re:*sigh*

[aardvarkjoe]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who are too smart to get involved in politics end up being ruled by idiots.

Re:*sigh*

[beelsebob]

Right, smart people realise that the real way to get power is to pull the strings on the dumb people

Re:*sigh*

[ScentCone]

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?

Well, we're about to elect Hillary Clinton. She's not stupid. She thinks everyone else is stupid, and she's got enough supporters who don't care whether or why she's being feloniously coy about things like her email use (her lawyer just this evening explained that Clinton has destroyed all of her email that wasn't printed out to lamely respond to demands for her records from her tenure at State).

When she's president, don't ask why we elected a stupid person. As why we stupidly elected her. We'll have eight years to think it through. Yay.

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, smart people realise that the real way to get power is to pull the strings on the dumb people

That only covers a particular subgroup (manipulators). A more general answer is the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Smart people are smart enough to know they are underqualified to make rules affecting millions of other people in both subtle and obvious ways. Dumb people are bereft of self-doubt and will happily charge off the edge of a cliff because, hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Re:*sigh*

[jader3rd]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

It's not that smart people don't want the job, smart people aren't electable. During an election they'll inevitably make a comment that hurts a special interest group and get whisked out of the public spot light before the next sun rise.

Re:*sigh*

[rahvin112]

Portray as a nut? He IS a nut.

He had the gall to question Obama's citizenship (born in Hawaii to an American woman and Kenyan father), when Cruz was born in Canada (to an American woman) and has a Cuban father.

But now it's crazy to question his ability to run for the presidency because his mother was American, ya know just like Obama which he claimed meant Obama didn't meet the requirements because the birth certificate is a forgery and he was actually born in Indonesia, a foreign country, just like Canada. But most of the birthers will leave him alone because he's not Black. Though I can't wait to see how he defends all the crazy shit his Dad has said over the years. His Dad would fit in with the west-borough baptist church with some of the shit he's spewed.

Re: *sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

"Elitist" should be an insult. Unfortunately, though, people also think "elite" is one as well...

Re:*sigh*

[TheReaperD]

The other ones that want the job are people who want power... at any cost. Not usually the type of people you want to have power but, since anybody else would run from the job, that's what we get.

Re:*sigh*

[wickedsteve]

George Carlin had some insight: "Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out."

Re:*sigh*

[davester666]

No, they go into banking and buy politicians to use as fall guys.

Re:*sigh*

[tlhIngan]

Because smart people don't seem to want the job.

Let's not make the equivalence between tech savvy and intelligence, because /., is a perfect example of people who claim to be intelligent, yet painfully ignorant at the same time.

Just because you can use a computer doesn't mean you know how the world works. Heck, tech-savvy people are among the worst people in the world for a job that requires extreme interaction with people who are unpredictable, where how you say something is extremely important (more than what you say), and where how you dress and appear is critical.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

Those emails she received considered to be official business, her staff forwarded to the State Department for their IT operators to save.

Reports also indicate that there were months long gaps. Throwing that assertion into question.

None of these emails were classified. They appear to have been sent to her unencrypted

Without all of the e-mails, there's no way to verify this statement, but it is probably true. The air-gap between classified and unclassified would probably prevent this, but you'd be amazed at how frequently data spills occur. If there was a data spill, it would probably be the fault of someone sending her an classified e-mail versus her generating one on her unclassified system.

Sensitive material never went through this email system.

This statement is probably completely false. Anything not reviewed and marked for public release is considered sensitive. Note that sensitive is not the same thing as classified.

They only recently were able to figure out how to even just save Secretary Kerry's email; his top staff using the @state.gov address still do not have their email records saved.

But in this case, the responsibility is where it belongs -- on the government and the government employees. By being on Clinton's private server ... who is legally responsible?

This is much akin to the media breathlessly discovering that Hillary Clinton also has a private phone number, which maybe official calls were received. Except that because this is "email", it's totally different somehow.

It is. E-mail is automatically backed up and leaves an electronic trail. At this point, phone calls are not automatically recorded -- although the phone call meta-data would certainly be traced and of value.

(By which I mean, as she's the presumptive Democratic nominee,

I voted for her in 2008. Given her actions and reactions to lots of different things, including the fall that may have caused a concussion, she just doesn't seem to be on the same level as she was 8 years ago. But you're right, any criticism of the presumptive Democratic nominee must only be based on nutjobbery and not legitimate concerns. I, for one, would much prefer that we get this out in the open and properly dealt with before the campaign season begins in earnest. With luck, we'll have a Democratic nominee that is presumptive.

Re:*sigh*

[serviscope_minor]

It is. E-mail is automatically backed up and leaves an electronic trail.

No it's not. It's only backed up if you make your mail server actually make backups. There is nothing in the email protocol which implies backups are made. In fact sorting out backups is something you have to deal with if you run a mail server.

Re:*sigh*

[Dragon Bait]

It is. E-mail is automatically backed up and leaves an electronic trail.

No it's not. It's only backed up if you make your mail server actually make backups. There is nothing in the email protocol which implies backups are made. In fact sorting out backups is something you have to deal with if you run a mail server.

In context, now you're being an idiot. The records management law requires the back ups of decision making records -- which includes e-mails but not phone conversations. I remember when my kids were 5 and they would jump on every statement to try and show how it was wrong while the context would show that it was correct (or should be considered correct). Thankfully, they out grew that.

Re: *sigh*

[ColdWetDog]

So there is a choice only between selfconsciuos idiots and too conscious intelligent people?

Well, there is us ....

I'm not entirely sure what it suggests for the fate of mankind, but we're here.

In fairness....

[Livius]

A lot of contemporary software is so bloated that it's quite a convoluted process to read the underlying e-mail in the form of an actual e-mail in the 'classic' sense.

And while I would concede that Brandstad seems less informed about technology than average, we really could use some clearer terminology to distinguish the proliferation of forms of communication.